We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ben Young a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Ben, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you open up about a risk you’ve taken – what it was like taking that risk, why you took the risk and how it turned out?
After college, I was living and performing magic in Knoxville, TN. In 2015, I was attending a magic convention in the tourist town of Pigeon Forge, TN. While there, I met Murray Sawchuck, a magician from Las Vegas who has his own show on the famous Las Vegas Strip, countless TV appearances, and a huge online following on Youtube and Facebook. We hit it off, and a few weeks later, he texted me out of the blue, inviting me to a party he was hosting in Vegas to celebrate the iconic Riviera hotel before it was demolished. Murray told me I would have a ton of fun and meet Vegas legends, new and old.
The problem? The party was in 2 days. I checked for flights–the last minute airfare was outrageous, and while I was making a living just from performing, more or less, I wasn’t making much and this would be a huge purchase. I spent a whole day deliberating. My roommate told me I was ridiculous for even considering it. Why would I spend all that money just to go to a party?
But something told me I needed to do this. I couldn’t put my finger on it, it was just a gut feeling that I needed to say “yes.”
I texted Murray that it was just a bit much to fly all the way to Vegas for a day, just for a party. His response? “Why don’t you just stay for the whole weekend? You can come to the party, guest star in my show at Planet Hollywood, and we’re also doing a USO show for the troops at the Air Force base.”
DONE. Murray is a master of PR and knew that performing in a Vegas show would be good for me, and luckily, I did too. I booked the flight, had an amazing first time in Vegas, and returned home with 2 newspaper articles published about how me, a young East Tennessee magician, got a big break performing in Las Vegas.
This small risk–deciding to drop the cash (credit card, actually) and take a last minute trip for what I thought would only be a PR opportunity, led to 3 more Vegas visits within the year, and the following year I packed up my car, drove cross-country alone, moved into a spare bedroom of someone I didn’t know, and made Las Vegas my home. I had no job offers or real opportunities, but I was so excited to live somewhere surrounded by entertainment, and the opportunities came sure enough.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers
I’m a professional comedy magician, and I travel the world making kids and their parents crack up! My show is a modern & upbeat magic show that is laugh-out-loud funny, family friendly, and is just as much fun for an all-ages audience as it is for a room full of adults.
I pride myself on being in the moment, engaging, and personable–like a hybrid of a magician crossed with a stand up comedian. My show isn’t about big fancy props, sequins, or rabbits. It’s about amazing magic, being there with the audience and having a blast. My hope is that the show comes across as self-aware. Yes, we’re doing magic. Yes, some of this is a little silly. But we’re going to do it anyways, and you’re going to enjoy it. Trust me!
I was always interested in watching magic as a kid. We had a family friend who was a magician, performing close up magic every Tuesday at a local restaurant. We started eating there every Tuesday, just to see magic. But the magic “bug,” as we call it, truly bit me when I was 12. I saw David Blaine perform on TV. He was performing amazing close up magic with cards and coins, and even levitated. There was something about it that hooked me in! I asked for a bunch of magic tricks for Christmas, spent hours perusing the internet for secrets (pre-YouTube!) and about a year later, performed my first show–for 300 people. It was an elementary school and the parents, and it was fantastic! Not really. It was horrible. I wore a tuxedo with New Balance sneakers. I had no personality. I performed a trick so small no one could see it. But in the moment, I felt like a rockstar! Thanks to my parents for still being supportive after that show.
Flash forward and that kid in a tuxedo and sneakers went on to perform in major Las Vegas casinos, on the hit CW Network TV show Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and all over the world for the U.S. troops and their families stationed on over 80 military bases in 17 countries.
During the pandemic, I made a pivot while live entertainment was on hiatus (foam parties for kids! Ask me more about it if you’re interested!) and over the past few months have been returning to performing again. I’m booking both family shows and (clean) adult shows in various venues all over the US, in schools with my STEM-based assembly program, and more.
The show is super easy to host, and is adaptable for theaters, banquet rooms, schools, comedy clubs, country clubs, and more, so clients love how easy I am to work with throughout the whole process.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
In March of 2020, I was working as an assistant for a show in Las Vegas, and had put in the work to set up a fun calendar year for myself! A couple performing tours, and several other one-off performances all over the country. Well, we know what happened.
The show I worked for closed for over a year. All the bookings I had on the calendar were cancelled. And the nature of the shows I had booked didn’t lend themselves to converting to virtual.
So I stayed home, collected unemployment, and had a mostly dandy time…until June. That’s when I couldn’t take it anymore. The end was nowhere in sight, and I needed something to do.
A magician friend told me about foam parties for kids. While all his magic shows had been cancelled, he told me people were booking foam parties like crazy because it was an outdoor activity that you could do with just your quarantine pod, family, etc, you could social distance, and because foam is like soap, it felt clean!
What is a foam party for kids? Glad you asked. We use an awesome foam cannon to shoot millions of tiny foam bubbles, creating a pile of foam–get this–about 30×30 feet wide and up to 5 feet high–sometimes bigger. We also crank up music, so kids play and dance in the foam. Sound amazing and wholesome? It is. I can’t tell you how many times a child has run up to me and said it was the BEST. DAY. EVER!!
I was convinced. I ordered a foam cannon, asked a ton of questions, and two weeks later, Foam Fever LV was born. It was an amazing pivot! It helped me get through the pandemic, smile a lot watching kids have fun, led to a Foam Fever Nashville location, and both businesses are still going strong as we’ve really connected with our local communities.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Being a magician is rewarding in a lot of ways! There’s the fulfillment that comes from the act of creating, whether it’s a new show piece, a new joke, or having an idea for a new magic trick and working at it like a puzzle until you figure out how to make the impossible, possible! I think the act of creating is undeniably rewarding.
BUT, the amazing perk of being an entertainer is getting to experience audiences enjoying your work in real time! Nothing beats the feeling of performing magic, and hearing or seeing the audience gasp. Or clap. Or laugh at a joke. You get instant feedback during the entire show, and it’s that feeling that keeps us going.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.BenYoungLive.com
- Instagram: @BenYoungLive
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/benyounglive
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@BenYounglive
- Other: TikTok: @BenYoungLive
Image Credits
Photos courtesy of Ben Young & Michael Messing