your magic routine

[Fallen_Angel_of_Luck]

Hey guys i'm tempted to try my hand at a bit of semi-professional magic? so i was wondering what kinda routine you guys have cause i know a lot of tricks but like i tend not to have a routine about it which isn't good cause then i tend to forget tricks i can perform. So can you guys give me some ideas about routines. PS. i only do cards atm

[Don Boyer]

Try finding ways to tie your tricks together in a natural flow.  For example, I follow a gambling stunt that leaves my spectator with four aces while I'm holding a straight flush with a trick that uses those four aces, or one of the many variants of "pick a card, any card, is this your card?" with a trick that uses that "lucky" card in a secret card switch that starts with him holding his card and me a joker and ends the other way around, all in his plain sight.  When you can find a natural segue from one trick to another, it's almost as if you're performing one long, continuous trick with many climaxes.  They'll be easier to remember.

A good way to build up experience aside from the countless performances your family and friends have seen by now would be to try the "street magic" method, performing for strangers in public places, or by volunteering to entertain at a local hospital.  I've done both, they're great experiences.

[AceGambit]

Semi-Professional Magic as in stage performances?  or paid walk arounds?  If you're doing stage magic, I can be of zero assistance.  In your face close up is my thing.


For close up with cards, it's nice to start with something quick and visual.  If you want to run through an ambitious card routine that's fine, but I recommend that you start with something a little more eye popping that just "it goes in the middle, I snap, and LOOK! it's on top!"


I like to start off an ACR with "Pick a card", then I tell a quick story about bent cards and gamblers, their card goes in the middle, and then by magic of the Braue pop-up move, their card visibly jumps to the top.  This catches their attention because they saw it happen.  From there depending on the venue and audience, I will cater the rest of the performance accordingly. 


Ex.
If I'm in a club and loud music is playing, I will go for things that don't require a lot of patter.  If it's quiet enough for patter, and the audience is engaged enough, I'll spring for some harder hitting effects like 2-Card monte or stigmata.


The most important thing about a routine is to establish a flow.  If you just stand there and do some tricks, it's great, but you'll often get caught up trying to think of what to do next.  If you plan accordingly, the audience has a theme or at least some sort of concentration throughout it that will follow through with them.

After a few simple things, I like to engage a few audience members in an "experiment of imagination".  They pick a card, return it anywhere in the deck.  Then after some babble about how if you imagine something hard enough it can actually come true.  I mimic pulling their card from the pack, showing it to them, and asking them to really imagine that they can see their card, then putting it back in face up.  Then when I spread the cards with their card face up, it's a pretty hard hitting moment.  More importantly, when I do stigmata later, and ask them to "Imagine their card on a big white movie screen", the verbal anchoring takes hold and it really ties everything up in a neat little bow.

[Don Boyer]

AceGambit has some great points there.  Visual is good, and patter doesn't work in environments where people can't hear it.


I started doing simple double-lift/card control tricks, very basic sleight of hand, but I topped the finale reveal where the stranger card becomes their card with a solid puff of Pure Smoke.  People call it the best trick they've ever seen! The trick itself is unremarkable, but the visual effect had a huge impact and totally skewed their perception of the trick.

[John B.]

One thing i always try to add in when im performing in a magicians fail, where it looks like you messed up and you keep doing it and in the end you were right.

[MrLukeCarroll]

In relation to the posts above are you looking at close-up or stage/stand-up? I'm the opposite as the ones above, I can help  more with stage/stand-up than close-up (Even though I do sometimes perform it professionally).

and as MrMagic said Magician in trouble always works well and there is a lot of spectators who are either there to see how your tricks work or watch you fail and this pleases that type of spectator until you zing them with the ending.