Latest / The Magic Guys / Edinburgh Fringe Debrief with Joel Fenton! #282

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Edinburgh Fringe Debrief with Joel Fenton! #282 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys.
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Ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 282 of the magic guys we're coming in
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hot a little earlier than usual so welcome to my left we've got nick k,
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hi guys i'm nick k and joining us all the way from edinburgh is our friend joel say hi joel hey what's up.
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Yeah glad you could make it man you are a trooper you were telling me you're
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doing shows on the other side of the world it's midnight but you're still committed,
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to letting the people know we're midnight we're in edinburgh but we're we're
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balling you know yeah it's edinburgh fringe full on three and a half thousand
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shows but we're working it,
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absolutely now joel clinton we obviously are very very well acquainted over
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our many years in the industry but for those that don't know who you are please
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tell us who are you and what don't you do because you are kind of a one-man
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orgy that can do it all so tell us everything yeah still
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i've been uh performing for uh 25 years,
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i i do my show and,
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indoor outdoor cruise ships street shows everything,
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this is the first time i'm back in edinburgh in about 25 years We love it.
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Shows are going great. I'm doing street, I'm doing indoor, and happy to give you a good,
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you know, a good overview of what's going on here in Edinburgh Fringe.
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So we have a foreign correspondent on behalf of the Magic Guys.
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I'm right here, and I'm in a house with Mika Harris and with Jason Mayer, friends of the pod.
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We're rocking it. We're working every day. We're doing shows.
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Yeah. One of the originators of the pod. Yeah.
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So you know for people who haven't been to the fringe,
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like yourself or or maybe are just learning about it now like yeah tell everyone
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like what the appeal is of the fringe because
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you know for me not having a one-man show i don't have and i'm not a street
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performer i don't have the the urge to be like i need to be there but what's
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the what's the draw card that really makes all of this great talent
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like flock to this one place in the world,
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i mean edinburgh fringe started as an offshoot from the,
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the festival of edinburgh years and years ago and now it's a massive festival
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by itself we're talking three and a half thousand shows every year at edinburgh
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fringe everything from From,
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dramatic plays to comedies to circus to magic to everything.
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And the venues are everywhere from, you know, like a bathroom to the big theatres. And.
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I'm doing two things. One, I'm doing street shows, which is massive here.
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Street shows are a huge thing.
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And I'm also doing indoor shows. So every day is a street show and an indoor
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show, one of three and a half thousand shows, but we're doing pretty well.
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There's about 50 magic shows within that three and a half thousand indoor shows,
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and every day there's about 60 street shows happening as well,
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a mixture of circus, juggling, magic, everything.
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You know, I did a little diligence on the Edinburgh Fringe for those who are
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kind of hearing about it for the first time.
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And everyone knows that as far as Fringe festivals go, the Edinburgh Fringe is the pinnacle.
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So here's a little history that I dug up on this. So it began in 1947 when eight
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theater companies turned up uninvited and to perform alongside the Edinburgh
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International Festival.
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And then this outsider spirit eventually became the Fringe.
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And then the fringe society doesn't curate or vet like the program in a traditional
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sense if you got a show and a venue and you're willing to host it the festival
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is just entirely open to you and the scale of this is phenomenal because currently
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in 2026 it's running from the 7th to the 31st of August,
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with 3,649 registered shows across 258.
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Venues representing 71 countries and has over 53,000 individual performances.
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So that is a massive scale. That is an enormous scale. And Joel,
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this is your second time returning here some 25 years ago.
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Obviously, the festival's had an enormous amount of growth.
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I got questions. Guys in the chat, if you have questions, by all means,
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let's start with what simply made you want to go to the festival first.
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Well, the last time I was here was 2003. And I was 17 years old,
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just a kid, learning how to do this kind of thing.
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And I've just been busy for the last 23 years. I've been doing shows.
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I've been working around the world.
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And I felt like this was the time.
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I am part of an indoor show here at the Edinburgh Fringe, a very successful
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circus show that's happening, and also doing street shows with all the guys.
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There's probably about 15 magicians performing every day on the street.
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There's about 50 magic shows in venues around the Fringe Festival.
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It's the biggest festival in the world of this kind.
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In Australia, we have the Adelaide Fringe Festival, the Perth Fringe Festival.
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We have the Melbourne Fringe Festival. But this is the big kahuna. This is the big one.
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And, you know, it's It's hard to miss it, you know? You kind of just want to be part of it.
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All the fun, adventure, three and a half thousand indoor shows. Incredible.
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So your show. Yeah, go ahead. Oh, sorry. It was the One Hour of Insanity,
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of which you are one of four performers. Is that right? In this ensemble?
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Yeah, yeah. I'm doing every day at 4.30 p.m. I'm doing a show called One Hour of Insanity.
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And it's myself. I host the show and do a chainsaw juggling,
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a giant unicycle, and a bit of magic.
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And there's a magician called Tom Bolton that's in the show.
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Great Hulu artist called Lily Phoenix in the show. and a Melbourne performer
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called Jeremiah is in the show as well.
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And we all do good stuff.
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It's a great show. We've sold out pretty much every single show we've done.
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It's produced by the Insane Magic guys who also have their own show called Insane
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Magic, which is selling well as well.
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They do an hour show in about a 450-seat theater.
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There's a lot of good magic shows here, but there's about five that are selling
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very well and doing very well for themselves.
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That's, that's what I was going to ask. Like with so many shows happening,
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like that's an absurd amount of shows.
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Like, are there enough people to fill the seats in those shows?
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Or is it a case of like, you know, the top 10% are selling 90% of the tickets? Like, what's that like?
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Well, there's a whole portion of the fringe that's called the free fringe.
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And this is when people can come in and just do their own show with no...
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Massive budget. They can just don't charge a ticket price. They just do the
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show. And at the end of the show, people pay money.
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If they like the show, they can kind of give a donation. It's called the Free
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Fringe. It's kind of offshoot of busking at the Fringe.
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But the guys that can do a big show, Colin Cloud is here from Las Vegas.
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He got a star performing in Edinburgh doing his show here.
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And now he's a Las Vegas headliner. But he's come back to do a show called Hoax,
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which is very good. I haven't seen it yet, but I'll see it next week.
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Siegfried and Joy, who you might have seen online, they're pretty famous for
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their gag where they throw the cloth up and then vanish in front of a crowd of people.
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They're here. They did a show, which I saw last night, incredible show.
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We have Ben Hart, BGT winner, British Got Talent winner, and he has an incredible
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show called Labyrinth, which was very good.
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I saw it about a week ago, that the guys that can have a good show and deliver
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it and bring it well and have good lighting, good sound, good performance,
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good scripting, they sell tickets.
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And if you've come here every year again and again and again,
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like these guys have, then, you know, people come and see them again and again and again.
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Wow. What I'm curious is, you know, there's so many people that aspire to get there.
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Is it the type of thing you just want to jump head first into?
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Is there something you should be thinking about before you get here?
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Like, I guess the question in a single sentence is, how do you know when you're
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ready for Edinburgh Finch?
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Well, that's a good question. A lot of people come over here and lose money straight away.
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Three and a half thousand shows, it's a lot to compete with.
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Magic-wise, it's a pretty narrow niche.
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There's not a lot of magic shows here. There's 50-odd magic shows,
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which seems a lot, but in comparison with all the comedy shows,
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if you look at the brochure for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival,
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it's about that thick. It's like a phone book.
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But the comedy shows bring up the most amount of shows.
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Magic is pretty small. If you bring a marketing budget, if you have a plan,
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if you have flyers, if you have a marketing idea, then you can sell tickets,
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you can sell the show, you can make it work for you.
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I saw a guy called Tom Brace today, English magician.
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He did a great show. He's been here for years.
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Every year he comes, he changes everything up, changes the show,
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different curtain, different design.
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This year's show was a show about party games, charades and Pictionary,
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Strabble, and his entire show was about that.
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And he has a fan base that comes to him again and again every single year.
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So if you come here, you can keep your costs low.
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But if you come here again and again, year after year, you can build up a fan
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base, you can build up a clientele that will come to see your show.
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Okay, we got to know what's like at the top of your list in terms of shows.
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Like what are you seeing that you're like, holy shit, this is groundbreaking.
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Well, I got to see Stamptown the other day, which is Zach Zucker,
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Jack Tucker. That was an incredible show.
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Not kind of magic related, but he does occasionally get magicians on his show.
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He has a Netflix special coming out this week.
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I saw Ben Hart about a week ago. Britain's Got Talent winner.
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Great show called Labyrinth.
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Which incredible magic in it. Tom Brace I saw today, incredible show,
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great comedy, good crowd work, big crowd.
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It's kind of a small theater, but he sold out pretty much every single night.
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Siegfried and Joy, who are very popular online, they did a great show last night,
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kind of thinking they were a one-trick pony with their vanish and reappearance,
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but they do a great show, fully structured,
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some great routines.
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They did a routine where they borrowed someone's glasses and smashed them up and found them again.
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Yeah, a great show. And as far as the street magic goes, there's a great number
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of street performers performing here who do magic. The guys from Cotton Garden are here.
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There's about 60 performers every day that do street shows, and about 10 or
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15 of them are really good magicians, and they do shows all across the fringe.
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And with so many buskers, like I remember you and Mika telling me a little bit
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about this, but like, obviously there has to be some structure to how buskers can go and perform.
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Like they obviously can't just, a hundred buskers can't just be in the street busking all the time.
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How do they actually bring some order to this chaos?
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Every morning at 10am there's a draw and we all jump in and we have a name tag
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and it looks like this. I'll show you right now.
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That is our buskers card we drop that in the hat and,
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we get drawn out number by number until you know you know our number comes out
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and we pick a slot there's about five different pitches to work where we can all do shows and.
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Every pitch has about 10 different shows available from the early morning to the late afternoon.
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And we will take a slot. And if you get later in the draw, if you get picked
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pretty last, you generally get two shows.
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The number goes back up again and you get two shows. So there's a bunch of different
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pitches, a bunch of different places to work.
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And so far, all the performers have been able to do a show every single day.
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If there are too many performers for too many slots, then the people that get
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drawn last and don't get a pick on the day get rolled over to the next day.
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But that hasn't happened yet, this festival. So far, every performer has gotten
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a show every day, and some performers have gotten two shows.
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So there are prime shows to be in the Royal Mile where there's thousands of
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people, and there's other shows that are a bit smaller in other ways,
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kind of five, ten minutes walk away in smaller areas.
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So, so far, everyone's got on a show.
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The magic guys tend to stick to the magic, smaller areas where they can do a smaller show.
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The big shows like me, Chainsaw Juggling, Tall Unicycle, we stick to the big
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areas where we can get a big crowd.
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I've seen some of your crowds. They look freaking ginormous.
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Pretty full on. Yeah, and it's interesting that it's not the magic shows that
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are able to get the bigger crowds because they can,
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you know you can have a circle show what they would call where the audience
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can be you know completely around you,
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yeah okay i i want to know i mean you don't have to answer this if you don't
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want to but like because you have an incredible street show that you've been
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doing for you know over a decade,
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yeah at the fringe are you making more money from doing a street show or from
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doing a structured theater show,
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Well, the street shows make the real money here. I think it's been for years.
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The guys that do street shows make the money. The guys that do indoor shows.
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If you don't lose money, you kind of break even.
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The street show guys do pretty well.
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The money you get in the hat is British pounds, which is good.
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The indoor shows are consistent, at least.
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If you are producing an indoor show, you can make a lot of money.
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I'm just a kind of a small player in a bigger show, but the money is okay.
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But street shows, you can make as much as you want to work.
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A lot of the guys are working three, four, five shows a day,
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which is pretty impressive.
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There are a lot of pitches where you can just fly pitch and just wait in line
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and do your thing, and you can make a lot of money doing that if you have a good show.
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But, you know, anything can happen. It can rain all day. it rained pretty badly today.
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Trouds are pretty small. Towards the end of the festival, the crowds get pretty slim.
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You maybe don't make as much money as you might do on a weekend or a prime time slot.
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While on the topic of funds right now, let's explore what budget you would need,
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in order to do something like this.
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Because obviously you need a budget for things like your for accommodation, meals and so forth.
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I mean, is it extremely expensive as far as like feeding yourself?
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Is accommodation ridiculous or is it relatively cheap because there are so many
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people coming? Like, what would you say without exposing one's bank statements,
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like the cost of actually getting there and doing your shows?
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Accommodation can be, that's the main killer here.
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Like when I was here 23 years ago, I had a student flat for almost no money per night.
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Nowadays, it's very, very, very expensive to stay here. I'm living right now
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in a busker house with a lot of Japanese street performers and friend of the
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pod, Mika, and also Jason Mayer.
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And, you know, it's not cheap. We're in the central hub of Edinburgh,
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but we're all paying sort of a certain amount to keep the house running.
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If you're here for a month, I mean, you might be looking at $3,000,
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$4,000, $5,000 to live just in central Edinburgh.
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And then to fly over from wherever you are in the world, it cost me $3,500 to
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fly from Australia to be here.
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So there is quite an upfront cost you've got to pay to be here and do the shows.
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A lot of performers, both street performers and indoor acts, live quite far away.
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They have an apartment maybe, you know, 45 minutes, 30 minutes away,
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and they take the bus every day to get to the drawer or to their show.
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It's not cheap. Edinburgh is so huge now, the major cost is accommodation.
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So whether you're a comedian or a magician or you have a proper show,
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yeah, accommodation is the killer here.
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You know, we have a question in the chat.
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Do producers or production companies have scouts that come to these festivals
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to seek talent like yourselves?
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They sure do. So we have had a talent scout from Britain's Got Talent has been
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coming to a lot of shows recently.
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And they pay their own away. They pay for a full price ticket.
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But I've seen this particular scout for Britain's Got Talent three different
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shows over the last week.
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So, Edinburgh Fringe is a great place to get discovered.
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If that's kind of your thing, if you want to be on a Got Talent show or you
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want to have your own produced show across Europe or even anywhere in the world, Adelaide Fringe,
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a lot of producers come over here to see what's going on and what they can do
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and if they can make money out of you.
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So, yeah, that is a big thing. Producers are everywhere.
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People are talking, networking.
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And one of the great things here is that if you do a show, it might not make
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much money or you might not get much press coverage, but you may get some interest
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from different producers that come and see your show and want to do something with it.
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You know, what I'm really curious now is like the battle for the audience.
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I mean, you're one of many amazing acts, I could assume, as being part of this festival.
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What do you think is the most important way to get this type of exposure?
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Is it flyering? Is it having a social presence? Posters? What would you say
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helps get the bums on seats in your show?
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Well, pretty much everything, really.
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We have a guy before our show called jimmy reese from australia he got pretty
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famous on tiktok and instagram by doing shows during covid online and he,
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is a big name here he's done a whole week and a half of shows every show has
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been pretty much sold out,
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he's famous because he's online Jason Mayer, friend of the pod and original
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host of the pod here, is very kind of famous.
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He does a show and people come and see him because they know him from online.
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Online and viral kind of videos, incredible means of people buying tickets or
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just, you know, having face value, seeing you around the place.
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It means a lot. Flyering is good.
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And what about reviews? Yeah, reviews are good as well.
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Not so much anymore. A lot of pretty much anyone can become a reviewer now and
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get a press credential for the Fringe Festival and give a review.
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So reviews are great, but they don't mean as much as they used to.
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And the big companies, the newspapers, they tend to just focus on the big, big, big name shows.
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Flyman is good, posters are good.
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There's a lot of posts out there of me and my show and also of all the other
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big shows that are happening as well.
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Pretty much, word of mouth works really well. We have a run of preview shows
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during the week, usually in the Fringe Festival for the first week.
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And then if things go well, people talk about it, more people come to the shows,
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they review the show personally, it goes online, and word of mouth spreads.
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I've heard stories of people who have seen magic shows and they were just politely
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going in and there was one other person in the theatre, one,
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which turned out to be the magician's wife and it was just but they sat through
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the whole show just you know in solidarity to support them and you think to yourself like,
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to travel all that way and spend all that money to perform for such a small
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audience would be crippling have you in your experiences or maybe earlier in
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your career have had the displeasure of having to perform for a painfully small audience,
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well not really i mean this run of the fringe has been very good for our show,
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which is called One Hour of Insanity.
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We've had pretty much full houses every single show we've done, which is great.
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And our producers of the show, which are Cameron Gibson, Luke Osi,
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and Elliot Gilby, they perform their own show called Insane Magic,
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and they've sold out pretty much every show they do.
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There are shows that do struggle here in Edinburgh, just because there's three
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and a half thousand shows.
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It is a bit awkward sometimes if you go see a show and there's only about three
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or four people in the crowd, but it is the fringe.
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It's kind of expected.
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A lot of venues are smaller. Some venues only seat about 10 people.
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Some venues seat 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 500.
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Every venue is different and every show is different. So, even though a small
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crowd might seem pretty insignificant, it can be a really humbling experience.
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It can be a really nice show.
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Every street show that happens can be anything from a massive crowd to a tiny crowd in the rain.
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So, you know, everything is to be expected here and it's the fringe.
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I think people have a good understanding,
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that not every show they visit is going to be a massive sellout.
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Not every street show they see is going to be incredible.
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Maybe they might be smaller, bigger. It doesn't really matter.
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It's the fringe. And I think people in Edinburgh here understand that and know that.
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Wow i've got a photo for anyone watching live or watching the video form this
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is a picture joel sent me a shameless plug of like the kind of like look how
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beautiful that background is,
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you got people in the background you've got the chainsaw and then i think there's
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one other one which is a video and like.
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What what you're seeing on the screen is just like this ginormous complete circle around that is,
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that is on mile high which is the uh the royal mile along edinburgh's kind of main street,
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and that is a prime time slot i i got lucky in the draw and got about about
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a 2 p.m show that's about 2 p.m i think the photos and the video from the same show it's a big crowd,
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like how many people do you reckon were there that's that's like oh two thousand people man,
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yeah it's huge it's a prime spot to have and that was a good show yeah really good energy.
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The thing about Edinburgh is that, I mean, everywhere in Europe is so old,
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you know, all the cobblestones are old, you know, we're talking 500,
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1000 year old cobblestones and buildings.
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It's kind of hard if you want to ride a unicycle or you want to kind of,
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you know, do some tricks in a freestanding ladder.
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You know, you've got, you've got obstacles, you've got problems,
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you've got, you've got old, old, old cobblestones to work on.
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It's not but are there any rules with like old buildings like how we have heritage
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listed buildings here we can't do you know certain things is that a thing there
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we may have lost but we'll see if he comes back.
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Yeah, he's just so stunned that he's just decided to freeze for a second. He's shook.
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He also hasn't been getting much sleep there. Like right now it's,
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you know, 1230 in the morning and he's like, yeah, I'll do the podcast.
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Amongst hours and hours of shows each day.
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It's pretty crazy. Have you ever thought about going there, Nick? Like to the French?
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I've, you know, it's been promoted to me a whole bunch. I have done the Adelaide French Festival.
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I enjoyed it immensely. And I think that when you do it, if you are someone
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who does have a street show, it certainly puts you in a position in which you
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can have another stream of income outside of your ticket sales.
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And I think that's important, even just on the daily and just having the splash
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to go to the festival club after each performance and just hang out there while
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watching other performers and networking, connecting with other people who perform.
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I think that's one of the most wonderful bits about doing a fringe yeah i wonder
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if anyone went straight from magic live to the enbra fringe because they're
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they're really close together.
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And i wonder if anyone does the trifecta blackpool at the start of the year
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magic live and then enbra fringe and then maybe like the adelaide fringe festival
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i think that happens in February or something? March.
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March. Oh, and then the Melbourne Magic Festival. If you really,
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if you had a hot show, you could just potentially tour these big places.
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Magic Light is different. You go in there to learn, but yeah,
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you could make your living. I think some people do, right? Like the top tier,
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like can make, if they wanted to, their living from hitting the,
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like the fringe circuit. Is that true? That's a thing, right?
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Absolutely it is. Yeah. There's folks that come from all around and,
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And, you know, Perth is, I'm told, a great place to start with your festival
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show because that's where you build your accolade up and it's not...
27:45
It's i'm just told that it's not to the point where uh it's so over saturated
27:49
that there's like you're competing against three and a half thousand but it
27:53
is that type of thing that i believe that you should try and elevate yourself to a point in which you,
27:58
you know you you have a bit of notoriety or at least enough accolades behind
28:02
you where if you were to go to edinburgh you could say oh it won all these awards,
28:08
in perth and adelaide and melbourne and etc and now it's here.
28:13
So it's kind of like you've earned your stripes and you've earned your right
28:18
to be here. It's, you know, I guess, you know, in the true nature of fringe,
28:24
everyone's welcome, but I also feel like it's something that you need to earn
28:27
your stripes with as well.
28:29
Good point. Yeah. And it's interesting that only a small percentage of all the
28:34
shows are magic, like three and a half thousand shows, only 50 of them are magic
28:39
shows, or maybe a few more, because we're not counting busking,
28:43
i wouldn't have thought that either i would have thought oh magic must be the
28:46
most entertaining thing you know but then but then you know how how different
28:51
of a show can a magic show be after 50 different magic shows that are already
28:55
there i don't know that's,
28:58
yeah and comedy being the biggest one says a lot too.
29:03
And you know i think standing out in a scene like this is kind of interesting because,
29:07
you know if you're going to be the type of magician who purchases products and
29:10
then performs them you they'll probably see that thing several times you know effects being done like,
29:17
you know eric and i eric leclerc and i went to the castle for for a few days
29:21
in la before bouncing over to to magic live,
29:25
and you wouldn't think it but like the most popular trick being done at the castle rising card,
29:34
Like, like just like the, just coming out of the deck. Yep. Yep. Like half the axe did it.
29:41
Really? They choose a card, put it down. I'm going to lean it against the glass
29:45
and then the card comes up and then they turn the deck upside down and then
29:49
it comes out again and then they turn it upside down and it comes out again.
29:52
Like, you know, like everyone was frothing for that trick. Like it's.
29:58
And is that because a new method has recently come out?
30:01
No, I think it's that really cool one that Doug showed us when we were in Vegas
30:05
together last year, the one with the counterweights and stuff inside of it.
30:09
It looked to me like the other. Yeah.
30:11
But yeah, everyone was doing it. But I guess it's worth asking Joel coming back
30:18
to the pod now with regards to originality. So let's get him back on and we'll ask him the question.
30:25
We lost some internet there for a second, but I think we're good to go.
30:29
What do you think? Hold on a second.
30:32
I have a question to keep the ball rolling, you know, we're talking with regards
30:36
to magic, how, you know, of the 50 acts, there is probably a majority of those
30:41
guys who purchase effects and perform the same tricks that a lot of people do.
30:46
Like you would walk in and people will be doing the same thing.
30:49
I just made mention that at the castle, there was an abundance of magicians
30:52
who were doing the rising card.
30:54
We see like several acts performing the same thing.
30:59
How important do you think originality is if you are going to be going into the Fringe Festival?
31:05
And also, give us some truth bombs. What are you seeing that you're just like,
31:09
fucking stop doing this trick. There's so many people doing this.
31:13
I mean, there's a lot of Rubik's Cube stuff going on, right?
31:17
I mean, every day, the Insane Magic guys, they do an underground magic show.
31:24
And every night, it's at 9 p.m. and they do an hour of magic and people who
31:30
are doing shows in the fringe can come and join the show and perform.
31:34
And then every night someone brings out a Rubik's Cube and every night someone,
31:39
you know, says, you know, there's 32 quintillion ways to solve this.
31:44
And they do a trick of the Rubik's Cube. That is very, very, very common.
31:50
I guess everyone who has a show in an indoor venue tries to do something a little bit different.
31:57
The show I saw today was Tom Brace, who did a show entirely revolved around,
32:03
game shows and board games like Pictionary and Charades,
32:12
and Scrabble.
32:13
And he did very well.
32:15
Good crowd, good energy, good fun.
32:18
Colin Cloud seems to have a show revolved around your kind of.
32:25
It's called hoax and it's around your belief systems.
32:29
Everyone seems to have a different theme of a show.
32:33
Some of the trips, obviously, you do seem to repeat themselves again and again.
32:39
However, everyone seems to have a pretty good, you know, like a lane they kind of go for.
32:46
Okay. and you know i just want to stick up for the rubik's cube people here
32:50
listening obviously that sticks out to you but,
32:54
it's still not as much as like cards are coming out right like it's not like
32:59
for some reason there's more rubik's cubes than any other magic it's just that you,
33:03
have a an obsession about seeing rubik's cubes,
33:07
we see a lot of rubik's cubes here but that's just kind of the theme of of there's
33:12
a couple of shows that are themed around 80s you know thematics 80s styles 80s
33:18
genres and that's happening a lot as well.
33:22
I am concentrating a lot on magic here. You know, there are three and a half
33:26
thousand shows and maybe 50 of those are magic shows and out of those 50 shows, maybe
33:33
only a few are doing Rubik's Cube magic or a few are doing mentalism or a few are doing whatever.
33:39
So it's not as bad as it sounds, maybe just because of our niche that we understand
33:47
and know. Because of the giant Rubik's Cube I used to use on stage that you would wear.
33:51
The giant Rubik's Cube costume I had to wear and I still have in storage in Australia. Yeah.
33:59
Um that is i wanted to ask you i when you mentioned that like the the game show
34:04
our friend of the pod nicholas j johnson did a whole show based off board games
34:08
and everything else in fact
34:10
the last act was a giant like i had a scream and people were actually playing
34:15
mario kart like 64 wow live and then on top of the stage there was like the
34:20
you know like how like the question mark box like from mario,
34:24
yep it would go into that like this box was hanging he'd go there and take got
34:27
this revelation and it was a full confabulation of like all this amazing stuff
34:30
it was a brilliant brilliant show
34:32
it was called beat the cheat if memory serves and it was basically him cheating
34:35
at every single game that we played and like he was always going to win but
34:37
it was fun to play lots of comedy lots of fun,
34:41
the reason i bring it up is that that show had a particularly long setup time
34:45
and i'm curious with going into fringe festival shows should people be conscious of.
34:51
Being their setup times and their pack up times because most typically these
34:56
shows are basically back-to-back in this festival format.
34:59
Do you find that if you're going to be doing a show and you need three hours to set up prior, that.
35:07
Maybe a fringe isn't quite right for you? Yeah, possibly not quite right for you.
35:12
The show that I'm in called One Hour of Insanity, it's four of us performing,
35:16
a show where you get about 15 minutes to set the show in the venue and about
35:21
15 minutes to pack down after the show's done.
35:25
It's a very tightly choreographed show,
35:30
After the show is done, if the show is meant to be about 55 minutes to one hour,
35:37
and if we start going over the hour, the venue starts penalizing us with a fee.
35:44
So pretty much every venue is very similar to that. If you go over your allocated
35:50
time slot, you start getting penalized with a fee.
35:55
If you take too long with a loadout, that can cause problems as well.
35:59
So you've really got to be in and out very quickly.
36:03
Your load in has to be very quick. Your load out has to be pretty quick.
36:06
Often the show before you will overrun and that makes your load in very,
36:12
very, very narrow and your load out very narrow as well. So you don't want to
36:16
kind of want to run into trouble with it. Then you organize it wherever you are.
36:22
Yeah, it's got to be tight. Got to be tight. Yeah. We have Tim asking,
36:27
has anything surprised you this year?
36:30
Like, have you seen anything that you haven't seen before?
36:33
Well, I mean, I'm only about two weeks into the Fringe, and I haven't had the
36:38
chance to see all the shows I want to see yet.
36:42
But so far, the quality seems to be very, very, very good.
36:47
That you kind of expect from a fringe show, maybe a slightly unpolished act
36:52
or maybe a show that's not quite ready for prime time yet.
36:56
But every show I've seen has been 10 out of 10, bang on, theatricality, perfect.
37:03
Everything's been good, lighting, sound.
37:05
Every show has been very good at all the things they should be good at.
37:11
And I haven't seen a few of them yet, but the ones that I have seen.
37:14
Magic-wise, I've seen Siegfried and Joy, who were incredible. They only did two shows.
37:20
The final one was tonight, and they did great. I've seen Ben Hart doing The
37:24
Labyrinth, which is a great show.
37:26
I've seen Tom Brace, an incredible show as well. I've seen Insane Magic, who are killing it here.
37:33
It's a three-person magic show with illusions and mentalism and great magic
37:39
and audience participation.
37:41
Every night they sell out. They do great as well. I don't know.
37:44
Every show I've seen has been good so far. And on the street,
37:48
the guys are very, very, very good.
37:51
It's a top quality kind of mix of performers from circus background,
37:56
magic, juggling, you know, clowning. Everything has been very,
38:02
very, very well polished, very good.
38:05
Everyone's at the top of their game. I'm very impressed so far. I'm only two weeks in.
38:09
Is there, oh, okay. well you know you mentioned like as a whim you said like
38:14
oh you could see a show in a bathroom like what's like is what's like an obscure,
38:19
thing you've seen or heard about like that for example is that a real thing
38:23
or is that like an example is there a,
38:25
you know, a naked show or, you know, like, is there something just way left?
38:30
I mean, there's plenty of naked shows, Josh, if you're interested.
38:36
There's a couple of like adults-only magic shows. Obviously,
38:40
the Naked Magicians, who for years performed around the world,
38:45
were a great kind of inspiration.
38:48
Now there's a few different R18 magic shows on. The adults-only magic show by Justin and Sam.
38:55
There's an R18 adult Sony magic show that's happening as well,
38:59
which I haven't seen yet, but I'm very keen to check out.
39:04
There are very obscure shows that are happening in weird little venues,
39:09
and you kind of just have to find them and source them out and listen to what
39:14
people are saying and find what's going on.
39:17
A good friend of mine called Trent, he calls himself the Birdman.
39:22
And he plays in a very small venue just around the corner from my apartment I'm staying in.
39:28
A venue only about 20 seats, 25 seats.
39:32
And he performs a pun-based show. He's a New Zealand-based performer called Trent the Birdman.
39:38
And he's been around for years. So he does just a very small show in a very small venue.
39:45
When I was here 23 years ago, Paul Daniels was doing a show in a church for about 150 people.
39:53
And then he would do a Max Malini show in an upstairs room on the church for about 20 people.
40:00
And it was a great show. He just did an impersonation, a whole show of Max Malini
40:04
tricks and Max Malini stunts.
40:07
So whatever you kind of want to find, there is a great show right now.
40:11
I haven't seen it yet, but I have tickets to a John Mullerhund tribute show
40:17
by Stuart Lightbody, who is doing a show dedicated to a World War veteran magician doing tricks.
40:24
So there is every single kind of avenue of magic you can find here at the Fringe.
40:30
If you really like magic, you're going to find something that you will enjoy.
40:37
I haven't heard that name in a while Mr. Lightbody man I met him at Adelaide
40:42
Fringe Festival and that guy's got some hands man he's got hands.
40:47
He's good, I'm looking forward to seeing the show yeah, Kraken Little Magician
40:51
from South Africa I believe for those who want to look him up he is amazing, Stuart Lightbody wow,
40:59
with the Fringe running for a month I think you were saying,
41:03
is there any kind of vibe or worry that's Like when it comes to tipping,
41:07
because someone was asking like can performers come there and just rely on tips,
41:12
which of course, if you have a great show, I think that's an obvious yes.
41:16
Joel said he's making more money on the street.
41:19
Having a street show and being in a production is just like the best of both worlds.
41:24
But like, is there any kind of like tipping fatigue of a, of an audience?
41:29
Like, or is there just so much, you know, flow of new people coming in to watch
41:34
street shows? You know what I'm asking? Like, does it get to the end of the
41:36
day and people like, I've given away all my money already. I'm just going to watch this show.
41:40
Or is that not? There are a lot of people in town, especially in the weekends,
41:45
but on the weekdays, it can get a little fatiguing, I suppose. Fatiguing is a word.
41:51
Today is a Monday in Edinburgh and I had a show on at 3pm in West Parliament
41:56
Square, which is a big, big, big pitch to work and it was a little bit of a
42:01
struggle. I felt the crowd was a little fatigued.
42:04
I felt maybe they didn't maybe speak English very well. Maybe it was a lot of
42:08
people from Europe or from overseas.
42:12
It can happen that people get fatigued and certainly on the street that the
42:17
money can be a little bit less as the Fringe goes on.
42:21
Of course, we have in the Fringe Festival itself, the indoor shows.
42:25
We have ticketed shows, which, you know, people pay a lot of money to see.
42:30
Well, they don't pay a lot of money, but they pay some money to see shows.
42:34
And we also have the free Fringe, which is great as well. Free Fringe is when
42:38
people can go and see a show for free and then pay at the end of the show and
42:43
pay what they think the show is worth. Kind of like a street show, but in an indoor venue.
42:48
I know a friend of the show, Andy Boyd, who has performed a lot on Virgin and P&O Ships.
42:54
He has his own show at the Fringe as well, the Free Fringe, where you go in
42:59
the morning and watch a show and then you pay what you think it deserves at the end of the show.
43:04
So that's a great viable way for
43:06
a lot of performers to make money without having to pay for venue costs.
43:10
A little bit less in advertising as well. Another performer I should point out as well is Mara.
43:15
Magician. He is here and everyone should know who he is.
43:19
Of course, he's a great New York-based magician who performs with a lot of,
43:25
it's a kid's show, a family show with robotics and a lot of great original, fun, happy routines.
43:32
He's performing every day. I need to see him. I haven't seen him yet because
43:37
he's always conflicted with my shows, but he performs a big show in a big room,
43:42
and very, very popular. So there's a lot of good stuff to see.
43:47
And even if you don't have a lot of money, if you want to come and see shows,
43:51
you can see the free shows and pay kind of what you think deserve the end of the show.
43:57
Do you think the free shows actually can make more money than the paid shows?
44:02
Because like, you know, we have a friend in Brisbane who does balloon sculpting,
44:08
and he only works on that basis like he will sculpt a child a beautiful balloon
44:16
and he says you pay me whatever you think it's worth i don't even want to know how much you pay me,
44:21
you just put money in this thing and then and we know you know how well he does
44:26
and so like really well like why am i doing corporate gigs kind of well why
44:31
are you doing corporate gigs josh.
44:33
I just, you know, people appreciate my Rubik's Cube work there. So that's why.
44:39
You could make a few balloon dogs and be, you know, happy with your day.
44:45
I bloody don't disagree. But you know what I'm saying? Like,
44:49
do you actually think that a good free show can do better than a paid show?
44:55
It is tough in this venue because we're talking three and a half thousand shows
44:59
happening across the month.
45:01
So there's a lot going on.
45:04
And if you walk up the Royal Mile, which is the main kind of mall,
45:08
the main street of Edinburgh, you just have people attacking you left,
45:12
right and center with flies for shows, with advertising, yelling at you.
45:17
They're doing performances on the street. Everything's happening.
45:21
A lot's going on. And having a free show does have its advantages in the fringe
45:28
because you don't have the venue costs.
45:30
Maybe you have less marketing costs, but you are competing with other shows
45:35
that are indoor, that have maybe a marketing budget.
45:38
Maybe they have a producer behind them. Maybe they have a really good marketing
45:42
campaign with posters and advertising everywhere.
45:48
It's tough. As a street show, you can rock up and just do your show whenever
45:53
you want to do it in the drawer every morning.
45:56
And it's a great way to make a living.
45:58
However, doing an indoor show brings a lot of risks. You know,
46:03
you have venue costs, you have high-ridged, you have marketing,
46:07
you have posters, you have all that stuff that could be complicated.
46:11
Can we get Mika's hot take on the fringe for a second? Mika's hot take?
46:15
Because I see Mika right here. Here he is right here.
46:21
Mr. Mika.
46:24
Mika, I don't know if, yeah, I don't know if you can hear me.
46:27
I just want to hear, like, he's kind of 60 seconds. I hit mine. Great. Yeah.
46:33
Yo, I just, first of all, it's good to see you on this blurry 480P version of yourself, man. Oh, boy.
46:40
Didn't hear you, Josh. No, no, hold on. Excellent.
46:43
We're live, baby. Number one podcast in the world. That's what I'm talking about.
46:50
You guys.
46:53
Oh that sounded terrible yeah i can't hear you guys at all i think it's still
46:57
coming through joel's microphone,
47:03
oh josh's voice there we go nice mika i just wanted to get you all like let
47:09
me let me hold on we are we are living the dream up here hold on a second if
47:15
i turn off online on earth.
47:18
This is the real stuff, people. You don't get this anywhere else.
47:22
That one there? No, you didn't like it.
47:28
It doesn't matter how good of a performance you are. Okay, we're live.
47:30
We're good. We're good. We have Mika. We have sound.
47:34
Here he is. Nice. Mika.
47:39
He's so tired because it's almost 1 a.m. here in Edinburgh. Mika has done about
47:44
10 shows today, guaranteed.
47:49
So, Mika, give us your hot take of the fringe.
47:52
You know you've you've you're newer to the game than joel is even though you
47:56
you're doing so well what's it been like for you like are you um.
48:02
Like what's it like being around such good performances like other you know
48:06
artists are you like being inspired by it or are you like you know fuck you
48:12
guys i'm gonna make more money like what,
48:15
what's it like for you man the fringe is really good um it it's,
48:19
a very social event which i think is very helpful for
48:23
a lot of performers who are new you get to hang out with like your friends and
48:27
then also experience a lot of shows from a lot of different genres and things
48:32
that you're also aiming to do so
48:35
you can get quite inspired that way.
48:37
It can be, you can make it a very social thing and just have a lot of fun with
48:41
it, or you can make a lot of money and work very hard to be here,
48:50
or you can do a mix of both.
48:51
Yeah, but like, what are you, totally, but like, so like, what,
48:56
what made you want to come this year?
48:58
This is like possibly my favorite time of the year.
49:01
I also had other things, like I had a festival books before coming to Red River,
49:05
so I'm on this side of the world anyway but edinburgh is fantastic i love seeing
49:09
i have some very good friends on this side of the world which i only see once a year,
49:14
and so i enjoy the social aspects of it i get to see all of the amazing performers
49:19
on the street and indoors and i get to make some money as well so it all is good,
49:25
yeah and are you are you vlogging any of the experience this year,
49:29
no not this year i have my camera with me but i'm not really filming anything
49:34
i just want to focus be a bit more present and focus on that which is a little bit weird to say because.
49:42
Sometimes vlogging means like you have to you put a lot of time and effort into
49:47
what you're doing and thinking about it in that aspect but i feel like sometimes
49:51
the the social side of things takes a little bit of a hit because you're focused
49:54
on your camera and not people yeah and because we've you know,
49:58
you me and jace have been through you know ups and downs of like wanting to
50:02
film not wanting to film vlogging every day trying to make videos every day,
50:07
like are you just at a time in your life where you're like ah the videos aren't really,
50:12
what i enjoy right now or is it something you want to get back into or like
50:16
a little bit it's it's like a sometimes it's a bit of a time crunch and a time
50:21
pressure of oh i would love to do that but it's actually unfeasible to,
50:26
make it to the quality that i want to and also focus on all the other aspects of my life just,
50:34
But, like, creating videos and stuff is still very much something I enjoy doing.
50:39
And I have a few, like, lined up.
50:42
I don't know. I'm trying to do, like, a little bit of bigger projects.
50:45
It just will take a little bit longer to make.
50:47
Not trying to pump them out for video's sake. Yeah.
50:52
And what is it about your show that's so much better than Joel's?
50:57
Let me say one thing. And that is, I saw Mika perform about a week ago, and it was incredible.
51:04
Mika is a very, very, very, very good magician.
51:09
And he had the crowd in the palm of his hand. Mika is a pro.
51:13
And I'm so happy that he's here performing and doing this thing.
51:18
And he's working very, very hard. This guy is a worker. He's a hustler.
51:22
He's out there every day doing multiple shows. He's up earlier than me.
51:27
He is at the draw. He is dressed in his three-piece suit with his pinstripes. He is a master.
51:34
Mika is the man.
51:37
Thank you, Joe. The man. The man, the myth, the legend.
51:41
I got to teach Joel work, finally, after multiple years. I've never seen him
51:46
do a show just knowing he exists. That was very good.
51:49
He can do everything. Is that true? True. That's true.
51:52
It's the first time. The secret to performing is to get mediocre at everything
51:55
instead of getting very good at one or two things.
51:59
And that's my secret to performing.
52:01
I did enjoy... I got a chainsaw. Tuggler chainsaw.
52:06
Get a chainsaw, put a handle on it, and throw it above your head.
52:09
I did enjoy watching Mika break your chair, your flying chair. That was...
52:14
Oh, that was mine. That's Mika's chair. Yep, he has a great flying chair.
52:20
What do they call it? The jumping stool. The jumping stool. And I have a very
52:25
good one by Marty Pops, which breaks a lot. But Mika had a great, good one.
52:31
And uh and then we just pushed it a little bit too hard a little bit too fast
52:36
and uh and now it's in pieces but it would it got some good height the jumping
52:40
stool and and for anyone listening can you describe just basically what it is like what it's,
52:46
a jumping stool is it looks kind of like a seat it's like an x-frame like this
52:51
and you just kind of push on it and then it springs like six feet in the air
52:55
and the first time i ever used it i used it in my apartment and I hit the ceilings
52:59
and there's now four holes in there.
53:01
And is it typically what you do... Like the magic trick. Yeah.
53:05
And is it typically something you do as an exclamation point to like end your
53:08
show? Like to walk off? I use it like in the middle of my show as a just...
53:14
I have a box sitting on it the whole time so when I go and hand out the box
53:17
like I need to do I just jump the stool up as like a bonus thing. It gets a good reaction.
53:22
Yeah, great. Okay. But and now it's a floor stool.
53:29
So broken in the corner of this room. Me and Mika are sharing a room together.
53:34
We are roommates for the entire fringe.
53:38
And it's good. It's good. You should hear Joel snore. No, no.
53:41
Joel doesn't snore at all.
53:43
No, he's not snoring. That's the chainsaw. It's the chainsaw.
53:46
It's not him actually snoring. It is.
53:49
Well, question to you both. What is like a crash course in how to do a fringe
53:54
festival? So, for example, you know, when you wake up, do this,
53:59
work the pitch, push your show, get some rest.
54:02
You know like what what would be your sort of crash course on on the daily as to how to survive,
54:09
and succeed well we both get up very early in the morning to get to the draw
54:14
for the busking shows and then from there it kind of diverges i have an indoor show meka,
54:22
i think you tend to line up and and do extra shows if you can run around the
54:26
city and find literally runs around the city tries to find extra shows it's
54:32
a it's a good mix of of kind of for me,
54:35
indoor stuff with street stuff maker is out there hustling and doing every show
54:39
he can do around every kind of street corner which is it's great i just
54:44
maybe i'm too old i don't have the energy this is a young young guy you know
54:48
he's out there doing the shows doing multiple shows a day
54:52
i'm too old maybe i'm too jaded too much of a hack mika is the uh mika is the man,
54:57
yeah and what's the food situation like that that's a lot of people to feed
55:01
over there like what are you stocking up on to eat yeah
55:04
would you recommend getting your own groceries or or like eating out is is way
55:09
too expensive to do that for a whole month depends on how much money you want to spend.
55:14
Yeah um you're like how many ramen noodles are you eating a day i don't particularly
55:19
uh enjoy food in this country so.
55:24
We live across the road from a Sainsbury's, which is like a supermarket here in the U.K.,
55:30
But honestly, looking around some of the street performers, we survived on Red
55:35
Bull, you know, like Monster Energy.
55:38
Coffee. A lot of coffee. A lot of coffee is going around. A lot of energy drinks are going around.
55:44
Poor health habits, perhaps. We're trying our best to eat good and be healthy
55:52
and rest well. But, boy, is it hard. I'd say rest is definitely optional. Yeah.
55:58
Yeah, we're working hard, but they are long days. Yesterday,
56:03
up by 10 a.m. for the draw, and then back in bed by midnight.
56:08
It's pretty full on, both the amount of shows and spots and cabaret bits we're
56:13
doing and street shows we're doing. It's pretty full on.
56:17
And have you experienced anything weird yet, like a weird spectator moment?
56:22
Or like not going to have to stop the show.
56:24
I almost got punched by a guy from Glasgow on like day two of the fringe.
56:29
He took offense to me.
56:31
I mentioned I got these knives in Glasgow and he just started yelling at me and.
56:40
Didn't want to back down. He wanted to fight me because I'd implied Glasgow was a violent place.
56:47
What about you, Mika? Had anything dodgy happened?
56:51
Which he is proving it was correct. He pulled out a knife just to prove everything
56:55
that he was trying to say.
56:56
But, you know, I couldn't really get into that with him at the time in his show.
57:01
I'd say, yeah, you always have crazy interactions on the street.
57:05
Just today, though, I had two little kids just screaming at me.
57:09
I don't know where their parents were. So that's always fun.
57:12
Maybe you're the dad, Nick. Oh, no.
57:17
Did you do the bit where you make them get in your suitcase and close it? Not with those kids, no.
57:23
Couldn't do anything with them. They were insane.
57:27
Do does that happen like do people have to stop their shows because of just
57:32
a shitty crowd like if it's like the good,
57:34
thing about the fringe is there's police around quite often security around
57:39
as well and the fringe is managed like within the festival grounds is very managed
57:43
by stewards and stuff so there's always someone on call to deal with this kind of stuff,
57:48
and not many shows have to be stopped at all considering most of us like if
57:54
you've street performed for long enough you will have dealt with some.
57:58
Relatively like crazy stuff on the street you just get all people from all walks
58:02
of life in every situation so,
58:04
yeah wow okay i'm with i mean all right so look we're gonna we're we've just
58:10
smashed through an hour of this already and so we're gonna let you guys uh get
58:13
some sleep soon but to end the pod in the way we normally do like,
58:18
maybe for both of you guys give us like a final word of advice like you know
58:23
would you advise this is a place people should definitely should come and do
58:27
or is there like a bit of cautionary tale of what you should make sure your
58:31
show is like before coming here,
58:33
before just thinking i i can do this like,
58:36
oh i definitely i'd 100 recommend coming to the fringe it's a very busy very
58:40
very busy place but you can get a lot of inspiration from all the other performers
58:44
you're watching and it is just a place to be able to learn and grow your show,
58:50
i would say the first time you come here don't come here with the goal of necessarily
58:54
making money, but come here with the goal of learning and furthering your show and career.
59:00
But the crowds here are quite forgiving. It's more festival compared to,
59:05
like, a random street corner on the middle of a city on a random day.
59:09
People at least know there is stuff happening in the city.
59:12
And it's an international arts festival that has been running for 60,
59:16
70, 80 years. So people are accustomed to it, yeah.
59:20
I'd recommend. Yeah, I agree with all that that Mika said. Like,
59:24
it's an incredible festival.
59:26
It's the biggest arts festival in the world.
59:29
Street shows, indoor shows, everything's popping off.
59:32
It's worth coming to, even if you've, you know, you just kind of just throw
59:39
your hat in the ring, just come here, enjoy it, enjoy the ambience,
59:43
see the shows, perform if you can.
59:46
It's worth doing, just soaking up the vibe of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
59:52
Yeah, that's well said. I mean, And Mika, I can't wait to look forward to running
59:58
into you somewhere in the world at some point.
1:00:00
And Joel, I look forward to our annual gig that we do each year coming up in November.
1:00:07
We'll do it. I'll see you then, my friend. Yeah, yeah.
1:00:10
We have this client that books us every year for this like real feel-good event
1:00:14
that always happens to be at a time we're both available for.
1:00:17
And so it's my favorite gig of the busy season to like catch up with Joel when
1:00:23
he's actually in Australia, which is great.
1:00:27
Not often these days. It's crazy. I used to be able to find you whenever I wanted
1:00:33
if I traveled to the Gold Coast. But now...
1:00:35
Yeah, you'd be peeking through my window, outside my door.
1:00:38
Yeah, it was a bit weird for a while. We had to get a training order,
1:00:42
but it's fine now. It's fine. Yeah.
1:00:47
Hey, well, you know, that's love, isn't it? Guys, we're going to wrap it up,
1:00:51
but you can find Stuntman Joel and Mika Harris on all the social pipes,
1:00:56
or go and see their show if you're at the Fringe.
1:00:59
Bonus points if you tip them and write on the money that the Magic Guys brought you here.
1:01:05
If you did that, we will be very, very, very happy. Yes, let's get at least
1:01:10
one. That would be just so funny.
1:01:12
Take care, guys. And of course, go and see Nick at his residencies or,
1:01:17
you know, in your local town, just scope him out and more to come with announcements of that.
1:01:22
We have a guest next week. We'll announce it throughout the week.
1:01:26
It's our favorite time to have guests coming on because we can just hear all
1:01:30
the fun stories that you guys are up to. And it's great that you're smashing
1:01:33
it. And no doubt, man, you can have a great rest of the season there.
1:01:37
Thanks for coming on, boys. We're happy to check in from the other side of the world.
1:01:43
Great that you're doing well. We'll see you again soon.
1:01:48
Thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear now but we'll
1:01:54
see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.