Hey Guys, you may have noticed my lack of presence around the boards lately which is due to a few exciting projects I'm working on. One of them happens to be ideas for my new stage show, pondering the ideas got me thinking about what style of show I wanted to do this time around. Last time my show was about 90% magic and a small part of it was Mentalism (Outcomes prediction locked in box since start of show).

Was just wondering what you guys prefer in a show from a magician - Purely magic, an even amount of each or like my last show a small amount of Mentalism but mostly Magic.

The reason for asking is that I've recently got my hands on a copy of the book about David Berglas and have come across some really nice ideas for Mentalism tricks which I can come up with some nice original presentations for. I recommend this book to anyone interested in such Mentalism. (Derren Brown gets some of his best stage show material from this book).

I look forward to hearing your responses

In about 1 hour (At 9pm Eastern in the US) Franz Harary will be having a free online lecture on Penguinmagic.com , Whilst I know not many of you here do stage magic I think the talk should be really informative to anyone interested in magic at all, and for free how can you go wrong?


Seats still seem to be available so hopefully anyone who wants to come will be able to, also if you miss the lecture there will be a download available after it for anyone who had a seat booked.


The link is here - [size=78%]http://www.penguinmagic.com/p/2634[/size]


I'll be there, anyone else here going to drop in

Hey guys I was just wondering if anyone knew where I could watch or get hold of all of the TV Specials David Copperfield did over the years. I have the Illusion DVD by him which is basically a best of the rest of his TV specials but would love to watch them all in their entirety. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

So I had the pleasure of seeing the opening night of a brand new magic show with 5 amazing magicians, an escape artist and a mentalist. Below is what the website says about the show -






Included in the show was (With their show given nicknames) -


Kevin James (The Inventor) - Simply my favorite magician of the whole show, I've seen both him and David Copperfield perform his floating rose routine and he does it so much better, the smile of the little girls face when she makes the paper float brought a tear to my eye and is truly what magic is about. He also performed his Charlie Chaplin routine, Snowstorm and his Chainsawed lady routine.


Jeff Hobson (The Trickster) - The funniest comedy magician I've ever had the pleasure of seeing live. I have actually performed his Balloon bag routine before but seeing him perform it himself was such a great, side splitting experience. Also his card to mouth was the best presentation of this classic effect I have ever seen. Also performing such classics as the egg bag and the professors nightmare giving them his own hilarious flare. His watch stealing throughout the show is also priceless when you find out about it at the end.


Brett Daniels (The Grand Illusionist) - Brett stepped into a hard category for me of "Grand Illusionist", after seeing David Copperfield live previously he had a lot to live up too. His first trick with a carriage complete with horses appearing on the stage through an apparently see-through curtain was simply amazing and took me a while to lift my mouth off the floor. However after this when he went on to his Marilyn Munroe routine, his props made a fatal mistake creating a large problem in his routine, something which was noticed by me but no-one else I went with (I was the only magician). After this he appeared to be very nervous and his hands we're shaking during a card manipulation routine he performed. Also by Brett we saw a levitation and vanish of a girl, a classic motorcycle vanish and reappearance and his classic jet fan routine. Whilst not as good as Mr Copperfield and forgiving his mistakes I quite enjoyed Brett Daniels performances.


Dan Sperry (The Anti-Conjurer) - A magician who Isn't bad in small piece of magic like his Lifesaver routine but one who everyone I went with didn't like in larger doses. I quite enjoy his lifesaver routine and it is the one he started with but later he moved onto tricks like "Russian Roulette" (Knife under one of four bags) and began basically abusing the people who came up onto the stage to help him. So whilst I don't mind some of his routines he was my least favorite magician of the night.


James Dimmamare (The Gentleman) - A classic dove type magician who whilst amazing at what he did, didn't really seem to fit in this style of show that was meant to "Bring the age old art of magic into the 21st century". So even though he was amazing and the best magician at that type of thing I have ever seen he really should not have appeared in this show.


Philip Escoffey (The Mentalist) - Quite an enjoyable mentalist and a nice change-up from magic every now and then. Whilst all of his methods we're quite obvious to me (Apart from one) I still really enjoyed watching him and seeing his use of classic magic method but using them in a completely different presentation style.


Andrew Basso (The Escapologist) - During the first piece of the show when everyone was on stage at once he was hanging upside down doing a classic straight jacket escape and once he had finished and was placed on the floor I noticed a large amount of stage hands rush in and carry him off, for the rest of the show the only piece he performed in was an amazing history of the cups and balls piece done by every magician in the show. So my guess is that he injured himself in such a way that he could no longer perform his water tank escape and any other pieces he had lined up to perform.




So whilst this show was not without its hiccups It was one of the two best magic shows I have ever seen in my entire life. The running time advertised on the website was 2 hours with a 20 minute intermission however it actually went for 3 hours and 20 minutes (My guess is that they all have fill-in acts if need be like when Andrew hurt himself). Even though I know hardly any of you are from Australia if you are go see this show for your once in a lifetime chance to see all of these amazing magicians and performers for about the cost it would usually cost you to go see just one of these guys evening shows.

Hey guys I'm wondering if anyone would be able to work out the stack used in the trick below (PM me if you want)


I'm working on designing a similar type effect myself to use in my own shows but am not mathematically able to work out the exact stack that the cards need to start in.


Any help would be greatly appreciated cheers


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9rsDG0ZDOI&feature=plcp&context=C3e09e05UDOEgsToPDskJDG_haIfL0CUaMZNRxaQ-d

Hey guys I've seen these cards used by quite a few magicians in different presentations, and I know you can get them in like flash cards (Like in the video below) and you can also get them in normal playing cards.


My question is does anyone know the actual name of this style of deck, cheers.


(The deck comes into play about 4:30 into the video, its a great show all around though ;P)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qni3CJRFM2I

Basically as the forum subject asks does anyone else do either Stage magic, stand-up magic or children's show magic, just wondering if I'm alone on the forums on this topic

Hey guys my name is Luke and I'm a Uni student and Professional Children's Show magician from Australia

I've been passionate about magic for more then 10 years and have only in the past year made if my professional career.

I look forward to getting to know you all