What is a Magicians Out? – How to Use an Out When Magic Tricks Go Wrong

Have you ever had to use a magicians out? Think about what you would do if one of your magic tricks went wrong.

I say ‘if’… but really it’s ‘when’. It will happen to you. It doesn’t matter how much you practice, how much rehearsal you do, sooner or later, your magic trick will go wrong. Magic tricks have a nasty habit of going wrong, right in the middle of a performance. Let’s look at how we can be prepared for the worst.

The paradox of live magic.

Magic is performed in the real world. It’s live and unpredictable. That’s part of the appeal. People enjoy watching live shows of skill, wondering if it will all go wrong. With magic, they try to work out how the magic trick is performed and to discover the magicians secrets. However, deep down they hope this doesn’t happen. When a magic trick goes wrong in a live performance, the spectators experience an anti-climax, they also feel embarrassed. Magicians face an unusual situation where people try to catch them out, but hope that they fail to do so.

Why magic tricks go wrong.

Magic on TV is edited, re-shot and arranged, so everything is controlled and ‘approved’ before it airs. In real life, there are no safety nets like this. Your magic tricks are happening live, with all the unexpected variables that real life throws into the mix:

Props fail
Angles are wrong for the location
The spectators reverse engineer the magic secret
You flash a move
Someone interrupts you
One of the spectators has seen the magic trick before

There are 1001 different reasons that magic tricks can fail. It’s not always your fault, but there is something you can do about it to make sure you are ready.

Use a magicians out.

A ‘magicians out’ is an escape route within a magic trick. It may be a new ending, a change in the presentation or even a switch of sleight of hand moves, to recover a situation that is not going well for the magician.

For example: If a magician failed to locate one of the spectators playing cards, and produced an incorrect card, that would seem like the magic trick had failed. However, the magician keeps his cool and tells the spectator to insert the playing card back into the deck at any point they wish. When the spectator does so, the deck is spread, and the chosen card is now found right next to the card the spectator just cut into the deck. The spectator found their own playing card themselves, all done by magic!

The spectator thinks that the trick was supposed to end like this It was fun being ‘suckered’ into thinking the magic trick had gone wrong, when it hadn’t. In reality, the trick failed, but the magician used a magicians out, to bring the trick to a satisfactory ending that looked like it was the intended climax of the magic trick.

When you learn magic tricks, it’s important to identify the ‘danger points’. Throughout each magic trick, there are specific moments when errors are more likely to happen. Props are engaged, a sleight of hand move needs to be done, misdirection is required, or a spectator must act in a specific way. The danger points tend to be constant in each trick, and that is your biggest weapon to fight them.

Do This:

Identify the danger points in the magic tricks that you have already practiced. For each moment, think about a possible ‘magicians out’ you could use to change the magic trick in mid flow.

Learn magic tricks that can be used as universal outs for any trick. Magic Tricks like the Invisible deck or brainwave deck are perfect ‘universal magicians outs’ for most card magic tricks. Study and master a few card magic forces, so at any time you can use them to create impromptu outs.

Many mentalism and mind magic tricks make an excellent universal magicians out. A close up magic trick can easily divert into a prediction or mind reading trick if needed.

Think how you could create a ‘specific magicians out’ for situations when a universal magicians out would not work well. Having back ups of your most important props. For example; if you use Loops, wear two instead of one, so you can recover easily in the middle of a performance)

Taking the time to go through your act and work on magicians outs for each danger point, will result in you being much more relaxed when you perform your magic. Being relaxed will translate as being a professional magician to your spectators, it’s a win – win situation.

Getting Caught Out Performing Magic Tricks – Magician Eric Jones

by Merchant of Magic 15 Comments

Professional magician Eric Jones recorded this short video for The Merchant of Magic, in which he revealed a valuable secret to becoming a better magician. He told us about something that he wished had been different, when he started out learning his magic tricks.
When you perform your magic tricks, do you ever worry about being caught out and the magic tricks secret being revealed?

For many magicians, their worst fear is that they may have accidentally flashed or revealed a move, forget an important misdirection point, or inadvertently telegraph a sleight. In that moment, the magic trick has failed. The magician is busted, his secret revealed, and everyone knows it. Is that really the worst thing that could happen?

Eric Jones understands that magic practice is often motivated by fear. Once you go through the process of learning the moves, timing and presentation for your magic tricks, you start a much longer, and painful process of building up confidence in your performances and techniques.

You continue practicing the magic tricks with a critical obsession for detail far above the level of perception that your spectators will give the performance. That’s a good thing, as long as it does not prevent you from performing. Without live performance being part of the process of mastering a magic trick, you won’t gain a full understanding of the dynamics and social aspects of the magic tricks. You need to test out your magic tricks on live spectators.

Honesty

Building up confidence requires testing your magic tricks with live spectators. Eric Jones recommends that you watch their reactions and learn from their feedback. The more feedback you get, the more you can adjust your technique and presentation. However, the feedback must be honest.

Getting honest feedback is harder than you would think. Your family and friends care about you, and don’t want to hurt your feelings. They know how much time and attention you put into your magic tricks and how important they are to you. Because they love you, they don’t want to hurt your feelings, so will often tell you what they think you want to hear. They are forgiving if you have accidentally revealed a secret techniques, and because they like you already, they don’t need to be won over by your personality. This makes it very hard to get REAL honest feedback from them.

Even professional magicians find getting feedback from ‘strangers’ hard. People, on the whole, are polite and easy going. They feel embarrassed if a magic trick does not go right, and they are unlikely to point out details. They want to be entertained and for your magic to work. Some people who give you feedback may be drunk, be motivated by wanting the groups attention, or simply wanting to be funny. Knowing how to filter the real constructive feedback from the ‘noise’ can be a challenge.

Regardless of who gives you feedback, there is another element that needs to happen from time to time, for feedback to be the most constructive. It’s uncomfortable, but magicians benefit from:

Being caught out

Every magician gets caught out every now and then, when it comes to live performance. A spectator may catch a flash of a coin, the corner of a card that’s in palm or simply reverse engineer the magic trick in the middle of a performance. The more experienced the magician, the less that happens, but it still does for everyone, now and then.

Professional magicians worry about being caught out far less than beginners. Not just because they are more experienced with the mechanics of the magic tricks, but because they understand that it is inevitable and will not ruin everything.

If a flash happens, only one or two people may catch it. Most people won’t say anything, and the magic moves on quickly to another climax point and the ‘flash’ is forgotten. They may see something odd, but it does not expose the whole method, so the magic trick can still entertain them.

Magic is interesting, and that’s it’s most important ‘feature’. Being entertaining is far more important than your technical skills. Technique should be perfected, and your skills developed to become the best they can be, but audiences are much more forgiving that magicians think. Your audience will be happy as it is being entertained. The danger comes from your act being dry and boring. Then, you are only holding the audience’s attention through your technical skills. If they fail, the audience is left with nothing, so the entertainment factor can only come from reacting to your mistakes. If this is happening to you, then you need to work on making your act entertaining, and interesting FIRST, then move on to sharpen your technique.

Do This:

Make a point to seek out feedback whenever you can.
If you make a mistake, don’t give yourself a hard time about it.
View getting caught as a learning opportunity.
Take careful note of it and write about it in your magic journal, just after the show.
Think about a few ways that you could have prevented the mistake from happening.
Building up notes on how you could have improved each situation.
Seek out honest opinions, no matter how painful they may be.

Related Posts:

Danger signs for professional magicians

How to learn coin tricks

Things to do when your magic tricks go wrong

Recommended Magic Tricks From Eric Jones:

An Extension of Me by Magician Eric Jones

Audio – Coins to Pocket – By Magician Eric Jones

Liberty Fingertips 2 by Magician Eric Jones

Metal – By Magician Eric Jones

Metal 2 – By Magician Eric Jones

Mirage Et Trois by Magician Eric Jones

Twizted by Magician Eric Jones

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Magicians Making Contact – Keeping Clients that Hire Magicians Informed

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

Magicians put a lot of energy into marketing and getting gigs, but the work doesn’t stop there. It’s important that magicians keep their clients fully updated in the run up to a magic gig.

Dominic Reyes talks about what he does leading up to his magic shows to make sure the client is happy.

Dominic received a booking form from a magicians entertainment agent or from the clients that hire magicians directly. As Dominic takes bookings up to a year in advance, it’s important that he recorded the details of each gig very carefully. He clips the booking form into Evernote and enters the details into his magicians diary.

One week before the booking, either himself or his agent will contact the client via email to confirm the details of the booking. At this point, any last minute changes that the client may have can be discussed.

On the day of the gig, the client gets a text message confirming that he will be arriving at the agreed time.

What to do during a gig

Dominic ensures that he introduces himself to the client when he arrives and also meets the client at the end of each booking. He gives the client some magicians business cards with contact details (either his own, or an agents) and asks if the client would give him some feedback when possible.

What to do after a gig

A few days after the magic gig, Dominic’s agent will contact the client to check everything went well, and to ask for a testimonial about using a magician, and how well Dominic’s magic was received. This is of great value both to the agent, but also to Dominic’s portfolio.

Additional Tip from Bartholomew Simpson
Bartholomew recommends that professional magicians ask the client to give you a short video testimonial on the same day. That way you capture their reactions just after they have been impressed by the magicians performance, and it’s fresh in their mind. This is a great idea, as long as the client is not busy and seems responsive to the idea. It’s important not to be demanding of the client or come across as too self serving. However, many clients will be happy to do this, flattered that you asked and find the process fun.

Why Magicians Need Public Liability Insurance

Mistakes magicians make when traveling to a magic Gig

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