Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to our series of into the Lucy Verse with part two of Lucy Darling. Community manager Chris Combs. If you haven't listened to part one, I highly recommend it. I actually learned a lot. So without further ado, here's part two.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: That has to do with the companions, so the beautiful companions. So we got Mark and Sarah and then simply Darren is going to be TJ or nobody. And so they have different levels of participation.
So, like Sarah and Lucy, I feel that's like a duo show for sure, where they're both doing a show. Like you could, you could take Lucy away and Sarah's still doing a show and then with Mark, he's a bit more reactive. Like, if you took Lucy away, it wouldn't make any sense for Mark to be doing what he does. Like he, he can do a solo show, but it's not that. Whereas what Sarah's doing is a solo show. And then TJ is really just like underscoring the action of what's going on. And he globs in comments here and there, but he's really just kind of like providing the soundtrack.
So it's, it's those levels. So we decide the show based on where to play in this city, who's available.
So it's really who's going to be in that city is what's going to decide that. And that's got it. That's scheduling. And obviously you don't want to do one offs. So it's like, well, we'll have you for a week. Ideally, it's, we have you for maybe not a week, maybe it's 10 days, whatever it is, like, have you for this and then switch over to someone else for the same period. Switch over to someone else for the same period.
It doesn't work out that way in reality, but it's just that it's whoever gets scheduled for appearing. That said, with Chandler, we have, by the time we did the spring show, we'll have done all three shows in Chandler.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: So that was like our test bed for can we keep coming back fairly often. I mean, it'll be three times in four months, five months, whatever. Very short period of time.
But with three different shows, what we don't have is a control group of come back to the same place with the same show.
I think we've done that. We've done like runs, but not a return.
[00:02:28] Speaker A: I do wonder because some, some of, some of the tricks that you see are, you know, it does rely on maybe not having seen them before and when you see them Again, you can kind of. And that's something I always struggle with. It's like, yeah, if I do the same. My favorite tricks, if you're expecting it, then you're paying more attention to, like, wait, I thought that was my free choice. But it was actually. We knew this was going to happen the whole time. So I wonder if that would break the illusion a little bit.
[00:02:54] Speaker B: I think it does. So sometimes when we do multiple runs. And so, for example, when we were in Houston and San Francisco, we were there for three days, we did five shows, and there is a trick that involves a.
You know, the same thing happens.
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: But we do have variants where we can make it be a different thing. Okay. And so she would switch out night by night.
And I suggest. I said, you know, for the benefit of the venue staff, I think it would be neat if on that first day, when we do two shows, switch it up between those two shows so that they don't know until the next day when it repeats again.
[00:03:37] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: I don't know how, like, that's something I would like to do. I don't know how beneficial it is because one, how much of the venue staff is actually watching the show?
Like, it's probably for those three people, so probably not. But that's, you know, in my heart, that's what I would want that.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: Right.
[00:03:55] Speaker B: As long as you can keep the illusion going. Also, I imagine there's probably people who come to see multiple shows, and they may do multiple shows in the same night, I'm sure. Yeah. But also for those people, like, you come to see a second show, you get to see a little bit behind the scenes.
[00:04:10] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: Again, these tricks are not structured as there's no entertainment value. If you see the exact same thing, it's because the entertainment's really in the crowd work part.
[00:04:21] Speaker A: Right. Yeah.
[00:04:22] Speaker B: So we could do literally the same show every night or. Well, we can't do it, but, you know, as far as whatever structure we have, we did it. But people would still want to see it because, well, she's gonna talk to different people tonight, so it's gonna be different stories coming out. And then the tricks are kind of like an extra little.
[00:04:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it feels more like it's a variety show with that just happens to have some magic tricks as a main line running through it.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yes. I describe it as a variety show that has comedy, music, and magic. And I do say it in that order, because that is. It's mostly comedy, and then there's some music. And this would have been Magic.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: Yeah. I think a lot of people that go to the show, I don't think they know that there is magic. Like, there's potential.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: Right? Yeah, that's. And those are our favorite people, because magic works best for. Someone's not even expecting magic.
[00:05:11] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: One problem with a magic show is you have the proscenium of. This is a magic show, so you can't be really surprised or scared, really. Like, Nate Staniforth talks about this where he wants people to be terrified because, you know, if. If I put a coin in my hand and I close my hand and then I open it and it's gone.
You should be scared.
[00:05:37] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:05:38] Speaker B: But when I say, hey, I'm going to show you a magic trick, you're like, oh, cool. Open your other hand. You know, I mean, no matter how well it's done, that's the thing. But it's the problem of, like, you bought a ticket for a magic show, so nothing is going to affect you that deep from just a trick perspective. You'd be affected emotionally by the story around the trick.
You know, I think Darren Brown does that very well.
[00:06:03] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, it's. He. But he does come off as a. He's. His presentation is very dark, and it, like, you do feel like he's got, like. You're like, oh, he's got some kind of, like, he. This is real.
[00:06:16] Speaker B: Yeah, I know. He has kind of that problem where people will come up to him after the show and they're like, oh, I know that. That, you know, speaking to the dead thing was a bit. But could you actually contact my grandmother?
Gosh. Like, you know, so fortunately, we don't. We don't get that. No one believes Chris is really magic. It's good.
I hope not.
[00:06:41] Speaker A: Well, I mean, I. They would definitely. You miss the point if you. If you do think that, so. And. And nobody wants you to think that, so just, you know, suspend your disbelief. But it's not, you know, she's not really an alien that we're aware of.
No.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: What?
[00:06:59] Speaker A: I actually, Yeah, I asked you about that, and honestly, we kind of answer. One of the things I was like, what makes Lucy Darling shows different than other magic shows is that it's not really.
I would say it's. It's beyond a magic show.
Like, it's just. It is, as you said, it's comedy music and there's. There's some magic involved and it is entertaining as heck.
Yeah, that was pretty much. You got all my. You got all my questions, but we didn't Say, what's a non show day?
[00:07:26] Speaker B: A non show day. Well, what did I do today? I got up and I.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Today is one of them.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Check. Checked all the remaining tickets for all the shows, and then I started looking at fake accounts.
So many fake accounts. You know, today we got our three fake accounts shut down. Wow.
[00:07:45] Speaker A: Yeah. That's insane.
But what do you think?
Is it grifting? They're trying to get money? Or, like, what's the. What is the goal of that?
[00:07:54] Speaker B: So it's. It's always money.
It comes in different forms. So the least upsetting form is they're just content reposting bots. You know, they're not trying to be. They're not saying they're Carissa or Lucy.
They just have random characters as their username. But they're just reposting content and they just want, like, advertising revenue and all right. I don't really care. I mean, the reason I don't like it is because they'll repost really old videos. So the video might be like, hey, we're gonna be in Seattle this weekend.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: Ah, okay.
[00:08:31] Speaker B: I don't want that showing up. And, you know, we get people, like, we get messages like, how do. I don't know where to find tickets. I can't find them anywhere. You know, it's like, because the show was a year ago.
Sorry. But so for whatever money they get, it's not for monetary reasons. I want them shut down. And they're not stamming anyone. They're stamming the system.
[00:08:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:53] Speaker B: Bring down the system. I am totally an anarchist. We love that.
And then the next level is when they are pretending to be Carissa or Mal, members of the team. So there's some fake. Abby's found a fake me.
That was weird.
[00:09:12] Speaker A: I mean, I knew someday that's out of control.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah. And so they are.
They're, like, doing comments on things being like, oh, this is. Thanks for liking my, you know, my post. You can message me here. This is my private whatever. So the stories, generally, my managers are who are running the social media, and they don't let me interact with the fans. So I made this other account in order to interact with you. And then people have long conversations with them. The thing that was interesting just we kept hearing that people were running scams. And, you know, you and I are from the same generation pretty much. And so a scam to us is high.
I am a prince from Nigeria. I have $43 million that I want to transfer to your account temporarily. And you can keep 2 million of it. You know, just send me your bank info. And, like, no.
And so I was wondering. And I know, I mean, obviously someone somewhere falls for that, but for the most part, no one falls for that. And we kept hearing people were, you know, out hundreds of dollars with these rights. What are they doing? And so I was asking people, like, please send me the chats, because I want to see what they're doing, because I couldn't find them. Actually, one thing, I resisted interacting with them because I didn't want to message them, because then just block me because they could figure out who I was. And that's not helpful because I need to track them. But every time someone would send me something, they would send me just the message where it's like, send me Apple gift cards amounting to $150, and they'll be like, that's how I knew it was a scam. I'm like, okay, but. But you fell for it. Or were you. How are people falling for it? Or what happened before that?
Like, did they start with that? And it was a really long time before someone finally sent me their entire chat history.
And that's when I saw what they're doing. They're using some, like, chatgpt kind of thing to impersonate a Carissa voice. And I can see why someone would fall for it.
Like, there's things in it. Like, I could tell. It's like that just. That's not how a human speaks. But, you know, you've never met this human.
Some people speak differently. Whatever. There's kind of telltale signs, But I'm not gonna hold that against anyone. It was enough. I'm like, I get it now. And so it's that. That pig butchering thing where they talk to you for a really long time before that comes up. So basically, it's a Carissa saying, hey, I want to know about my fans. You know, how long have you been following me? Where are you from? I'm going to be doing a show there in a month, and I can offer you, because you're such a great fan, special backstage pass, vip, whatever, for free.
But because of the insurance and the way it's shipped, the courier service, it's going to cost $200. So if you can give me $200 to ship it to you, you can have this free ticket, which I find fascinating. It's like, do you think you're not gonna be brought up for mail fraud because the item is free?
I don't think it works that way. I think in somewhere There probably was a law that, like, that was a loophole. It's like, nah, it's not gonna be a thing. But when they send me this thing, I was like, oh, okay, I get it. Now I realize one of the old tactics doesn't work anymore, because it used to be like, oh, oh, Todd, you know, that's a scammer you're dealing with.
Play along.
Because the more you.
More they engage with you, they can't stand someone else. You're wasting their time.
If they're using ChatGPT, there's no time being wasted.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: Wow, I didn't think about that.
[00:12:54] Speaker B: Yeah, so it doesn't work anymore. What I did find, though, was, though, as soon as you say, oh, I sent the money, here's a screenshot of my Zell, which I faked because I was talking with one. I sent him a fake screenshot.
The language changed because then I was clearly talking to them directly because they were trying to do, like, it. Support of why didn't this go through? So it was no longer the Carissa voice. I'm like, now I'm wasting their time.
And I kept this person going for a long, long time, but it got really tiring, and I was just keeping it going until it's like, okay, well, focus on me. And in the background, I'm reporting them, reporting them, reporting them. Eventually, finally, the account gets shut down, and then they open up another one. So it's a game of whack a mole.
[00:13:40] Speaker A: But that's insane.
[00:13:43] Speaker B: So that's the one we hate the most. But we also dislike the. It's emotional theft as well. Just people think they're talking to Carissa, and I think they made a new friend and a really great friend. And.
And some of them, even afterwards, it was like, well, but I want to continue this conversation with. With real Carissa. You never had this conversation with Chris. I'm so sorry.
It's just.
Just terrible.
Yeah, because we, like, we don't want anyone stabbed out of money, but we don't care about money. Well, I guess when I say we don't care about money, it's like, it's not that we would get that money.
So it's not like, oh, I want that $200. It's like, no, I want that person to have never been scammed.
But the. The emotional toll is terrible because we also feel that part of why Lucy is catching on so much is in these times, people. It's post pandemic kind of thing. We were disconnected, and people want to connect and Lucy has something that people want to connect with, and then there's a. There's a real person behind Lucy that you can connect with them. That's amazing. Right?
And so it's, you know, the time is ripe for this character, and the time is ripe to take advantage of people because of it.
So Boo hates it.
[00:15:04] Speaker A: Yeah, that's sucky.
[00:15:06] Speaker B: Yeah. So I spend too much time looking at fake accounts, and then I answer messages. So we have. We think of the different social networks as neighborhoods. So Facebook is my neighborhood. TikTok is Abby's neighborhood. Reddit and YouTube is Jack's neighborhood. And so as far as answering direct messages that you're going to fall to one of us. And to be clear, we don't ever pretend that we're Carissa and his responses. So every time I respond, it's signed either, you know, the Lucy Crusy or Chris community manager.
So I don't want people thinking they're actually talking to Carissa. That was the thing, like, at the beginning. It's like, I'm not responding to any messages. I will. I will forward some to you that you should respond to. I don't want to talk to them. And eventually found a. A place where I could say, okay, I can respond to these. Because most of the questions are, when are you coming to this city?
So. Right.
[00:16:01] Speaker A: Yeah, I see that a lot on your community.
[00:16:04] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's. Hey, the best way to tell the tour manager is vote. The vote actually is a thing.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: What's crazy to me is on the video, the first interview. The interview I did with Carissa the week as she. The blue. She blew up that week. And I was just, like, lucky enough to interview her. And I still get comments on it, like, lucy come to our city. And I don't respond. Cause I'm just like, she's not. She's not reading this guy. I mean, it's. You know, it's. I only. I'll respond if somebody says, great interview. I'm like, thank you.
But mostly they're just like, they. They're trying to get in contact with Krista. I was like, she. This is not even her page, man.
So it's just like, I can see why people could get possibly scammed easily because she is on other. If she's on a podcast or something else and you respond to her, if you just make a, you know, repost things, people do think it's her doing that. So I can see why that would be a little bit of a problem.
[00:16:59] Speaker B: Yeah. And she is low level Enough that it seems like it's the prime place. Because, like, if you're an absolute nobody, impersonating them doesn't mean anything. Like, you're just. You're gonna scam their. Their friends, you know, not a lot of people. And if you're, like, super famous, you know, like, if Lady Gaga sends me a private message saying she needs some money, I'm like, no, but Karissa is still in this place where it's like, people can believe. It's like, well, she's small and scrappy enough. Like, it makes sense. I might. She might be, you know, doing a little side hustle, you know, selling stuff on the side. And it's. It's not beyond the realm of possibility. Right. And so it's easy to fall for that.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: I have one. I do have one question that's kind of from your perspective, and this is a. This is a general. General. Your expertise. But what do you think magicians get wrong when they make a show? What's the most wrong thing you think that you see in general? Like, if I'm. If I'm gonna build a show, what's the one thing you say? Don't do this.
[00:17:59] Speaker B: It's not caring about your audience. And that manifests in different ways. And I think too many magicians, even if they're polite, so let's go, you know, obviously, don't be rude. Yeah, but even the ones that I've
[00:18:14] Speaker A: seen, I see a lot.
[00:18:14] Speaker B: Yeah, but even the ones that are not doing that, you know, the reason the show is kind of bland. It doesn't work, is because they feel that the trick is enough. The trick is enough for a magician. Like, if you're performing for other magicians, do a trick without any presentation. They will love it.
Do a trick without a presentation for an audience, they will be like, oh, okay. I mean, neat. But it doesn't. You know, people go out to a show, humans crave stories, and if you don't give them a story, they'll make one up.
And the easiest story for a magician just doing tricks is this guy saying, look at me. Look how great I am.
And that's not a good show.
And so you have to give them a story to make them not come up with that, because they'll need a story. And that doesn't mean it has to be a theatrical play with magic in it. But they have to know who you are. Everything you do should reveal something about yourself or the plot.
And, you know, I'm gonna find. I'm gonna take pause here.
[00:19:22] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:19:23] Speaker B: Find a thing, because I wrote this. And so Syd Field wrote this book called Screenplay the Foundations of Screenwriting. And that's considered the bible of screenwriting.
I have issues with it, but there's plenty of good in it. I highly recommend magicians read books on screenwriting, particularly for short films. Because a short film is like closer to a magic routine. Because it's like between nine, 15 minutes, you know, that's a typical short film, length maybe 20, but you know, you have to establish certain things in the first minute or so that you wouldn't do in a feature length film. So that's one. But anyway, but Sitfield's book, there's a passage that I really like which is the purpose of the scene is twofold. Either it moves the story forward or it reveals information about the character. If the scene does not satisfy one or both of these two elements, then it doesn't belong in the screenplay.
And I think a magic routine is a scene that if it doesn't work to tell us more about who you are or if it doesn't propel some sort of story that you're telling through the course of your show. Again, it doesn't have to be a once upon a time like telling a story.
But I had this idea of like this meta narrative that you know, you to do a trick that is, you know, making your breakfast appear, you know, and then you make a trick that is like levitating, you know, what are you having for lunch? And then trick. It's. The idea is don't go on through a day. You know, it shouldn't be all food based. But then, you know, food based show.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: And then transport your dinner from one side of the stage to the other. Bad show. But that tells a story, right? So if you threw in another trip that wasn't one of those, it wouldn't make any sense in that. Or like, you know, if you, if you just did the two, you know, breakfast and dinner.
That doesn't, does you need three beats, you know, because it's, that's, that's what the Rule 3 is. It's. You establish a pattern and then you either continue the pattern or you break the pattern. Breaking the pattern is what makes it like a joke, you know. You know, three guys walk into a bar, one says this, one says this and the third one says something crazy. That's, that's what that is.
So yeah, it's, it's, it's not respectful to an audience to not give them the thing that they explicitly came there for. But again, if they came there for a bunch of tricks because you're performing for a bunch of magicians, go for it. Um, I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I just think it's wrong to do it for a public.
Wow.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: That is actually some of the best advice I've heard of, of how to like, basically that will help you structure your show. Like, you know, that, that if it, if you're doing a trick and it doesn't do one of those two things, cut it or make it fit those. I've, I, I, There's a lot of tricks that you can change the story like that and it becomes, it's just a metaphor and you just make that metaphor about something else.
It's like the, I like to do the, the string that you cut the string into a bunch of pieces, you roll it up and then it's a long piece of string again. And I do that with, yeah, restored thread and I do that with floss because I'm a dentist. But there's a million ways that that works itself into any part of, of a show where it talk, you could talk about how, how our stories are all separate, but they're really all one. I mean, there's just like so many things you can do about it. How this is the average amount of flow that an American uses in one year.
And so you can make it a gag, but like, yeah, that makes perfect sense that you don't have to.
But I think it doesn't take a lot of brain power to make your tricks have a purpose to it. But yeah, that's brilliant.
[00:23:03] Speaker B: Yeah. For that trick in particular, at least from what I've seen. Peter Samuelson, I think, has the best. Someone may have something that is even better. I've not seen everyone do it, but I really, really like his presentation of that.
[00:23:16] Speaker A: Good. Okay. I'm always looking. I just like that one because it makes it, it's easy to do when the wax is flawed. Is.
[00:23:22] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, no, that's Floss is waxed. It's, I'm not suggesting you do something like Peter Samuelson. I'm just saying that's another.
[00:23:27] Speaker A: Right. No, I, I, I'm always looking for I, there's so many good presentations for that and I just, I, I kind of like them all. It's one of my favorite, it's one of my favorite tricks.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: One of my, like dream books or DVD release or whatever would be one trick. But here's all these different presentations of it.
So, you know, it get together like 15, 20 magicians to write out their version of the trick. I would love that to piece.
[00:23:52] Speaker A: I would watch that too. Yeah, but yeah, like that's a great idea actually. Like just, just the presentation showcase of like a, just a super common trick. I love the egg bag. I'd love to see. I, I've watched like I, I, I will watch anyone do an egg bag because I just, I like the egg bag. It's my, it's my favorite trick for some reason. Just because eggs are so expensive. It just seems like absolute witchcraft when you can make one appear.
[00:24:16] Speaker B: I didn't think about it because eggs are expensive now.
[00:24:18] Speaker A: Yeah, that's my new line. When I pull the egg out of the bag. Like that's right. Eggs have gotten so expensive. I've resorted to witchcraft.
I do like a carnival barker. Like, get your bag, get your egg. Yeah, right here.
Such a, a magic trick so popular, no one even knows about it anymore.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: Do you do this thing where, you know, because I'm not, not a magician, but, but I happen to have this. Funny enough, this is not an egg bag, but it happens to look like one.
[00:24:43] Speaker A: It does look like an egg bag.
[00:24:45] Speaker B: This is just, this is just a hat, you know, like a Salvador Dali would wear. This is one of those deals. But I'll use this as a visual aid.
So the thing I dislike with egg bag is especially modern presentations because the magician lets you know that it's a wooden egg at some, but does this to show that it's empty, which made sense when it was real eggs because you wouldn't do that with a real egg. But when it's known that it's a wooden egg. Please don't do this. Stop.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: Yeah, I, I, I don't think you should tell them what type of egg it is because you can't tell. I've experimented, I've used, I have, I have a whole box of wooden eggs right here. You can't tell it's a wooden egg. It's just not from here. You can't just don't tell them. I actually used to use blown out eggs just because they're lighter. But I don't have the, I don't have anyone hold the bag anymore.
[00:25:35] Speaker B: I thought about it too late, but I realized my business cards for my magic consulting should have had a picture of a ring and said, if you think this is called a finger ring, you need my help. Because magicians call them finger rings and they're just rings. Humans call them rings. They said, I need to borrow a finger Ring from the audience. And they're like, you mean a ring?
[00:25:59] Speaker A: You know, I just like it when they say, this is an ordinary glass. I'm like, yeah, that's. We all call it that, Brian.
Why are you calling it an ordinary glass?
[00:26:11] Speaker B: It feels like, you know, when you're watching a bad sci fi movie, and it's like, I'm gonna write on the space paper with my space pen. It's like, I do. What?
No, that's not. That's not a thing.
[00:26:22] Speaker A: Space paper. I honestly, you know, we finished.
Well, you. You've answered all my. All my questions. I do have to ask what's next? Yeah, when's what's next for the. What's next for. For Chris?
[00:26:35] Speaker B: For me?
[00:26:36] Speaker A: Well, you're going on tour soon, right?
[00:26:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So as of this recording, in two, three weeks, four weeks.
[00:26:43] Speaker A: All right, so when this comes out, you'll be. You'll be on tour.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: Yeah. So February 14th, Valentine's Day, we're doing a show in Vancouver, British Columbia. Segoyne, back to Canada.
[00:26:55] Speaker A: Hooray.
[00:26:57] Speaker B: Yay. Canada's been asking for Lucy to return.
That's the other fun thing is the number of people that discover Lucy, like, on a. On a daily basis, and the number of times that they happen to coincide with. We were just there. It's like, would you ever consider coming to City X? It's like, we were at City X 3 days ago, but I realized it's probably because we had posted doing a great show in City X, and then the algorithm gave that to people in City X and that's when I discovered her. So I can't be upset with them.
But it is frustrating when I get so many messages. Like, they're at least. They're mostly kind. Every once in a while I'll get someone who's like, please consider coming to wherever.
Like, oh, we were in wherever about a month ago.
But, you know, if you vote here, you'll get notified when we come back, and they'll say, oh, I know you were here. I just want you to come back.
Well, you didn't phrase your question well. If you said, would you ever consider. Sounds like I don't think you've ever been here.
So that does ruffle my feathers a bit.
But they're.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: I'm bringing my parents to your show in at the D.C. at the Lyric. No, and Baltimore. Lyric.
[00:28:20] Speaker B: Baltimore's Lyric. D.C. is.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: And then I think you're gonna be in D.C. like, the next week or like a couple weeks after that. That's it. I mean, Your schedule looks insane.
[00:28:30] Speaker B: It's much better than the fall tour.
We're at the Warner theater on the 27th, which is actually. And the 21st. Yeah. So it's like a week later. Baltimore. The D.C. is a week.
[00:28:43] Speaker A: I got the Baltimore tickets. When then I realized you were in D.C. i was like, shoot, that's hour closer. But I'm excited because it's. It's. It's the same. It's. I'm. I'm far from everywhere.
[00:28:53] Speaker B: Uh, this tour was built a bit more strategically because with the fall tour, it was basically. Things are heating up. We need to go places, and this could end at any moment.
Right.
We don't know how the Internet works.
[00:29:09] Speaker A: We don't fall off this tour. Yeah.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: Tomorrow, TikTok can get shut down, and no one will care about Lucy anymore. So we need to book these shows right now because usually you book shows way in advance.
And we're trying to get to, like, a year out. We're not there yet, but ideally, we'll feel like we know where we're going to be today, next year.
[00:29:32] Speaker A: That's awesome.
[00:29:33] Speaker B: But we're putting the fall tour together. It was basically because. Because everyone else had done the job of booking well in advance. It was like, well, what's. What's available?
And that's why you saw, if you followed our tour map, it's like,
[00:29:49] Speaker A: yeah, there's a. There's a lot of.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: Instead of a nice little list.
And that's just because place wasn't open. And that's typically why we don't get to go to some places we want to go, because it just. Nothing was available.
Sorry. But we'll work on it.
Keep going.
[00:30:07] Speaker A: I mean, but eventually, if it. If it keeps going the way it. It seems to be going, you'll get those bigger venues because you'll. You'll be booking up further. Is. Is that kind of how it works? Well, it's not necessarily bigger venue further out.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: It's not. It's not necessarily a bigger venue. It's any venue at all.
[00:30:22] Speaker A: Oh, okay.
[00:30:23] Speaker B: It's like, you know. You know, we.
What. These are the cities we want to go to because people voted.
What are the availability? You know, so it's like city X says, well, I can give you this day at this venue. You know, City Y says, well, I have the same day available. So we have to choose between one of those two, and then city Z is, like, next to it, but we're not available for like, a month later.
So in between, we have to go across the country. So it's. We're just picking up scraps of, you know, dates that didn't get booked or there were cancellations or for whatever reason. So that's why it was a little hectic. So. So our. Even our bus half of the tour was bus, bus, fly. Bus, bus, fly.
[00:31:05] Speaker A: Wow.
Yeah, that's. I. Cause I see you guys when I follow your social media, I see you're going on planes. I was like, that must suck to.
[00:31:12] Speaker B: It is so bad.
[00:31:15] Speaker A: Yeah. Is this gonna. Is this gonna be like a complete bus tour that you're doing or will there be any flying?
[00:31:21] Speaker B: I think there is one fly, but it's a. We fly while the bus drives. So we're not taking everything onto the plane.
[00:31:28] Speaker A: Oh, thank God.
[00:31:29] Speaker B: That's just more like it's a very, very long bus ride and we are not going to be on the bus for 16 hours. The two drivers will switch off and so we'll just meet us there.
But yeah, just. If you were to cram it up.
[00:31:39] Speaker A: Is the bus gonna have a Lucy Darling wrap on it? So we see it coming?
[00:31:43] Speaker B: I don't. I. I know I've heard talk of that, but I don't know if it was talk of we're gonna do it or Wouldn't that be funny?
[00:31:52] Speaker A: That would be wild.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: That would be.
[00:31:54] Speaker A: I.
[00:31:54] Speaker B: Maybe sometime in the future.
I. I feel pretty certain. Not this tour.
But I don't know. I may be surprised. I may.
May walk out of advertising.
Yeah. Really need to advertise that much.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: That's true. I think you're. I think you're probably. Yeah, that's not really the issue. Looks like you sell. You usually sell out within like. Like you're mostly sold out in a few days.
[00:32:16] Speaker B: It seems when we do sell out quickly, it's within a couple days, sometimes up to a week.
It's. We try to get a. A place that is large enough that we think we'll sell it out. So based on past.
The past tour. So we had kind of an idea of like, here's how to figure out how big a space we could sell out. And that mostly worked out correctly. And there was some stuff that was off. And then based on the last tour, we changed the algorithm.
So now it takes into account things like day of the week. We didn't think about that. It's like, oh, yeah, Monday is much worse than Saturday. So like we're like, we could sell out a thousand seater. You know, it's like four, 400 seats, apparently. And it's like oh, and that was on a Monday. Like we found consistently the Mondays underperformed and the Saturdays outperformed. So we have that and we have a couple other things.
And so we retooled the algorithm so that if you were to apply it retroactively to our tour projections from the fall, it matched up for almost all of them. There's a couple outliers like Chandler. Chandler sold out in hours.
We don't know why. That doesn't make any sense.
But other than those weird outliers, pretty much a hundred percent on. So we feel much more confident this time around. There's only like one or two places that are underperforming and we're not really that concerned about them. It's just like, oh, I wonder what's happening there.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Interesting.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: Yeah.
What we don't have is we did another multiplier for. If we're doing multiple nights. So right now, if it's like, oh, we're doing two shows instead of one show, we just cut the thing in half, you know, so it's like we think we can sell out a thousand tickets. Well, it would take to 500 per night is what we decide. It's really going to end up being like, well, if it's two nights in a row, then it's really going to be 450 or something. And if it's three nights, it's going to be three or two or I just got.
There'll be diminishing returns for each night you're there.
So we have to figure that out for the next time around and then that makes sense.
[00:34:22] Speaker A: So maybe you could spend more time at a, at a venue because that would save, you know, traveling, but also you, if you don't. If nobody's gonna show up.
[00:34:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So it would be like you would say, like, oh, it needs to be a smaller venue.
[00:34:39] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense. Then you could do it.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: You wouldn't do a 1500 seater if you're gonna be there. I mean, unless you're.
I'm just use thousand, not 1500. Sorry. Even numbers. So if we think we could sell 5,000 tickets when we did 5,000 seat venue.
Or we can do. But what we can't do is a 1,000 seat venue for five nights.
[00:35:00] Speaker A: Right. That makes.
[00:35:01] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes you think that's the case. But it's probably not. It's probably going to be a 700 seat. I don't know what the number is, but it's going to be lesser than that for whatever reason. So. Which I find strange. It's counterintuitive. Like, if we're pretty certain we could sell 5,000, and if we're doing a 1,000 seeder for five nights, you would think you would actually need a larger one because, you know, people are gonna be coming multiple nights.
[00:35:25] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: But those 5000 people over multiple nights, it's gonna be 1200 or, sorry, 6000. You know something.
[00:35:34] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: I don't know, but it doesn't really work out that way.
[00:35:37] Speaker A: Okay, that is weird.
[00:35:39] Speaker B: Yeah. I think that also, that might have to do with. If you're doing multiple nights, that means you're crossing over to a Monday.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: Got it.
[00:35:46] Speaker B: Right. So it's probably.
[00:35:47] Speaker A: If you're doing three days in a row, there's gonna be a one of those days. Yeah.
[00:35:53] Speaker B: School nights. Yeah.
[00:35:54] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly.
Although if you. If you've got a lot of children coming to these shows, I think they've. I think they missed the. I think they missed the advertising.
[00:36:03] Speaker B: Yeah, Well, I mean, I say school nights to imply, like, some people have day jobs, so that's.
[00:36:09] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, I forgot that, like. Yeah, I have to take my kids to school too.
[00:36:11] Speaker B: I forgot about that. Yeah. Well, no, not even school. Like, you have a job to go to.
So when I say school night, I
[00:36:17] Speaker A: mean, like, I don't care.
[00:36:18] Speaker B: You have somewhere to go in the morning. You have the 9am job, which I used to have.
[00:36:23] Speaker A: We can't all run away with the circus.
[00:36:25] Speaker B: I know, it's. I didn't run away with the circus. It took me.
[00:36:29] Speaker A: I was about to say you. You got taken. You got kidnapped by the circus.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah, I. I had always resisted that, and now I. I'm doing it. I realized that was the thing. So another group I work with is the residents. And, like, I've done merch for them, but I've always been like, I don't want to be on tour. I don't want to ride a tour bus.
And that's.
Wow, that's become my life.
[00:36:53] Speaker A: Yeah. Talk to me in like, a couple weeks.
[00:36:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I have this apartment here in Manhattan, and, you know, between October 15th and January 15th, I was here for like, four days.
My gosh, I probably need to get rid of my apartment.
[00:37:11] Speaker A: I was about to say, you know, you. You might not be back for a few years. So, you know, but if. If you need a place for that Dalek poster to live, you can bring it to my place. I'll. I'll hold on over you. Yeah, we'll put it in the back. You know, we'll put the manos over here and we'll. I've got lots of storage. I got a lot of nerd storage space too. You want to get you guys, if you got some Warhammer 40 case armies,
[00:37:33] Speaker B: you want to park over here?
[00:37:33] Speaker A: I'll take care of them for you.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: I do not. I just bought some Warhammer stuff for Kayla Drescher and Harrison Lapper, actually. No.
[00:37:41] Speaker A: Really?
[00:37:41] Speaker B: Didn't one any on a Harrison. So they're into Warhammer and. Okay.
When I'm back in Cincinnati, that's where I'm from.
Like, every, like, Christmas time, there's a store I go to with my mom, and Warhammer is 20% off there, and it's worth a trip.
[00:37:59] Speaker A: Expensive that stuff is, so.
[00:38:00] Speaker B: So for years, I take a picture of that sign and I send it to them and I say, is there anything you're looking for? And Kayla's always looking for. She plays Dark Angels, so I'm looking.
[00:38:11] Speaker A: Okay, that's fair.
[00:38:12] Speaker B: There have never been Dark Angels, ever.
And then last year, there was a Dark Angels.
[00:38:19] Speaker A: Like, I think they did come up with a new.
[00:38:22] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: New box for the Dark Angels.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: It was just like. Like a card set thing. Like, it wasn't figures. It was. It was some other ancillary thing, which is nothing. And then this year, I found Dark Angels. I'm like, there's a Dark Angels thing? And I took a picture of it. She's like, wow, I already have that. I'm like, okay, but maybe next year they'll have two. And then I found another one, which was the big starter box set. So she already had all that. But then Harrison is like, do they have this? And I'm like, yes. He's like, I'll take that. So.
So I brought him. So I. I made my first Warhammer purchase. Finally. Three years.
[00:38:55] Speaker A: Welcome. Welcome to the Nerd. Welcome to buying really expensive pieces of plastic.
[00:39:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:39:00] Speaker A: That is an honor to be part of the group.
[00:39:02] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm not part of the group. It was a gift. I gave it to Harrison.
[00:39:04] Speaker A: No, it doesn't. Sorry. It counts.
[00:39:07] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:39:07] Speaker A: Chris, thank you so much for the, you know, your expertise in talking to us about.
About magic and touring and. And all that crazy stuff that you do. I'm. I'm really. I'm really jealous, and I love what you're doing.
[00:39:21] Speaker B: Well, thank you very much. And no need to be jealous because, you know, we're friends.
Get the stories. Just hit me up.
[00:39:29] Speaker A: You know? I will. And, Chris, thank you so much for talking with us. I'm sure the Lucy. The Lucy verse loves hearing from you. So thank you very much.
[00:39:38] Speaker B: You're quite welcome.
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Bye, everybody. Until next time.
[00:39:46] Speaker B: Sam.
