Card tricks for 50 spectators

N

nspikito

Jul 8, 2008
14
0
Philadelphia/Pennsylvania/USA
I've been doing card magic for about a year. I'm a pretty decent amateur with a pretty large arsenal of sleights that I can do reasonably well, including passes, double lifts, false shuffles/cuts, fluorishes, and a variety of forces and controls. And I have roughly 25 card routines that I can pull off smoothly. I strut my stuff typically to a handful of spectators, anywhere from 1 to about 8 people at a time.
But I was just asked if I could show some of my tricks to a group of about 50 high school students, and I don't know what to say. Some of my hesitation is just performance anxiety, but I also don't know what card routines will work for a group that large. I'll have a table available. I don't know yet whether they will be sitting or just standing around.
Any general advice is welcome!
Spike
 
T

tian_ci

Dec 6, 2007
112
0
Knoxville, TN
Richard Osterlind-Radar Deck
Premonition by Eddie Joseph
Invisible Deck
Force a Card and reveal

Or here is another idea...
Learn some other magic tricks!

Matt
 
Mat La Vore

Mat La Vore

Nov 8, 2007
1,238
3
Invisible Deck
Tossed Out Deck
Cards Across (Las Vegas Leaper by Paul Harris is my personal favorite)

Good Luck!
 
BrianationX

BrianationX

Banned
Jul 13, 2008
263
0
There is no way that you can do card tricks for that many people
I would recomend doing Brian Tudor's Hypnotic but I doubt people would be able to tell whats going on.

Try doing a trick With Jumbo Cards
Get the biggest Ones
Or some sort of mentalist effect
 
Avatar603

Avatar603

Jul 8, 2008
55
0
Sunny and Smokey California
Hey another option is to just turn the offer down if you can't afford new tricks or are nervious.

What would be good if you knew a little about coins, is to do a coin in bottle routine. You could also pass the bottle out after to reinforce the effect. A good one that isn't too expensive can be found here. I wouldn't reccomend sleights because in a crowd that large, you're bound to come across a heckler or two, and a few that will know something about magic from that evil revealing site youtube.


-Avatar

Let me know if that helps.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
S

Squ!rrel

Apr 28, 2008
596
0
Personally, I would not perform in this situation. I only perform for people who are interested in seeing magic. Many of the kids may not be and might just try to cause trouble.

If you do decide to do it I would make sure you pick routines that are largely free of sleight of hand. There's very few sleights that can be performed for this many people. Passes certainly won't work and i'd be very careful with double lifts.

All it would take to completely ruin your performance is one kid who has seen a double lift on Youtube, if they shouted this out it would be disastrous. Even if sleights you are comfortable with you may mess up in a situation like this.

If you messed up this performance it would be a major blow to your confidence and knowing high school kids they wouldn't let you forget about it. On the other hand it could be a big boost to your confidence if you pull it off.

This is something you need to think about very carefully.
 
T

tallyuser

Jul 20, 2008
29
1
Dallas
Squ!rrel said:
Personally, I would not perform in this situation. I only perform for people who are interested in seeing magic. Many of the kids may not be and might just try to cause trouble.

If you do decide to do it I would make sure you pick routines that are largely free of sleight of hand. There's very few sleights that can be performed for this many people. Passes certainly won't work and i'd be very careful with double lifts.

All it would take to completely ruin your performance is one kid who has seen a double lift on Youtube, if they shouted this out it would be disastrous. Even if sleights you are comfortable with you may mess up in a situation like this.

If you messed up this performance it would be a major blow to your confidence and knowing high school kids they wouldn't let you forget about it. On the other hand it could be a big boost to your confidence if you pull it off.

This is something you need to think about very carefully.
Click to expand...

i agree with Squ!rel on this one

while i wouldn't perform in this situation,
that doesn't mean you shouldn't

if you absolutely want to perform, i'd go for
Tossed out deck and possibly
Emotional Intelligence

both of these are good effects that would work with a large group,

and they seem to be largely free of sleights
 
M

magicman2292

Dec 22, 2007
216
0
California: LA
ummm, you can use some gaff effects, those work pretty well....you can use stigmata, dan and dave's subway, or queens with some angle friendly changes (like no cardini change)....


or if you have ultrasmoke 2000, you can do a less effective but angle friendly trick, and use smoke to increase the presentation level....
 
S

Squ!rrel

Apr 28, 2008
596
0
magicman2292 said:
ummm, you can use some gaff effects, those work pretty well....you can use stigmata, dan and dave's subway, or queens with some angle friendly changes (like no cardini change)....


or if you have ultrasmoke 2000, you can do a less effective but angle friendly trick, and use smoke to increase the presentation level....
Click to expand...

Did you even think about this or did you just list the first tricks that came into your head?

I would not use Gaff Cards, once somebody shouts out something about you using fake cards everybody will join in and the performance is over.

The Queens for 50 people? you can't be serious.

The Queens is one of the most angly tricks there is, there's simply no way to do that amount of changes and vanishes for that many people without getting caught. Another problem with The Queens is that anyone to your side can't even really see what's happening because of the amount of cover needed for some of the moves. I would never perform The Queens for more than 3 or 4 people at a time.

There's no way 50 people could see what is happening in Subway, this should be performed for no more than 10 people. Even that's pushing it.

Stigmata is the only thing you suggested I would even consider doing, although a lot of people may not be able to see the marks on your arm.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Searching...
{[{ searchResultsCount }]} Results