How Magicians Create A Winning Atmosphere For Magic

atmosphere for magic

Arthur writes: So my question is: How do I set the atmosphere to “magic is an art, enjoy” and not to “I bet you can’t catch me”?

This is a GREAT question. In fact, I’ve been waiting for an excuse to write about it for absolutely ages. When you are performing magic, the last thing you want is for the audience to believe they’re in some kind of conflict with you. Magic shouldn’t be an ‘I win by fooling you, you lose by being fooled’ situation. Instead, it should be a ‘win-win!’ situation for both the spectators and magician. But how do we get to this good atmosphere for magic?

I’m going to try to explain the answer to this question in three easy to understand steps. To help with this, I’m going to use a definition from Darwin Ortiz’ thoughts on this very question (which you can find in his book, Strong Magic).

Ortiz would define the ‘I bet you can’t catch me’ atmosphere as the CHALLENGE atmosphere, in which the magician is challenging the audience to a battle of wits. This is what we want to avoid.

So, here are the steps…

1. Don’t Use ‘Challenge’ Vocabulary In Your Acts

2. Don’t Undermine Your Audience!

3. Avoid The Challenge Attitude, Not Challenging Tricks

4. Stop Reminding Your Audience That It’s A Trick!

1. Don’t Use ‘Challenge’ Phrases In Your Acts

This is a pretty simple one but we need to get it out of the way.

If you’re trying to present an effect and you want to avoid creating this challenge scenario, then don’t use ‘challenge’ phrases.

For example, within a routine we might be tempted to say…

‘Watch the card!’

We vanish it, and say…

‘Did you see it? No? Then I guess you weren’t watching close enough!’

Can you see how a phrase like this immediately creates a ‘challenge’ in the mind of the spectator. Now they’re really going to be watching you close, and just waiting for you to mess up. This isn’t good for you or them!

Now I know that was an obvious example, and not many of us will realistically be guilty of it. But the same thing can happen without our noticing; only on a much smaller scale.

For example, what if we vanished a card and then said…

‘Did you see it go? No? You didn’t? Really?’

This isn’t a blatant challenge like the phrase above, but it could easily be read as one by your audience. Now they’re determined that next time, they ARE going to see it.

You need to be really careful that you avoid all use of confrontational language like this within your routines! This shouldn’t be a big problem for most of you, but it can sometimes slip through the net.

2. Don’t Undermine Your Audience!

There’s a reason the challenge attitude doesn’t end well for both the magician and the spectators. When the audience feel like the magician is fooling them to prove how much ‘better’ he is than them, they aren’t going to be happy.

You want your audience to feel comfortable around you, and that they are EQUALS within the trick. If they feel like you respect them and are treating them as equals, they won’t care about ‘challenging’ you. There’s no need!

But if your audience feels like you don’t respect them, they suddenly have a point to prove to you. How do they prove that they’re your equal to you?

Why, by figuring out your trick! Which immediately sets them into the ‘challenge’ mindset; the very thing we wanted to avoid.

3. Avoid The Challenge Attitude, Not Challenging Tricks

There’s nothing wrong with using tricks that seem to have a ‘challenge’ element to them. It’s ALL about the attitude that you present them with.

For example, the three card monte.

Plenty of magicians can use this trick without their audience falling into the ‘challenge’ mindset. It’s one of the classic magicians subtitles never explained in magic tricks instructions..

Why?

Because of the way they present it, and the attitude they present it with!

This goes back to the previous point we made; if the audience feels like you’re on their side, they won’t want to challenge you. There are plenty of magicians who present the three card monte as a challenge; but they do it in a friendly way and with an attitude that communicates the fact that they would rather just have a good time with their audience than necessarily ‘fool’ them.

Bill Malone is a great example of a magician who presents challenging tricks but does it with such a friendly manner that his audience loves it! I would definitely advise watching his material to get a feel for how you can create a similar atmosphere for magic.

4. Stop Reminding Your Audience That It’s A Trick!

When the audience is reminded that they are watching a TRICK, they are reminded that there is a SOLUTION to that trick. And so they set about looking for the solution; creating the ‘challenge’ mindset.

How do you avoid reminding the audience that they’re watching a trick?

Tell a Story With a Magic Trick

I think one of the best ways of doing this is by telling a great story.

Everybody loves stories; it’s a great way of gripping your audience and taking them out of the ‘trick’ and into an ‘effect’. Even silly stories or nonsensical stories have a similar effect on your audience.

When we listen to stories, it has a way of taking us ‘out’ of the moment and into a dreamlike state where everything we hear is true. It’s the same in magic; when the magician tells a story, the audience is transcended ‘out’ of the moment and into a plane in which everything the magician says is true. They don’t ‘challenge’ the magician because he is the storyteller; and as the storyteller, everything he says is true.

Do these tips make sense? Feel free to get in touch if you still have any questions!

READ THIS NEXT: How to stand out as a magician

How to Stand Out as a Magician

by Merchant of Magic Leave a Comment

Here’s a question from one of our readers, James:

“What is that ONE magic trick that will make me stand out?”

I’m so glad I’ve got a chance to address this question. I see it a lot; and the answer might either be a really frustrating one or enlightening, depending on how you act on it.
You can either take this advice and create an incredible, showstopping trick that WILL make you stand out, or you might choose to abandon it in favor of the easier answers out there.

There is no ONE trick that will make you stand out; but there can be YOUR one trick that will.

What do I mean by this?
Even the best effects, if they don’t work with your persona and style as a magician, will be weaker than basic effects that DO follow suit with who you are.

Imagine if Derren Brown were to perform a Dynamo effect. Sure, it wouldn’t be bad, but it wouldn’t be anything memorable either. That’s because it doesn’t fit who Derren Brown is as a magician.

So, the answer is that the ONE trick that will make you stand out is ENTIRELY dependent on who you are as a magician, and ultimately, as a person.

To illustrate my point, let’s compare this to a similar question I often see in the world of fashion.

“What is the ONE outfit that will really make me stand out?”

Again, it’s obvious that this question is completely subjective. There’s no clear answer. The answer will vary massively depending on a bunch of factors; your height, weight, gender, build, etc. There is no ‘one size fits all’ solution.

It’s exactly the same in magic. Although the factors that are perhaps slightly less visible, they need to be taken into account nonetheless.

So, how do you decide which trick is the No.1 trick for YOU?

Here’s five simple steps that should help you narrow it down…

Step 1: Evaluate Your Audience; Who Are You Trying To Impress?

You mention in your initial question that you want to ‘stand out’.

Great. But you first need to really zone in on WHO you want to stand out to; the tricks that impress one demographic might fall flat in front of another.

For example, some tricks that might work like a charm at children’s parties would not fool an adult audience, and vice versa, some of the tricks performed for adults would go straight over the heads of any children watching them.

As a general rule:

– Simple and visual tricks will work well for younger audiences as they require less concentration and hold attention better.

– For story or narrative based routines, make sure the audience is mature enough to understand the messages and values you are trying to convey through the story. Consider tailoring the narrative to make it more relevant to the respective audience.

So when preparing to select a knockout trick, you first need to consider your audience. What’s more, your choice of audience will undoubtedly affect the presentation of the effect too.

Once you have your audience in mind and understand what you need to deliver based on their needs, let’s move on to the next step.

Step 2: Persona and Entertainment Level

This is a really key step.

In order to create a trick that will make you stand out, YOU as a person need to stand out. It’s not enough to simply rehash a presentation of the trick that you’ve seen before. You need to find your own spin on it.

In fact, I would argue that the best magicians are remembered for their presentation MORE so than the trick performed.

A great example of this is Penn and Teller; the comedic magic duo. A lot of the tricks they perform are fairly common in the magic world (such as the Cups and Balls) but they have such unique takes on the presentation that their performances are highly entertaining and definitely ‘stand out’ for their audience. This suggests that the real key to standing out is to have a memorable persona rather than just relying on a memorable trick.

How do you create a persona?
I’ve found that the best way to develop a persona is by consistent performing over time. The more you perform, the more your own style will emerge. Initially you’ll be tempted to stick to the same formulaic approaches to effects, but once you gain more confidence, your persona will naturally start to shine through.

Now I’m not encouraging you to just wing it and hope that sooner or later something will stick. Every time you perform, analyze your performance afterwards. Which bits worked? Which bits didn’t?

The key thing is to try to make sure you come away from it having learnt something new. A certain one liner might have landed really well, whilst a new phase to your routine didn’t. As you make a note of these things and edit your performances accordingly, you should see a persona starting to emerge.

Step 3: Mastery

Now that you have an idea of a trick and the presentation you are going to use in your head, you need to practice it until you can do it in your sleep.

Why?

Well, the more you need to concentrate on your getting the sleights right during the trick, the less you can perform. As a result, the weaker your grasp of the sleights, the weaker the entertainment level.

So, you need to ensure that you are COMPLETELY comfortable with every sleight required to the point where you can perform the routine blindfolded or distracted.

Basically, you want to be able to place all your focus on the presentation and selling of your persona; and one of the best ways to do this is by gaining a really strong muscle memory of the sleights.

By now, you should have a trick, persona, and a strong grasp of the sleights. What next?

Step 4: You Have The Final Say

Even if you think you’ve managed to tick all the boxes with a trick, the final decision should be made on the basis of how it feels to you personally; whether or not you choose a trick might just come down to the fact that it does or doesn’t FEEL right.

And that’s how it should be.

You might have a great trick that is perfect for your audience, fits your persona, and you can do easily. But if it doesn’t sit well with you, it’s still not going to be that knockout trick you want it to be. At the end of the day, you need to perform what you feel most comfortable and happy performing.

Your attitude will rub off onto your audience!

Step 5: Trial and Error

Once you’ve selected a trick that fulfills all the requirements we’ve gone through, and you’re happy to perform it, the next step is to just get out there and try it!

Don’t be dissuaded if it isn’t a home run first time round. It’s unlikely that it will be!

Professional magicians might perform and refine their material for years before they settle on a few firm ‘signature’ tricks. You might do it sooner, or you might take longer. The important thing is to keep on evolving and improving! Eventually you’ll find a few solid tricks that you can really ‘own’ and will definitely make you stand out!

I hope that helped you gain an understanding into how you can stand out as a magician! The secret is not to rely on the tricks themselves, but your persona as an individual.

I do appreciate that this might not have been the answer you were looking for, and if you have absolutely NO idea where to start, here’s a few solid tricks that you can’t go wrong with to set you on the right path…

The Invisible Deck
A mind reading miracle using a single deck of cards.

Cube 3
Possibly the most visual magic trick you’ve ever seen. Solve a mixed up Rubik’s Cube, INSTANTLY!

Cardtoon
A captivating card trick that uses a stickman to read the mind of your audience.

How to be yourself as a magician

The tricks to professional magicians use

About the author: Benji is a hobbyist magician from the UK who also runs The Daily Magician

The Complete Guide To Buying A Magic Wallet

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

Buying a Magic Wallet We recently received this question from one of our readers, Mike:

“There are so many different magic wallets on the market, that I don’t know which one to buy.

Actually, I mostly like the small wallets cause they look minimalist. I want to buy a wallet, which is easy to load with, for example a signed card

(card to wallet trick).

So the question is:

Which small wallet has a good quality and is very easy to load?
Is it better to buy a wallet that can only load cards or is there also a good ‘card to wallet’ with which you can do other beautiful magic like:
- Peaking
- Switching
- Forcing?

I hope to hear from you. Thanks you very much.”

Great question. Magic wallets have always been a fascinating topic for me; the idea that you can take an ordinary everyday object that looks completely nondescript and use it for the most incredible magic tricks is just amazing.

However at the same time, I appreciate that magic wallets aren’t cheap. Especially if you’re looking for quality.

What’s more, there’s A LOT of them. There’s almost too much choice when it comes to magic wallets; how do you even know where to start?

Today I’m going to give you the complete lowdown on purchasing your first magic wallet, depending on which effect you’re looking for.

Best Magic Wallet for Card to Wallet (Palming)

The classic versions of the card to wallet have always required palming, and it’s a solid choice if you know how to do it.

Plus Magic Wallet There are a lot of great wallets that accomplish the card to wallet effect using palming, but a tried and tested choice would be the Jerry O’Connell Plus Wallet.

This wallet isn’t cheap but it is often hailed as the ‘best magic wallet of all time’. It goes one step further than the majority of magic wallets out there in that not only does it enable you to load a signed card into your wallet, the signed card can appear within a sealed envelope inside the wallet.

This wallet also allows you to do more than card tricks as works with objects like signed coins or rings.

This leather wallet is really high quality and whilst the price point is higher than some of the others, anyone you ask will assure you that the wallet repays you time and time again within your performances.

Within your question, you mentioned that you wanted a smaller wallet that would easily pass as an everyday wallet. Luckily for you, the Jerry O’Connell Plus wallet comes in two sizes; you can buy either a Small or Large. The dimensions of the Small wallet are 150mm x 98mm and the Large sizes at 170mm x 100mm.

Real Mans Magic WalletIf you don’t have the funds for this wallet at the moment, you might want to consider the Real Man’s Wallet. It fits your requirements of being small and minimalist and the effect is great, but the price is much lower. I know a lot of magicians who vouch for this wallet and also use it for everyday use, so it’s another safe bet.

Best Magic Wallet for Card to Wallet (No Palming)

Palming is an absolutely vital skill for magicians, so I wouldn’t advise you to shy away from learning it. However, I understand that sometimes it’s just easier based on certain situations to have an option that doesn’t require such technical sleights.

Fortunately, there are plenty of magic wallets that don’t require palming. One of the most popular of these is the Mullica Wallet.

The Mullica Wallet lets you perform an incredible card to wallet effect with zero palming required. However, that doesn’t mean it’s sleight free! There are a few sleights you’ll want to know to get this trick working, but palming is not one of them.

You can check out this wallet here. In terms of pricing, it’s slightly cheaper than the previous wallet but not by much.

If you want to work up to a palming dependent method but start out easier, you could try the BMK Wallet. This wallet combines the methods used by three performers, Balducci, Mullica, and Kaps. There’s both a palm method and non palm method available.

However, some magicians have noted that the BKM wallet is perhaps a little too big for them; in that case you might be better using the Jerry O’Connell Plus Wallet I mentioned earlier as it also combines both palming and non palming methods.

Best Magic Wallet For Peeking

Wallets can also be used to great effect as a peeking device, and there’s plenty of products that offer this function.

My favorites are the Stealth Assassin Wallet and the Telethought wallet. Both of these are the perfect wallets for mentalists, but one is considerably cheaper than the other.

The Telethought Wallet

Imagine this: The magician presents an ordinary blank card and invites a spectator to write down ANY word they want on it. Once they’ve done so, the card is inserted face down into a wallet.

Despite the wallet staying in full view the whole time, the magician is able to reveal the exact word recorded on the card. This effect isn’t limited to words; the spectator could draw a picture or even write down a phone number!

Without revealing the method, it’s safe to say that this wallet utilizes an ingenious gimmick that is completely invisible to the spectator.

Like the others mentioned, this wallet is available in both Large and Small sizes (although the Small is considerably cheaper).

The Stealth Assassin Wallet.

The Stealth Assassin Wallet is a classy looking ‘Gentlemen’ style wallet that fits your hip pocket. It might not look quite like your everyday wallet but the effects that you are able to perform using it makes the unusual look definitely worth it.

In terms of size, whilst not as small as the other wallets mentioned, it isn’t overly large and can definitely pass as an everyday wallet.

This wallet uses a couple of different methods, including the wildly popular ‘Sight Unseen’ working, only within a wallet this time.

The Stealth Assassin Wallet is slightly harder to find online than the Telethought wallet but it is available at Magic Shop here.

Best Magic Wallet For Switching

Switch wallets make a great addition to packet trick routines; especially when you don’t want the audience examining your cards.

You perform your routine, and once you finish you pack the cards back into your wallet. Suddenly (but inevitably) a member of the audience starts clamoring to see the cards. With a sigh, you remove the cards from the wallet and let the audience inspect them for as long as they want. There’s nothing to see; you’ve already switched out the cards.

This one was a bit harder to come up with ideas for.

Why?

Well, the majority of magic wallets are designed primarily for either peeking or loading an object. Switching seems to be less of a priority and as a result there are fewer options on the market for it. However, there are a few solid products that are available to you; here’s my favorite.

Shogun Wallet

The Shogun Wallet is incredibly simple yet fooling. The wallet looks like a completely ordinary leather wallet but in fact enables you to switch out cards, packets, bank notes and pretty much anything you can imagine. The product description of this wallet describes it as ‘devious, yet innocent’, and I’d be inclined to agree.

All In One Wallets?

If you’ve been reading through this and feeling like you wanted a wallet that performed ALL of the features we’ve been discussing; card to wallet, peeking and switching, you might want to consider buying an all in one wallet.

Rather than spending hundreds on each individual wallet, you can buy a wallet like the Infinity Wallet that has a whole bunch of features packed into one wallet.

The Infinity Wallet is a multipurpose wallet that includes:

– Card to Wallet

– Peeking system

– Switching

– Multiple Outs

– Index System

That’s a lot of super useful features; in fact, this wallet alone would give you enough tricks for a full stage routine! I would definitely recommend this wallet for someone who wants a magic wallet but isn’t sure which type would suit them best.

You can have a play around with this one and get a feel for the different utilities; once you’ve spent a while performing with it you could go on to buy another wallet that specializes in the function you enjoy most.

For example, if you find whilst using this wallet that the card to wallet trick works wonders for you, you can come back and buy a specialist wallet for that very effect, such as the Jerry O’Connell one I mentioned earlier.

Finally, the original question also asked about forcing. Whilst there is not as many options for this, I did manage to find a wallet that looks like it could fit what you’re looking for in that regard here.

I hope you found this post useful in making your mind up on which wallet is best for you! Please feel free to follow up with any additional questions you have.

You may also find interesting:

The 6 best magic wallets reviewed

What’s the best magicians wallet for me?

TINT – Magic Review – Is It Any Good?

About the author: Benji is a hobbyist magician from the UK who also runs a magic site over at thedailymagician.com.