3 'Pre-Show' Examples For Magicians

I've written on TV magic shows for over a decade now, as well as live theatre shows and all sorts of projects for big-name magicians. Occasionally, and far less often than some might expect, we'll use a secret magic principle called "pre-show."

Pre-show is a magic technique which relies on part of the routine taking place before the trick for the larger audience begins. The main audience, be that one in a theatre or perhaps watching at home has no idea that something took place earlier, usually involving the hero spectator that's influencing the routine.

Let's look at three ways you can incorporate the infamous pre-show technique into your existing magic tricks to make them more fooling.

Let me note two things quickly:

1. Some magic consultants view pre-show as simply anything that happens before the show or before the camera starts rolling. I find this a rather lazy definition that can lead to lazy execution. If you're performing solo, you should never view your routine as simply having a pre-show, beginning, middle and end. Instead, I recommend you view any routine that is improved with pre-show as having two timelines, both with beginnings, middles and ends. The hero spectator who takes part in the pre-show simply has an earlier start point on the timeline than the broader audience who joins it later.

2. Pre-show is totally different if you have an accomplice or confederate do it for you. This might be someone pretending to work at the theatre or on your production crew, or perhaps it's your partner pretending to be overprotective before you perform your trick for friends – in all scenarios, you must be mindful of your motivation. You need a good reason for the pre-show in the eyes of the spectator – perhaps it's to save them from embarrassment, save time, help them, etc. If your pre-show involves a magic element like a trick, then it should always be carried out by the main magician, in my opinion.

Pre-show has become a bit of a fad amongst magicians in recent years. I have a theory on why this is the case, but some magicians are not going to like it:

Pre-show is an easy thing many magicians can use to dismiss tricks that fool them on television. If they're fooled by visual magic on a TV show, they'll blame a camera trick. When non-visual magic tricks fool them, they'll blame pre-show.

I can tell you that when I worked for Dynamo, many magicians would dismiss the show in conversations because they believed he used too much pre-show. Then they'd tell me a specific example of a trick, and because of my NDA, I had to stop myself from laughing because the example actually involved zero pre-show.

I helped write Magic For Humans on Netflix. Many magicians, sometimes well-known magicians, have since told me they dislike the show because they believe it uses too many camera tricks. Then they point to the example of Willman pulling his wife out of a foldable bag, and in that case, I actually can't stop myself from laughing because that's definitely not a camera trick.

"Too much pre-show" and "Too many camera tricks" are often shorthand for "It fooled me, and I can't admit it."

There's also a feeling amongst some magicians that pre-show is a kind of "cheating" because there's sort of odd belief they have that you should be able to work out a magic trick by watching it enough times.

Pre-show suits TV. Much like theatre shows, from which it got its name, there's an easy division between the main trick for the larger audience and the time before it. You can easily cut the first part of a routine in the final edit.

Some magicians dismiss pre-show as anything that takes place before the cameras roll, but this isn't always the case. If it's the magician doing the pre-show, the cameras should be rolling as if you intend to use it in the final edit.

Most magicians have no idea what pre-show is, and maybe it's because it's often brought up dismissively and because it takes place behind closed doors, but magicians can get lazy when they try to use the principle.

Pre-show is not just telling the spectator what to do before the show. That's called stooging. And never in my decade of working with TV magicians has a routine relied entirely on pre-show. Only use pre-show to enhance your magic; any trick should be performable without it.

Anyway! Let's Mr Miyagi you and explain three examples of pre-show.

1. How to plant a favourite playing card or Taylor Swift song into the mind of your spectator.

2. How to create the illusion that a spectator is freely choosing any chocolate bar from a large candy shop.

3. How to use pre-show to put objects into spectators' pockets in two easy and completely open ways.

These are not necessarily the best examples, but I've chosen them to illustrate how you can think about pre-show in your magic and why motivation almost always becomes the most crucial factor.

Wax on, wax off.

1: Do You Have a Favourite?

An entry-level variation of pre-show is to help a spectator decide their favourite X for a performance. This could be anything from their favourite playing card to their favourite meal on a new restaurant menu.

All the main audience will see is the magician asking the spectator to name their favourite playing card, and the spectator will say the four of hearts.

In most scenarios, a simple open card force would be more fooling.

But asking them to name their favourite card might be faster and easier if the trick doesn't involve handling a full deck of cards.

During your pre-show, ask the spectator if they have a favourite playing card, and then quickly point out how ridiculous that is (because it is). No one has a favourite playing card, and if they do, it's probably something obvious, like a queen or an ace. Favourite cards are usually attached to important memories, so let's decide on a favourite card for you and create a good memory for it. They choose the four of hearts, and you perform an ambitious card routine with their new favourite card.

Shortly after, while performing magic for a larger group of friends, you can ask the same spectator what their favourite playing card is. They'll say the four of hearts: the card you forced during the pre-show trick (or maybe even just let them choose randomly and took note of it).

The larger audience is unaware of that earlier pre-show, so it looks like you simply asked if they had a favourite playing card, and they said the four of hearts.

The hero spectator will not forget that you already know their favourite card, so the trick still has to be fooling and impressive for them regardless.

I consider this "favourite" packaging the most entry-level use of pre-show, and in all honesty, I usually avoid it as much as possible.

But it's a good way for newbies to wrap their heads around the concept of pre-show and how important the scripting and delivery can be. If you simply forced a card earlier and asked the spectator in front of the main audience to "name any playing card", you risk them naming something else, or worse, saying, "Do you want me to name the one I chose earlier?"

Asking, "What's your favourite playing card?" is easy enough, and in this scenario, it's basically the same as asking, "What was the card you chose earlier?"

Well-versed magicians who have simply forced something as pre-show might cleverly script it like this:

"I'm going to ask you to think of an X. Do you already have one in mind?"

There's a certain duality to this statement; if you hear this as the hero spectator, you will think of the X you chose earlier, but to a broader audience, it sounds like the hero spectator is being asked to freely choose one in their mind on the spot.

X could be a meal, playing card, song, number, colour, etc..

So, how would this look if you were performing on TV with an accomplice and you needed the spectator to name a specific Taylor Swift song?

I would pose as a production runner on a TV show and tell the spectator that we're doing a Taylor Swift-themed trick because the magician performs for her at the end of the episode. I'll ask the spectators if they have a favourite Taylor Swift song, knowing full well that they don't because the casting producer checked this before they were chosen for the shoot. I'd say, not to worry, I've got a list of all of Taylor Swift's songs on my phone; name a number, and we'll pick one at random, so you won't embarrass yourself/so you'll still get to film today with the magician. 

For the forcing method, I'm using a Digital Force Bag. A magic app that lets you force anything from a list with a freely-named number. You can see the importance of motivation in this example – it's not just about explaining it away and justifying the pre-show; it's about motivating them to take part in it, too. They're not motivated to engage in the pre-show, so they look good on TV and increase the chances of making the final cut.

2: Look, And You Will Find

Magicians often ask me how to pre-show what appears to be a free selection. For example, they might request a spectator choose any chocolate bar from a big candy shop. Now, if they were only selecting from a small, perhaps held by the magician or from a shelf, I would usually default to my 'clearance' motivation for pre-show. I'd have a clipboard and pose as a production member and inform them that the channel only got clearance to show ten of the chocolate brands on television.

If I were lazy, I'd then force of some kind to make them choose the KitKat. If I weren't lazy, I would have made ten versions of the trick's props such that it would not matter which of the final ten gets selected. By doing this, I'm taking the options down from 1,000 chocolate bars in the store to ten manageable options for essentially a game of multiple-outs. This is known as a narrowing force.

But you're in a big candy shop. Don't you want them to look around for themselves and choose from any bar in the store? Yes, probably. It might look a bit weird if you told a spectator just to go and find the exact chocolate bar they chose earlier.

So instead, use a force to help them decide the colour, size and flavour of the chocolate bar they should choose, but don't force the brand name on them. Then, the wider audience will see them looking around, deciding which bar to choose. They're actually looking for a chocolate bar that fits all the specifics, like the colour and flavour they chose earlier.

Once again – motivation is everything for pre-show. In a scenario where you're forcing specifics like this, I'd tell the spectator (we call them contributors in TV) that we're going to be airing three performances of this trick in the final edit and to guarantee they make the final cut, we need them to choose a different chocolate bar to the two performances we already filmed. so I've written down a bunch of flavours and colours for them to choose from that are still available.

3: Pocket Change

Alright, let's talk about how you can use pre-show to make an object appear to be borrowed when, in fact, it is not. In the simplest of examples, imagine the magician wants to borrow a dollar bill from the spectator.

There are two popular pre-show variations for this.

First is the empty pockets strategy. In a TV scenario, you might get the sound operator to ask the spectator to empty their pockets. This might be so that the rattling of coins doesn't impact the sound, or maybe because phone signals impact it, or maybe just because they need to place the mic pack in their pocket.

By the time they get to set, I'll walk over to them with that trusty clipboard and talk them through the shoot. Details like how long it'll take, that it'll be great fun and for them to just be themselves, not to look down the camera lens, simple stuff. Then, I'll mention one of the tricks the magician is going to perform. They'll need some cash for it. Oh no, they don't have any cash on them. Not to worry, but neither do I, so I flag down a passing member of production and ask them if we can borrow a handful of change/cash quickly.

Don't underestimate the power of flagging down a stranger like this – borrowing something from someone who is walking by fools the pants off of people. I also try to play it naive in these scenarios – I'll make it sound as if I don't know what the trick will be, but the magician told me they'll need cash, so I'll give them dollar bills and coins. This helps convince them I'm not in on the trick, but it also makes it look more natural when they retrieve the note later – it's weird when magicians ask for a bill, and the spectator happens to have only one crisp bill in their pocket.

Nowadays, people don't often have cash/coins anyway, so you can often just use this as your motivation to give them some, and there's no need to get the soundie in on the hours' worth of gaslighting (I mean magic).

Performing this sort of pre-show solo is way easier and sometimes more fooling. I call this type of pre-show 'the trick before the trick'. It's very often that when you see a TV magician perform for a group of people on TV, they'd already performed four or five tricks that never made it into the edit. These tricks are often warm-up tricks that the magician is comfortable with before they go into their new tricks, and they're there to warm up the spectators and the magician.

So, in one of your tricks before the trick, do a routine that involves money. It's in this earlier trick that you switch their dollar bill and return it at the end of the routine. There's no reason for them to suspect a thing, but when you go to borrow a dollar bill later, you know that the correct bill is in their pocket as planned.

If you're reading this and you're not a television magician (98% of you), then I recommend this 'trick before the trick' variation as your pre-show method to invest time into. When you perform for friends or at gigs, take time to carefully consider how each of your tricks might be adapted to essentially pre-show a later trick.