Control an Audience’s Phone Flashlights For a Reveal

Longtime readers will know that certain tricks come up again and again in the projects I work on as a creative consultant and writer. I see it as part of my job, and a way to boost my own career, to keep thinking about those recurring tricks and find better solutions and ways to perform them.

One trick that often comes up but is rarely performed involves making an audience’s phone flashlights turn on and off to reveal something magical. Imagine if a spectator simply thinks of the letter “A”, and the entire audience’s phone flashlights magically turn on and off to create an “A” stretched throughout the audience made up of random audience phone flashlights.

You might also reveal a number like “85,” or a shape like a square.

It's an idea I have discussed countless times, but it’s never been performed because of one missing element. In fact, I’m confident that most people reading this who perform on stage have considered this idea themselves.

It’s an engaging, obvious idea that I’d love to see come to life.

Controlling phone screens or flashlights isn't a problem.

There are lots of methods to do this, ways that you could even Google yourselves and figure out.

Of course, you need some motivation to get everyone’s phones into a position where you can control them. Butthat'ss not a problem. I can very clearly picture ways to script and motivate the audience needing to visit a website on their phones, for example, perhaps to view an online prediction.

The real issue holding people back from performing this trick is simple.

How do you know where everyone is seated?

For any method to work, you must know each phone's position in the theatre so you can accurately turn the flashlights on or off to create the reveal.

I’ve come up with a solution.

I’ll share it now.

I’m calling it Flash Mob.

I'm sharing this because I think it's a simple example of creative thinking, and it demonstrates “stepping back” methods.

In the past, when I've worked on this routine, I've tended to discuss technical, never-ending, complicated solutions. However, the solution I've landed on is so simple that I'm pretty confident half of our readers will kick themselves for not thinking of it. The rest will likely not see it as clever and will think it's obvious.

I should stress that the effect relies on having early access to the venue and a very strong Wi-Fi connection.

For this reason, I would genuinely only recommend this to performers with their own theatres, like a Mat Fraco or an El Mago Pop.

There are two ways to present this trick, and you'll definitely be drawn to one more than the other.

In the first presentation, you direct the audience to a website.

This website lets each user press a button to turn on their phone's flash.

Websites like this exist, for example:

The audience members then press the button to switch on their flashlights.

On most phones, like iOS, they'll have to tap to allow permission for the website to control their phone's flashlight.

The motivation is that we’ve all seen people struggle to turn on their flashlights—this speeds up the process. Scan the QR code, then tap the on switch on the torch icon on the screen.

You present it as though the website isn't yours, when in fact it is under your control. Once they give the site permission to control the flashlight, you can now control it remotely while they remain on the page.

Now, here's where readers will be divided. Some will think this is too obvious a way to gain control of the phone's flashlight (they literally tapped a button giving permission). And that if you asked an audience to turn on the flashlight on their phone, they wouldn't visit a website to do that.

I initially felt the same, which is why I came up with a second presentation that you're about to read.

But first, I want to quickly highlight that the trick here isn't about controlling their phones. The trick is knowing the information you're going to reveal, and then revealing it.

Yes, you lose a level of foolingness by having them go to a website and give the website permission to control their flashlight. But I think people remembering that you controlled their flashlights to reveal a letter or a number is so worthwhile. It's about anchoring the trick's deceptiveness in knowing the information you reveal. View the flashlight element as more of a tool than the trick itself.

Even still, here's the second presentation.

The audience is directed to an online revelation. This is most likely a photo, say, of the Eiffel Tower from a Google search or Wikipedia page. So this acts as the ending of an earlier trick.

Imagine if someone is picturing themselves in Paris with their friend whose initials are TM.

First, have the audience scan a prediction QR code and go to a website on their phones. This is your first reveal (Paras Eiffel Tower). From there, the audience holds up their predictions on their phone for the spectator on stage to see. Everyone sees that everyone else has the Eiffel Tower on their phones, too. Then the performer makes a gesture, and most of the audience's phones turn off, leaving only an array of phone screens switched on; those screens throughout the audience create the initials “TM” for the second reveal.

With this version of the trick, it's much more justified that the audience is visiting a website because they're visiting a prediction rather than a free flashlight website. It also skips the need to give permission to access the phone's flashlight, as you’re using their phone screens as light sources instead.

Instead of their flashlights turning on and off, their phone screens go from bright, showing an image of the Eiffel Tower against a white sky, to completely dark with no image on screen.

As I said, readers will be split on which presentation they prefer.

I've come to the conclusion that flashlights are actually better long term and that for most of the audience over the weeks, months, years to follow, it will be more fooling and easier to describe to their friends that the magician made everyone's flashlights turn off than having to explain first we went to a website that had a prediction and then the prediction vanished, etc.

Short term — prediction image is best.

Long term — phone flashlights are best.

Regardless, in both options, the magician secretly has full control of the website they visit.

This means the magician can turn people's flashlights or “screens” on and off.

In the photo reveal example, the performer can change the screen from what looks like Wikipedia or Google search image to be totally blank and black. So the phone isn't actually turning off; it's just going from a bright image to a black website screen.

But how does the performer know where everyone is seated?

The solution is so simple, I can't believe I didn't think about it earlier.