2023's Magifest convention is now over, but the magic continues. The venue was packed, the acts were top-notch, and the Dealer's Room was filled with so many great things.

Not only was this my first time attending Magifest, it was actually my first time attending any magic conference. I didn't really know what to expect, other than magic. I also didn't know anyone that was going, not including the few people I follow on Instagram -- but, I wouldn't count them since I don't actually know them.

So, I went into this one on my own with no expectations. The only thing I really wanted was to have a good time and experience magic. Here's a recap of the convention, from my experience, and the takeaways I have.

Convention Recap

Magifest itself took place from Thursday through Saturday. Sunday was also part of the convention, but only for 2 separate workshops that were hosted by Shoot Ogawa and Mark Calabrese.

The Venue

The conference was held at the Renaissance, Columbus Downtown hotel in Columbus, Ohio. All of the acts (or lectures) took place in the same large room and seating was, well, let's just say not friendly for anyone wanting to have any kind of personal space.

Adjacent to that large room was the Dealer's Room, but we'll talk about that a little more down below.

There was a large common area with a decent number of large round tables where folks would sit and show off tricks that they've been working on. Frequently there would be a table that gathered a standing crowd of fellow-magicians and applause would break out.

Another room, separate from these but on the same floor of the hotel, was where the youth program was held. Not being a youth myself, and not being one of the assistants, I didn't make it into that room so I don't have a ton of info about it.

The Gala Show, the big headliner show, was also held in the large room where the other lectures were. The big difference is that they ended up taking down the wall separating it from the Dealer's Room to make more space. Seating was even more cramped during that show, but trust me when I say that it only mattered while waiting for the show to start.

There were a few restaurants within walking distance of the hotel, and a coffee shop or two. The only issue with the coffee shops was that they closed at 2pm... but that's a discussion for a different day.

Let's Talk About the Dealer's Room

Lucy Darling, the MC of the Gala Show, put it perfectly:

I made the mistake of going into the Dealer's Room within the first 10 minutes of it opening on the first day. There was zero space to move. It was packed. I came back a few times throughout the weekend and it never really got much better until around 5pm on Saturday, a half hour before it shut-down for good.

I also overheard folks talking that the dealers themselves had even less space. Behind their tables, there was almost no space for walking, let alone storage. That aside though, they all did an amazing job in my opinion.

There were tables with books. Tables with decks. A table for deck alterations. More books. Pamphlets. Magic props. More books. Close-up pads. Even more magic props. And, did I mention books, or decks? They had them all! There were 28 dealers that were there sponsoring the event, and that doesn't include the lecture notes and whatnot that were available for purchase by the lecturers!

A Brief Look at the Jam-Packed Schedule

When I bought my Magifest ticket, it was still during the pre-sale time and Thursday's schedule was "Charles Green Historical Lecture", and that was it. Checking the schedule a day or two before the event itself, whoah!

Here's a quick overview of what the lectures were -- I'm omitting the youth events, of which there were several, since they didn't apply to me.

Thursday

• Charles Greene Historical Lecture. The first lecture of the convention and Charles Greene took us on a journey into the past to explore the life of Ionia.
• Michel Huot Lecture. Michel Huot performed several unique and creative magic routines, and gave us the behind-the-scenes on how to perform them.
• Mark James Show. Mark put on an hour-long stage show, delivering a high energy approach to classic magic effects.
• Peter Turner Show and Lecture. The mentalist performed several effects, including dropping an audience member to the floor, and then let us all in on the secrets!

Friday

• Kyle Purnell Lecture. Kyle performed several really killer routines and then showed off the secrets behind them which happened to be just as impressive.
• Mortenn Christiansen Lecture. Mortenn performed a handful of original close-up and parlor magic routines, each with a comedic twist, and then blew our minds with how to do each.
• The Magifest Session. Charles Green performed, and explained, a few effects, followed by a presentation by Margalit Fox (author of the book The Confidence Men -- a true story about two men who used mentalism to escape from a POW camp). Additionally, there was a presentation from the Gahana High School Magic Program, featuring magic from students with disabilities.
• Mark Calabrese Lecture. Mark taught us some practical, doable card magic -- as long as you're willing to put in the practice!
• The Matt Pritchard Experience. Matt gave us a view from the "other" camera for some of his most famous online viral videos, hoping to lead to inspiration for the next big wave of illusions.
• Lance Burton Interview. Lance sat down for a candid, in-depth interview about his career.
• David Gerard Show. If you want to see a guy who's downed one-too-many red bulls but is still able to blow your mind by telling you what the name of your favorite stuffed animal you had when you grew up in a bedroom on the 2nd floor, 2 doors to the left -- this is just the show for you!
• You Flash, You Lose with Chris Ramsay and friends. If you don't know, YouTube is your friend =P
• Bar Magic with Mark Calabrese. Mark chilled behind a bar and entertained group after group of magicians who came for the show.

Saturday

• Mark James Lecture. Mark was back and this time he taught us how to do several of the tricks from his show. On top of that, he went through several points about how to make a successful show (not an act!).
• Paul Gertner Show and Lecture. Paul was supposed to perform, and then teach -- like most lectures -- but it was mostly a talk. He gave a lot of insight into the Fool Us world, and he did show how several of his routines worked though.
• David Gerard Marketing Lecture. David provided a lot of experienced information on how to market and brand yourself to achieve the bookings you're after.
• Shoot Ogawa Lecture. Shoot shared some of the magic he took around the world, from Linking Rings to Coins, even disappearing a wand!
• Gala Show. MC'd by Lucy Darling, the show featured acts by Ruben Vilagrand, Mortenn Christiansen, Erik Tait, Paul Gertner, Shoot Ogawa, and JunWoo Park
• Bar Magic with Mark Calabrese.

Sunday

Sunday was a special day; part of the conference, but separate. There were two workshops that day, I believe they were 3 hours each:

• Shoot Ogawa Workshop
• Mark Calabrese Workshop

I didn't attend either of them, but boy would it have been a great time.

My Experience and Takeaways

Overall, it was an amazing experience. Exhausting and overwhelming, but amazing.

There were so many people there, and not knowing anyone, definitely made it overwhelming. I was also not familiar with the area, so add to it the fun time of finding food and boy was I tired by the end of the night.

As would be expected, some lectures were better than others. However, none were bad -- which is a great thing. I did end up skipping one or two of them because they didn't sound like my thing, and I have no regrets about it.

The very first lecture, by Charles Greene, was informative and everything, but I felt like it didn't fit with Magifest. I read all about his book from Genii, and this lecture was a further extension of that. He spoke about Ionia, a woman who was a magician for a couple of years when she was younger and then she disavowed that part of her life and moved on to other things. The lecture focused on a lot of those "other things". Again, while informative, it did actually scare me a little into thinking that Magifest wasn't going to be anything like what I thought it was.

And then, Michel Huot came on stage! This guy was so fun, and I absolutely loved how he started showing how the tricks were done -- in full detail, and there was Q&A. Later on I found out that this was normal -- and the other lectures all did this too.

Mark Jame's show was fun, as was his lecture. They were "classics" in magic and while not card tricks, I actually knew how most were done! I felt kind of proud about that.

Peter Turner's show was really, really good. And then, he revealed how the mentalism tricks were done. I want to point out that I have the How to Read Minds and How to Control Minds kits, as well as Turner's whole "The Legacy Collection" of books... as well as a few other mentalism books. And yet still, while watching his performance, everything was just unbelievable. Unlike most magic tricks -- for me anyways -- when he revealed how they were done, I was very underwhelmed. Yes, I get the whole "once you learn the method it ruins the experience" concept for magic, but mentalism tricks just seem to go from amazing to "ugh" really quick once you figure out the secret.

Kyle Purnell's lecture was really, really great. His was the first one that I realized that there were lecture notes and things for, but there wasn't a break between his lecture and Mortenn Christiansen's -- the only lectures in all of Magifest like that -- and I figured I'd go grab them after Mortenn's. Unfortunately, everything was sold out =[

Speaking of which though, Mortenn's lecture blew me away. Similar to Kyle's, there were just things I had never contemplated before. You can be sure, I grabbed a copy of Mortenn's lecture notes!

Mark Calabrese was vulgarly fun. I first heard of him from Vanishing Inc's Experts at the Card Table. His lecture here was fairly similar, touching on second dealing and even a sneaky negative stripper card. I snagged his lecture notes too.

Matt Pritchard's lecture was less about person-to-person magic and more about visual, or social media magic. Camera tricks, so to speak. The level of work he put into some of his videos is amazing. Anyone at home can do it, but not many people could do it. If that makes sense.

David Gerard, holy crap. So, remember up above when I talked about Peter Turner and mentalism? David Gerard was that... except I'm pretty sure he downed a pot of coffee immediately before coming out on stage. I can't begin to explain the level of amazing that this act contained, it was simply mind blowing.

Paul Gertner gave us a lot of really cool behind-the-scenes information about the Fool Us show. It was nice to learn about, and to also get a chance to learn how he built -- and performed -- some of his routines. Like a can of coke under a small metal cup!

But, let's not forget the last lecture of the event, Shoot Ogawa. His entire talk had the audience -- likely 99% of which were magicians -- on the edge of their seats and holding their breath. In addition to being an expert sleight of hand artist, he also very clearly excels at audience control. His ability to control a coin and appear as natural as possible, while insanely difficult, also makes me want to start doing coin work... something I thought I wouldn't really care too much about.

Gala Show

I came back to the venue about a half an hour before the Gala Show was scheduled to start. I wanted to get a good seat upfront and center. All of my seats for the other shows were off to the side and while close, they required a bit of neck stretching. Unfortunately, even arriving 30 minutes early put me into a line that was a few hundred people deep. Yikes!

We eventually made our way into the expanded room where attendants were seating people row by row. I was quite literally shoulder-to-shoulder to both my neighbors until I scooted my chair forward so my knees were pressing to the back of the seat in front of me, but at least me and my neighbors now had breathing room.

The show kicked off with Lucy Darling as the host. I don't know why, but I was really excited to see her. I remember reading about her in Genii, but seeing her persona live and in person was next level.

Ruben Vilagrand, Mortenn Christiansen, and Shoot Ogawa each performed their winning FISM acts. I'm not sure if the other acts that were performed were the FISM-winning ones though.

Ruben was the first one out and it was a really, really fun experience.

And then, there was Mortenn. I tried explaining his act to my wife and quite honestly had a lack of words. However, one thing I am absolutely certain of is that I have never, never seen a standing ovation so loud and well-deserved. His act was by far one of the best magical acts I've experienced.

Erik Tait's act had a bad camera angle. If he were on "You Flash, You Lose", he would've lost -- and the audience groaned a time or two also. I was kind of surprised that he performed a three card monte routine too. The other acts were all very unique and robust, but Erik just did a normal three card monte demonstration. He mentioned that there were "invisible cards", but again, from the camera angle we had -- pointed straight at the edge of the table -- we saw everything.

Paul Gertner performed his dice act from Penn & Teller; if you know it, you know it. If you don't know it, he explained how it was done in his lecture too. All-in-all, it was nice to see it performed live.

Shoot Ogawa blew all of our minds with a spoon. A freaking spoon. And his "Japanese power". And a spoon.

JunWoo Park, whom I actually never heard of before coming to Magifest, came out and pumped up the jams! He performed a music-choreographed card manipulation routine that was very, very awesome. Afterwards, I found a clip or two of him on America's Got Talent that had portions of this routine, but none of them compare to the full thing that we saw.

By the way, did I mention Shoot's spoon? 🤯

Building Relationships

During my flight to Ohio, I imagined that the first day at the convention I'd be meeting a lot of people and -- if all went well -- clicking with a group who I'd be able to hang out with throughout the rest of the convention. Folks that I could grab lunch or dinner with, session with, and eventually upon leaving the convention still keep in contact with. Unfortunately, that never happened.

There were so many people at Magifest. I kept hearing the number 1,000 thrown around, but I don't know if that's an official count or estimation or what. The issue with having a small venue with a large number of people is that there isn't an opportunity to "find a group". Yes, I met a bunch of people. Yes, I was able to session with a couple. No, I didn't really come away knowing anyone or building a relationship -- and that's unfortunate. I regularly grabbed an open chair at a table, and I didn't hesitate to "just talk" to people around me. Even at the bar downstairs I engaged in conversation and magic. And yet, with so many people around, it just didn't work out this time around.

I did, however, get a chance to say hi to many people that I've only talked to -- or followed -- online. I had a brief chat with Josh Jay (even though I hardly saw the guy at the conference), I spoke with Kyle Littleton, and Ryan Schlutz. I was able to give Mortenn Christiansen praise, and I had a conversation with Kyle Purnell about his lecture and his appearance on Fool Us that aired on Friday!

The best chat I had was actually with Chris Ramsay though. He had just arrived and I happened to be in the bar downstairs. The rest of the guys from the Big Trick Energy show were there too, but since he had come in only a few minutes before, the crowd of Magifest attendees weren't aware that he was there ... trust me, once they found out, it was a swarm of signature requests and photo ops. However, I had a chance to ask him about a trick I saw him perform once and he was so helpful in sharing how it was done. The trick itself is a "Do as I Do" routine, but I had never seen or read about one that came off that cleanly before -- and now I know why! While I doubt Chris reads my blog, I just want to say thank you again because I've been practicing it since then. I can't wait to be ready to show it off!

So, yeah. Magifest, 2023.

I had a great time there. I do wish that I came away with a friend or two that I could've kept in contact with, but I did come away with new goals and direction for how I practice. Next time, and yes there will be a next time, I'll try to be even more sociable.

Thank you Vanishing Inc. for putting on such a great convention!

Today, I'm heading to Magifest! It'll be the first magic convention I've ever attended, and I couldn't be more excited.

I'm getting into Columbus, Ohio early enough to be able to check-in to my hotel -- which is not the hotel that the event is at -- and grab some lunch. When I bought my ticket to Magifest, Thursday only had a single event on it from 5:30pm - 6:30pm (besides the Dealer's Room opening). Now, there's a whole list of things and it goes all the way until 11pm! Friday and Saturday are jam-packed too and go really late. Here's the full list of magicians doing shows and lectures and whatnot:

• Charles Greene
• Michel Huot
• Mark James
• Peter Turner
• Kyle Purnell
• Mortenn Christiansen
• Margalit Fox
• Mark Calabrese
• Matt Pritchard
• Lance Burton
• David Gerard
• Chris Ramsay (and friends)
• Mark James
• Paul Gertner
• Shoot Ogawa
• Lucy Darling
• Erik Tait
• Ruben Vilagrand
• JunWoo Park

There isn't a show that I want to see more than the others, I think they'll all be good to check out. I do, however, lean towards the Bar Magic with Mark Calabrese sessions at the end of the night. They might fit into my scene a bit more than some of the others. But, we'll see.

I have to return home on Sunday, so I'll be missing the workshops by Shoot and Mark. I'm sure they will be amazing, but maybe next time for me.

Is it sad that the biggest debate I've been having is what decks to bring? And, how many? I think I'll bring 3. It should be more than enough, and besides, if anything happens I'm sure I can find a deck of cards there =P. I'll also be wearing TIES, though I haven't practiced with them enough to actually do anything -- but you never know.

I'll likely skip next Monday's post because of my late return. I'll publish a whole review of the convention when I'm back though!

All of this is conditional that my flight isn't cancelled due to snow though...

Penn & Teller: Fool Us is a TV talent show that is filmed in front of a live audience (or, virtual audience during the pandemic). Oh, and we can't forget to mention that Penn and Teller are there too -- they're the judges!

During each episode, four magicians perform a magic act for Penn & Teller which, at the end of each act the magician-comedian duo try to deduce how the trick was done. In very articulate speech, Penn -- as Teller remains characteristically silent -- commends the magician on a job well done. If the magic act fooled Penn & Teller, they win a sweet Fool Us trophy and a trip to Vegas to be the opening act for Penn & Teller's show!

I want my opinions below to reflect those of a spectator who just saw a performance live. To achieve this, I've only watched this episode once. In real time - no pausing. No slow motion. Once through, with commercials and with my kids enjoying it with me too. Did I remember everything I saw? Did I see everything that happened? Do I remember the exact words that were said? Maybe, but likely not -- which means if I over-portray an effect below then it was just that great of a trick. If I under-portray it, well, yeah. So let's see what this episode's got in store for us!

Episode Recap

This episode was all about animals! Specifically, magic with animals. In each performance, including Penn & Teller's at the end of the show, an animal was included and often was the medium through which the magic was performed. Typically, Fool Us episodes are pieced together from different acts throughout the season; however, it was clear that this was specifically an all-animal episode filmed on purpose. Alyson made several comments as such, which could have been simply recorded after the season was ready to be honest, however, Nick Paul -- one of the performers -- did say that he was excited to be there on the "all animal episode". So that's cool =]

The fooler of the night's episode was Jo De Rijck. Each of the performances were unique, mostly because of the animals, but also similar because they all involved either a prediction, or the animal finding a selection. The performers themselves were all very different. Read on below to get the nitty-gritty of each routine!

Jo De Rijck

Jo has been performing his whole life, just about. There was even a brief stint there where he was a professional clown -- a man after Penn's heart =P. https://www.joderijck.com/His website has some interesting information about him, but the most relevant is his pet chicken named Curry. Curry is the chicken that Jo used to fool Penn and Teller the first time around. Apparently, this chicken knows more than 20 different stunts! Mind blowing 🤯

Jo's performance was a mentalism routine, specifically of the mind-reading nature. However, he wasn't the one doing the mind reading. No, his pet snake (who identifies as a dolphin) was the one with the special powers.

Backing up a bit though, Jo started the routine by having Teller take 5 objects from the stage and placing them into a big bucket. After returning to his seat, Penn and Teller selected one of the objects and placed it into a smaller bucket with a lid -- all while Jo's had a bucket over his own head. And here's where things got interesting.

Jo brought out his pet dolphin, Willy. Willy was actually a snake, but again, a snake who identifies as a dolphin =P.

Terrified Alyson had the task of holding Willy and feeling his communication methods, whatever it is that those are. She went up to each spot where one of the original 5 objects had sat and held Willy up to each spot. The premise was that Willy would be able to communicate to Alyson when he thought that that was the object that was placed in the bucket.

One-by-one, Alyson took Willy to the spots where the objects were and when they reached the last spot where the "coral" was, Alyson said yes. Teller opened the bucket and pulled out the coral!

Penn and Teller conversed, as usual, and when Penn was giving his speech at the end he didn't even bother guessing or trying to link the routine to anything else, he just flat out said that they were fooled by Willy! I... also have no idea how this was done. It was rather quick and to the point, but fooling altogether.

Nick Paul

Nick is a magician and comedian based in Los Angeles, and boy does he have some cheesy puns =P. I haven't seen any of his work before this episode of Fool Us, so I only know of his comedy from here. It was very well themed, so I give him scripting credits for it. He's done a ton of work in the field though and has been on several shows. Check out his IG (@realnickpaul) to get a peek into some of his work!

Nick's performance was mentalism and magic all wrapped into one. And, add to that the "failed magician in trouble" aspect, it had all the makings of a really good trick.

The name of Nick's routine was "name any animal," and he began everything with just that -- having Alyson come up with a name for an animal. She said "George".

Next up, Nick showed a list of 99 different animals. Penn and Teller came up with a number together, 77, which led to the animal "Lobster". Alyson was holding the list of animals and didn't say it out loud, but did say the animal above it and below it in the list.

He then pulled out a photo prediction he had made -- one that was sitting in front of the camera the whole time -- and it was a picture of, wait for it, a dog! Wait, what?! He failed =[

Alyson told him it was a lobster, so he unfolded the picture and it turned out to be a dog in a lobster costume! Then, an assistant brought out the live dog, also dressed in a lobster costume. Totally adorable.

Taking things to the next level, Nick then had his dog involved in a trick. He brought out a long bag that had 6 sleeves on it, each labeled A through F. Alyson, or the dog, picked one (D) and when Nick pulled out the card from the sleeve and turned it around, the back said "Treat"! Turning the whole bag around, all of the other cards said "Poop Bag" on the back!

Finally, grabbing a bag of dog treats he pulled a single treat out and said that inside of dog treats there are fortunes. He cracked it open and sure enough, a tiny piece of paper was inside. Unrolling the paper read:

So not only did he predict that "Lobster" would be the selected animal, but also that "George" was the name!

Penn and Teller weren't fooled by the routine. They, or Penn, gave a rather short statement or two about the performance and that was that.

There were a handful of things that stuck out to me as peculiar during this routine. First, why did Nick ask for the animal name above and below the selected one? He gave no explanation for it at all. Having read more than my fair share of magic and mentalism books, I know an answer to this. However, performance-wise, he should have spruced it up a bit with something like:

The other parts of the routine, from the actual animal selection itself, to the A-F selection, and the treat with a fortune inside, I know how they were done. However, knowing how it was done didn't make it any less enjoyable to watch. This was my favorite performance of the episode -- really well done Nick!

Sachin KM

I wasn't able to find much about Sachin on social media. He has a Facebook account, but it hasn't been updated since 2020. He has a few tricks for sale on Penguin Magic though, but that doesn't give us much in terms of a bio. The only big thing I found was that he's been in magic for over 20 years -- so that's cool!

Sachin's performance was recorded and streamed from his home country of India. He had a spectator select a card from a fairly tight spread, but nobody, not even the spectator, looked at it. After signing the back of the card with a silver marker, the spectator selected several other cards from the deck. They were all put together and mixed up. Then, turning them face up they were mixed further.

Sachin laid all of the cards in a row and allowed the spectator to mix them up even more, which he did. And then, out came the bird!

This pigeon was a spectacle to behold. Giant feathers ruffled here and there, it just waltzed straight out to the line of cards and pecked one. After pecking, it went back to the cage. What a well trained animal!

Sachin then turned over each card to reveal that the one the bird pecked was in fact the spectator's selection!

Overall, the routine was kind of lackluster in the effect-department. While it would be fun to see it in person and not streamed (streamed and on TV, no less), it still isn't a very strong routine in my opinion.

Initially, I was suspicious of the way the card was selected. He, Sachin, let the spectator pick cards twice -- once for the original selection and again for the other cards. The problem from a presentation perspective is that the selection processes were very different. The first, important, selection felt very forced because the spread between his hands was so tight and the spectator didn't actually get to pull a card out, Sachin simply laid it down for him... in a very controlled way. The second selection was open; he spread the entire deck across the table and let the spectator openly pull out cards. This discrepancy, whether true or not, gives me a plausible method to the routine too.

Christopher T and Sam

Christopher T., what a vibrant character. Just looking at this guy, I knew he was a kids' magician. Sure enough, that's his big audience. I've never heard of him -- which seems to be a side-theme of tonight's episode -- but he seems really fun. If you take a look at his website, he offers a few different types of shows, but they are all kid themed. However, truth be told they sound rather fun for adults too. His IG (@christophertmagician) has a lot of non-kid content though so I don't think he limits himself to only young audiences. Variety, it's the spice of life =]

This routine was pretty quick, so I'll get straight to it. Christopher T sat on a couch with his little dog, Sam. Bringing out a deck of cards, he spread through the cards and Sam pulled one out with his mouth. It was the 5 of Hearts.

Christopher pulled out a "prediction" envelope that had a paper inside with two bones drawn on it. Canine-ese, is what it was written in, and meant "5 of Hearts." Wiping the paper made parts of the bones disappear and it did in fact reveal the "5❤️"!

Taking it a step further, he turned the paper around and it was printed on a large 5❤️ card! But wait, there's more -- Sam's nametag on his collar also had the words "five of hearts" written on it. This card selection was very, very well predicted!

This, of course, didn't fool Penn and Teller. They didn't really appear to drop many clues as to knowing how it was done, not that they needed to, but they straight-up said "we don't think you fooled us".

I think that the idea was cute, incorporating a dog into the card magic routine. The card selection itself wasn't the best for on-camera though given that they zoomed in and we could see that one card was sticking out more than another, and Christopher very not nonchalantly forced it into Sam's grasp. For a single card selection, the number of predictions were a bit overkill too. At least, for me they were.

Penn & Teller

Penn & Teller ended the show with a pretty hilarious act. Alyson was standing in front of a podium table that had a magician's hat on it, upside down. Penn and Teller were standing on either side of her and Penn began his speech.

He went on and on about one of their performances on The Tonight Show with David Letterman and how they had the same setup that we saw there. Under the hat, when Letterman lifted it, was a ton of cockroaches. There were a lot of cockroaches. Alyson was apprehensive, to say the least.

"Lift the hat." Penn said. "Lift the hat."

She lifted the hat, and nothing was under it. Phew.

She put the hat back down and Penn says immediately, "Lift the hat again."

Alyson is on edge now, but she lifts the hat and there's a tiny box. Opening it and there's nothing frightening, it's a little stuffed animal. Phew.

"Lift the hat again."

She lifts the hat and expletives start flying, as do a bunch of butterflies all around her. All of the suspense and tension worked exactly on point!

Last but not least, turning the hat over revealed a live bunny! The animal style episode ended with the classic pulling a rabbit out of a hat routine. Perfection!

Takeaways

What an interesting theme for the night of magic. Other than holiday specials, I can't recall if they've ever done a themed night before. My guess is that they had 4 different acts all wanting to do magic with animals, so they decided a joint show would be neat. And neat it was! I wonder if they'll do any other themes in the future?

Either way, I'm excited for the next round of magic!

If you're interested in chatting more in-depth about any of the routines, feel free to reach out.

Imagine you're sitting at a table, across from a magician who's been showing a few tricks with a deck of cards. In his latest trick, you've selected a card and you yourself are currently shuffling the deck. The magician's taking a laid-back approach, sipping his coffee while he's saying things like "Okay, now flip over the top card and it'll be yours!" You do so, but it's not. Ouch, a missed. "Let's try again, cut the deck" he says. You do and then turn over the new top card and again, it's not yours. A few more times you try, each time a failure.

The magician says that you can stop your attempts, and then makes a comment that takes a second to register: "at least the coffee's good at magic." When you look at him inquisitively, you notice his gaze is at his coffee cup. Sitting under it, a single face down card. Pulling it out and turning it over, sure enough, it's your selection!

A good routine? I say it's okay. It's not a showstopper by any means. It's not original either -- it's the same concept as card in pocket, card under box, or any other "card anywhere not in the deck" routine at all. There's likely this exact routine printed somewhere already as it is. However, I haven't read it if it exists (or perhaps I have and I just skimmed over it as "yeah, easy-peasy").

However, I've always loved the idea of having a selected card appear under a glass. I've done the whole "card in pocket" stuff and while it's neat and gets a decent reaction, it's cliché to me. Card under box works too, but under a glass just feels more intimate because a glass wouldn't be part of the magic. It's just there.

So, how would we do this? Well, assuming a regular deck of cards, you'd need to get the spectator's card out of the deck after they selected it, but before they have the deck back. Palming it out in your preferred method, perhaps a top palm after controlling it to the top, or a gambler's cop after controlling it to the bottom. DPS, or even a lateral palm while replacing it into the deck. So many choices -- it just needs to be out of the deck and in your control. Then, you give the deck to the spectator.

While they're shuffling, take a sip from your cup. If you have the card in a classic palm, you could even be holding the cup with that same hand. Technically, several palms allow this action too (like a Tenkai palm) but mind your angles. Paying attention to the spectator's actions and not to your cup will cause them to ignore the cup as well. When placing it down on the table, have the card drop under it and continue directing the spectator as you will.

Until you pull their attention to the cup, they won't notice it. And yeah, the reveal itself is up to you.

What could make this routine better, perhaps better than just "okay"?

Well, if you could get the card under the spectator's cup -- that would be killer. I haven't come up with any non-obvious solutions to this yet, other than using a partner. However, it's something I'll continue working on because those types of reveals are amazing.

Another concept, and this would only work with really good crowd control or an energetic personality, is to have the spectator simply name a card and have it palmed out without appearing to go through the deck to look at for it, and then move into the routine as described above. A stacked deck would come in handy with this because you could quickly approximate where the card is and get to it in hardly a second. "Name a card, any card you want?" ... "7 of Clubs" ... "Any card at all? You want the 7 of Clubs? Okay, we can work with that." And before you're finished the last sentence, you already have the card palmed and then you move into a "here, you're going to find the card" and you guide them through fun cuts and shuffles and card reveals that just proves humorous. "You can't find the card? Well..."

Do you do any type of card under glass (or box, etc.) routines? I'd love to know what other kinds of presentations folks use, or your thoughts on any of the above. If you're interested in chatting, let me know here =]

A few months ago I was watching Matt Baker's Masterclass on Vanishing Inc. and one of his routines was absolutely amazing. Sorry, let me rephrase that: most of the routines were amazing. However, one of them really struck a chord with me: Twice as Nice. He explained that it was his "improved handling" of Simon Aronson's UnDo Influence Principle from the book Try the Impossible.

I had never read that book or heard of this principle, so this entire thing was absolutely mind-boggling to me. In an amazing way, of course. And naturally, I ordered Try the Impossible shortly thereafter.

This past week I read the book cover-to-cover. Per usual, I wrote notes about each routine and noted which ones I would like to practice, which sleights or tricks I can pull from different sections, etc. Now, while there were several routines that I'm interested in, the majority of the routines in the book just don't fit my style. Why? Because they are "spelling" routines.

What exactly is a "spelling" routine? The most basic version of the routine is something like:

A spectator selects a card from the deck and replaces it. The magician then shuffles the deck and asks the spectator the name of the card. Let's say it was the Nine of Diamonds. The magician will then count off one card for every letter in the name. N, I, N, E, O, F, D, I, A, M, O, N, D, S -- that's 14 cards -- and the last card will be the spectator's card!

There are many variations of this from spelling the name of the spectator, spelling a randomly chosen word, selecting another card and spelling it to reveal the original selection, and so on.

I... don't like these routines. As a spectator, they bore me. I have a math background, and I play with cards a lot. My first go-to "how was it done?" solution is that clearly, the magician had to either know the word(s) ahead of time or using combined outs will always spell to the selection. The routines in Try the Impossible -- and many other books that offer spelling tricks -- validate this too.

However, what really is a spelling trick? With the explanation above, it's just a number trick. Or a math-based trick. The same routine described above where they spelled "Geoff" could just as easily been to force the number "5" and count that many cards. It loses the personalization and extra impact, but it's the same effect.

Now, back to the UnDo Influence Principle by Aronson. The routine itself, as described in the book, is pretty nice. I would have been really skeptical about its presentation if I hadn't seen Baker's performance of his version of the routine though. Having saw the actual handling in video, whoa. Why skeptical? Well, because after having two cards selected by two different spectators, the magician handles the deck a little bit and then "hears from the jokers" special numbers. Then, he counts down from the top of the deck to those special numbers and the selected cards are there. Flipping over the jokers reveals the numbers written on the back of each.

While this would likely get a good reaction -- and yes, I will actually try to perform this exact routine too -- if I were the spectator, seeing the jokers having the numbers written on their backs would immediately trigger my math background and assume he controlled them to those spots during his handling. Would I have figured out the real method? Likely not -- but a spectator having a possible solution is like them having the actual solution.

Baker's version of the routine, in my opinion, removes that one negative that I have. The fact that the spectators not only select any card, but they also choose the two numbers, makes it that much better. I want to try to incorporate a little bit of DaOrtiz's psychological misdirection techniques when performing it too though. For example, he often will ask someone to think of any number and say it out loud and as they're saying it out loud, he turns to another person, ignoring the number, and has the other person select a card. After the card is selected, replaced, and deck put down, he turns back to the original person and says, "I asked you to think of a number? what number did you think of?" -- and psychologically, everyone will believe that the performer never touched the deck between getting the number and revealing the selection. How cool is that, right?

Why though, would these specific routines where we're counting to a specific number be more entertaining than spelling out the name of the selected card? To me, and I fully acknowledge that this is likely just personal preference, but when we start counting letters I start to tune out -- not just in card tricks, but in general. Projecting that to card tricks and as soon as we start spelling words from the dictionary while counting cards, I'm checked out. Counting to a specific number though, that's just feels more natural.

What are your thoughts? Is spell-counting to a selection a good effect?