Mistakes!

Nov 27, 2009
456
3
Hopefully this will be an entertaining thread. My question to you guys is this, what's the biggest mistake, magical or cultural, you've ever made during a performance? And also, what's the best "recovery" you've ever made?

For me, my best recovery was doing the Invisible Deck with a normal deck. I had pulled the wrong deck out of my bag after going through the entire thing of having them imagine a deck and flip a card over in the deck, all the usual Invisible Deck presentation. When I realized I'd pulled the wrong deck out I thought on my feet and was able to generate enough misdirection to finish the trick. I was able to spread the deck out on the table and reveal the reversed card and instantly continue with other effects. To this day, I don't think I've ever done a better Invisible Deck than that.
 
Feb 27, 2008
2,342
1
33
Grand prairie TX
Hopefully this will be an entertaining thread. My question to you guys is this, what's the biggest mistake, magical or cultural, you've ever made during a performance? And also, what's the best "recovery" you've ever made?

For me, my best recovery was doing the Invisible Deck with a normal deck. I had pulled the wrong deck out of my bag after going through the entire thing of having them imagine a deck and flip a card over in the deck, all the usual Invisible Deck presentation. When I realized I'd pulled the wrong deck out I thought on my feet and was able to generate enough misdirection to finish the trick. I was able to spread the deck out on the table and reveal the reversed card and instantly continue with other effects. To this day, I don't think I've ever done a better Invisible Deck than that.

At the moment I can't remember a mistake but I played up being able to read minds too much once that I was challenged to it with no cards, pads,etc. The man told me to guess what number he was thinking of. My plan was to just miss the number jokingly and go into an effect keeping that number involved. I said "easy, your saying the number out loud in your head right now so I can pick it up fast. you're thinking of 37."
I was right. He believes in real paranormal abilities now.
 
You're of course going to get the bedroom-professionals on here saying " Don't make mistakes... practice more " .... but

this is a GREAT thread.

Amazing recovery. Making up outs on the spot creates some incredible stories.

I performing for a few women in a club (on a night out... not working) and I perform an effect where a random number they get to is my phone number (As seen on Dynamo:: Magician Impossible) ... anyway.. the outcome came out as my friends number and not mine ... so as it was ringing I whispered " say 7 " to him.
Then did a psych force of the number 7 to her and said ... this will be even more freaky if you're thinking of the same number. At the count of 3, both say what number you're thinking of. 1,2,3 ... and they both said 7.
Reactions were even better than if i'd did the original version.
 
Nov 27, 2009
456
3
I like what I'm seeing, keep this going. (Lets see if we can beat the "you know your a cardist when..." thread. lol)
 

RickEverhart

forum moderator / t11
Elite Member
Sep 14, 2008
3,637
471
46
Louisville, OH
Just had a mistake in my kids show last week. It was a "shoot a card" effect where I have the child come up and he gets a cowboy hat on, picks a selected card, I lose it in the deck, the kid fires the gun at the deck and I am "supposed" to ribbon spread and there should be one card with a big burnt hole through the card. Well...when I went to force the card from a mirage deck, the child stopped me at a point where there wasn't a force card (because I didn't check my deck set up from the show prior...dumb me) and boy did I look silly when I held up the card with the hole through it and asked if it was his card....NOPE...he said. Ha Ha.
 

Jay Adra

Elite Member
Jul 11, 2011
332
3
Australia
www.jayadra.com
I thought I'd give the old Blaine 'think of a number' trick a go (don't know if there's a name for it) and it worked out (I guessed his number: 37). But unfortunately he was adamant that I do it again and reluctantly I agreed. This time I said make it a number with even digits. I just took a guess at 24 because I thought that was common, but he was thinking of 14 or something (not even digits) so he thought of another one. I wasn't confident with my common number eliminated and once again guessed at 28. It was. He almost attacked me...
 
Sep 16, 2011
57
0
Leeds, UK
Yesterday I performed my first ever 'live' magic for someone else. I have only been learning Magic for a month now, and have been practicing an ACR for the last week intensively. I messed up REALLY badly. All week I have been doing the routine with no problems what so ever, so I thought I'd give it a go for my wife. I showed cards I shouldn't have, almost dropped the deck twice and then to top it off I LOST the card she had picked. No recovery from that! ha ha ha! Luckily she knows I'm only learning and she's not THAT interested so she isn't bothered if I make a mistake. I just got incredibly nervous. It's good to see that even the best of you guys make mistakes. lol.

Now, I'm off to practice some more!
 
Mar 27, 2010
136
0
I was invited as a special guest in a magician friend close up show he had in a little theater. So i was doing my routine when i do the DaOrtiz version of the "21 cards" autamatic trick (or whatever is the english version name). So at the end... y messed up the card and i totally blamed the spectator saying "how could you chose that card when it was in the card case all along?"... Everyone clapping standing up and my magician friend was like "wtf just happened?"
 
Jun 1, 2009
1,066
6
I was performing that "slap" trick, but when I was placing one of the cards that wasn't theirs on the table it flipped over and showed that it was theirs. I just picked it up, put it back in the deck, did a swing cut, and palmed it out from the middle of the deck and revealed it in my pocket. They all freaked out.

My favorite out is card to pocket, it's perfect. "Well of course that's not your card, since it's here instead." Fries 'em.
 
Mar 6, 2008
1,483
3
A Land Down Under
I was performing my book test routine the other evening at a show. Part of the routine I use Ken Dyne's Whisper to have the spectator read the other spectators mind.

So everything went perfectly however the person who had the book apparently was looking at the book upsidedown. I was playing with the reveals a bit and I got the spectator to show what they had written. When I confirmed if it was the word the first spectator had chosen, they informed me the book was upside down. Without missing a beat the spectator who was reading mins rotated the pad and asked if the word looked like that.

The whole audience were in histerics and I developed a new out if I have to deal with a problem spectator.
 
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