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.

Learn Magic Tricks by Creating a Story – Link Your Magic Tricks Together

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

When you learn magic tricks, do you consider creating a story that the set of tricks will communicate?

For many magicians, their magic act is a collection of unrelated magic tricks. Each magic trick gets great reactions but doesn’t flow into the next magic trick that the magician presents.

If you learn magic tricks without thinking about the act that will contain them, you miss out on one of the most powerful ways to lift yourself above the level of an average magician: The Story.

Magic Tricks with meaning

Creating a story will give your magic tricks a purpose other than fooling the spectators. They give your magic meaning. Stories engage and draw in your audience.

Everyone loves stories. Humans are hard wired to seek them out and remember them. It’s how we learn and bond as a society. Information without a story is just a collection of facts or trivial. The tale binds information together, giving it a value greater than the sum of its parts. Don’t present your magic tricks as pieces of trivia. Improve them exponentially by creating a story to go along with them.

The story first.

Creating a story can be difficult. Here are some ideas to help spark your imagination:

A life experience you encountered.
Something to inspire people.
A cautionary tale.
A fable.
A proverb.
An urban legend.
An event in your past.
A story about a spectators experience.
A story from your past.
A story from their future.

Instead of a set story, you could form a story made on the spot by the magician and spectators together. A piece of improvisation, structured by the tricks.

Select and learn magic tricks that will, by being placed together, create and focus on communicating the story.

Do This:

Write down a few plot ideas, for stories that would suit your persona.

Mark out ‘events’ or focus points in each story that could be communicated with magic.

Learn magic tricks that will fit into those points

Over time, build up the collection of ‘meaningful’ magic tricks to create a piece of close up magic theater.

Learn Magic Tricks with Context and Meaning

How Long to Learn Magic Tricks as a Professional Magician?

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

Marco asks: ‘How long should you need to learn magic tricks to become a professional magician?‘

That’s a really good question, but it does need some clarification.

To answer it, we need to define what a professional magician means.

It could have two meanings:

1) It could mean a someone who performs magic tricks to the public for money. A professional treats a subject as a business. For professional magicians, the factors that are important to success are just as much about marketing and business as they are about how to learn magic tricks.

2) Professional magician could refer to someone who attempts to master each magic trick that they choose to learn. They treat the subject seriously and develop their technique and performance skills. Unlike a causal performer, you treats magic as a toy or recreational activity, the magician takes on a professional approach to developing their skills.

For Marco’s question we have assumed option 2. A way to rephrase it would be to ask:

How long does it take to learn magic tricks?

In short, the answer is as many as possible!
The first thing you need to do to learn magic tricks proficiently is get a good practice routine set out. Some of the magic tricks you should learn will need you to practice individual sleights and moves separately before rolling them all into one routine, which can then be drilled. Other magic tricks will require you practice the whole routine from start to finish as they only work when performed in a flowing manner.
There is a book called Outliers in which the author Malcolm Gladwell talks frequently of the “10,000-Hour Rule”. This rule states that the key to success in any line of work, to a large extent, is a matter of practicing your specific task for a total of 10,000 hours.

This is a good guide for how long one must practice to learn magic tricks inside out and upside down. This amount of practice will shape you into a technical and very skilled magician. Unfortunately, it won’t make you an amazing entertainer. This is something to keep in mind when performing professionally; entertainment is paramount.

In order to learn magic tricks to a professional level requires far more skills than sleight of hand. More experienced magicians will already have developed their performing style and have knowledge that they can apply to each new trick that they take on. How long it takes to learn a magic trick, really depends on your previous experience, just as much as the amount of time you can commit to learning.

The secret to learn magic tricks faster.

The secret isn’t sitting alone running through a magic trick 10,000 times. It’s about practicing the moves, rehearsing the presentation and then getting out and performing it as much as possible. Professional magicians may perform some of their magic tricks 20-30 times per night. That’s a LOT of repetition. If you are not doing magic commercially, you still need to drill a new trick as much as possible, so you can master it.

Learn magic tricks that are good for beginners.

We shan’t give you actual names of magic tricks to learn as everyone is different, but we can guide you by telling you what to look for in a good magic trick when you begin your journey.

In general, you should learn magic tricks that are short in execution and routine, long winded routines can become boring for spectators. It can take a lot of your attention to remember all the process involved in a long routine; this will definitely show in your performance, which is not good.
Try to learn magic tricks that can be described in one sentence. For example, ‘I selected a card and it appeared on the other side of the window!’. If you find magic tricks to learn that are easily explained then your audiences will talk about your performance to others, this is a good thing.

It is best to learn magic tricks that are not too far out of your comfort zone. It is great to push what you do but as far as practicing magic that you intend to show people it is best to learn magic tricks that are not too advanced. Performing magic tricks above your technical abilities will show when you perform them to people, and they may see through your technique; this will ultimately end up ruining the magic.

Don’t try to learn magic too fast. Slow down, master the basics first. By all means practice magic tricks that are out of your comfort zone as this is the only way to push forward. However you should resist showing people these magic tricks until you have perfected them and can perform them with patter flawlessly.

How to learn magic tricks : Practice A Better Way To Practice

Learn magic tricks with context and meaning

Learn magic tricks with coins

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