How to Get Your Friends to Want to See Magic

Before I founded One Ahead, I exclusively wrote magic tricks for famous magicians like Dynamo and Justin Willman. Magic on TV, regardless of how you look at it, is a completely different ball game. Much like how stage magic differs from close-up and parlor magic, hobbyist performances are in a world of their own.

I like to refer to the hobbyists who read our articles as professional hobbyists. If your interest in magic has led you to the point in which you're investing your cash to read about insights and principles – not just the latest cheap trick from the magic shop – then clearly, you care about your magic.

Pete McCabe once wrote a brilliant article for us about bringing up your magic. He covered all the ways these professional hobbyists can and should be bringing up the fact they perform magic to their friends, colleagues, and families. Really, you have two options – pretend you're a god, or follow Pete's advice and work out a way to mention you practice magic without it coming across a little bit odd.

But how do you get your friends to ask you to perform magic?

Imagine a world in which you never have to ask anyone if you can perform a trick. Imagine a world in which your classmates and colleagues cannot wait for you to show them the newest trick you've been learning.

Want to know how to make this happen?

The answer is more obvious than you might expect.

Perform for your audience.

In my experience, too many magicians think of themselves as artists, and not enough magicians think of themselves as being in the service industry.

You need to, at the very least, think of yourself as a mix of both.

Perform magic in service of your audience.

You have to stop and genuinely consider who your audience is and what would make them look forward to seeing you perform magic again and again.

When people switch on Magic for Humans on Netflix or buy a ticket to see Derren Brown live, they are doing so for specific reasons.

So, those friends of yours, why would they want to see your magic?

Yes, they might be supportive, and they might want to see what you've been up to, but is that really a good enough reason? Let's try to work out why they might want to see you perform magic for more selfish reasons rather than selfless.

Three Reasons People Want to See Magic

Over the years, I've only witnessed three main reasons why people want to see magic. When it comes to people wanting to be filmed for a TV magic show, there's a fourth reason – they actually want to be on TV. The need for certain people to be on TV shouldn't be underestimated, and I can assure you they will almost always have very good reactions – the authenticity of those reactions is debatable.

1. They already LOVE magic. This one is easy as the hard work has been done for you. They've already seen magic, heard about it, or watched it on TV. People who love magic are the best people to perform magic to. Note that some people who love magic will openly insist they dislike it. I refuse to believe anyone who gives a great reaction to magic doesn't love it – magic isn't like a horror film that incites a reaction regardless of whether you enjoy it. Magic is much more like comedy – a big reaction means you love it, whether you like it or not.

2. They want to see their friends' reactions. It's the same reason Dad booked the Taylor Swift concert and the reason Lucy, who dislikes magic, is dragging you across the party to get you to show a card trick to her friends. If you've ever watched a David Blaine special, you've experienced the thrill of seeing people you know (celebrities) react unexpectedly when a magic trick fools them. Your audience will experience the same level of satisfaction when they see their friends, colleagues, or family members react to your magical abilities.

3. They want to play a role in the magic. There is no better way to turn the greatest cynic into a believer than to ask them to lend a hand. Magic can be a way to win over the bullies at school, as many famous magicians attest. Honestly, they're right – simple magic is an easy way to impress most people. But if you have a friend or a romantic partner who's completely disinterested in watching you perform your tricks, maybe it's time to tap them into the game and get them to be your accomplice.

Ultimately, people want to watch magic when they benefit from the performance. This is why I encourage you, at least occasionally from time to time, to try looking at magic as an act of service and not an artistic expression.

Sidenote: It's ridiculous that an industry in which 99.9% of magicians perform shop-bought tricks in exactly the same way considers itself an art form anyway. If we were all out there performing original acts, then sure, maybe I could get on board with it being an art.

So, take a step back, consider the people you perform magic for, and ask yourself how your magic can benefit them. Think about when they might want to see a trick and what they would want to get from seeing it.

Children's magic

My therapist will happily tell you that much of who we are as people is defined in early childhood. I'm writing my first big magic book at the moment, and it's been nice to reflect on the small moments that influenced me at that age. You're probably wondering why a book for magicians about improving their magic even mentions the author's early childhood, but I think childhood is something we should always be thinking back to when it comes to our magic.

Kids' magicians have no choice but to think very carefully about why their audiences want to see their magic. If they don't respect their audience's needs, then, before you know it, their audiences are storming the stage, walking off, heckling, and maybe even crawling away.

Kids want to be entertained, encouraged, and engaged with (given attention).

Believe it or not – we adults want those things, too.

When your grandad reaches behind your ear as a child and pulls out a gold coin by magic, you are entertained, encouraged, and engaged. Plus, you get to keep the coin. Something that unexpected and magical is entertaining, but it's also encouraging because it's positive and makes us feel like anything is possible. And, of course, it's engaging – your grandad cares about you enough to show you something magical and give you that attention as well as the coin itself.

For magicians, it gets harder and harder to put yourselves in the shoes of your audience members. The more you know about magic, the less you know about your audience. In fact, I'd suggest the fact that you decided to become a magician makes you very unlikely to be anything like your ideal audience when it comes to watching magic – I can't imagine you want all of your spectators to go home, google the trick, buy a magic set from Ellusionist, and become a magician, too.

So, I often think, why struggle to put yourself in the shoes of the audience when you can instead connect with their core needs by going back to what you (and they) were like as a child?

No one wants to be fooled.*

I refuse to believe anyone wants to be fooled. I can't stand "magician's magicians," and I get pretty annoyed at the legacy of Fool Us.

I grew up watching Penn & Teller spending their careers educating the world that great magic is about much more than how well it fools you – though magic is not magic if it does not fool you – and so, by revealing tricks and playing with our expectations, they showed global audiences that great magic is about so much more than how good the method is. But then they undid all that work in the last fifteen years of their career by judging magicians on how well they fooled them with their methods.

Not knowing how a trick is done is only satisfying if it leads to something else – a feeling of shock, surprise, delight, escapism, or encouragement.

You want to inspire, entertain, and uplift your audiences with magic.

There's also a huge difference between fooling and confusing your audience. I dislike the magic of most "magician's magicians" because I find that while they often fool magicians, they tend to leave laypeople feeling confused.

When a spectator says, "I don't know what just happened," after a trick, it's not a good sign. They should know exactly what happened but still be in shock at not knowing "how" it just happened.

So, let's shift the end goal a little in our minds.

Don't see fooling your friends as the end goal for your magic.

Because, honestly, being able to fool people is the bare minimum for magicians. It's sort of like holding a guitar and saying you're a good musician – congrats, you've got the guitar, now what are you going to do with it?

Look beyond fooling your audience and think about what you want fooling them to achieve. Think about this for each and every trick you perform. Tie it back to how we know everyone wants to be entertained, encouraged, and engaged.

*Another sidenote: Engineers like being fooled, and they like being fooled alone. If there was ever one specific subset of people for whom fooling them is enough, it's engineers. But then again, for those people, it's a puzzle, not a magic trick. People also seem to enjoy watching their friends get fooled, but it's just not the same experience for the main individual. Challenge tricks like "Which Hand" also leave spectators wanting to see them again but more so because they want to win the game and not because they paticulaly enjoyed the magic.

The important thing is that if your friends ask to see a trick again, it shouldn't be so they can try to work out the method. Aim for them to either ask to see more magic or the same effect but for more important reasons than its method.

Get people to love your magic.

There are some very simple, straightforward ways to get even the toughest of spectators to love magic if they've never seen it before.

First of all, loving or not loving magic does happen to be contagious. So if you know one person loves magic because they've seen it on TV before, congrats; you just found your hero spectator. Perform your first trick with them, and their reaction will set the tone for the rest of your tricks.

Next, there are some rather direct ways of getting someone to enjoy magic. You could, for example, focus on making them look as good as possible in front of their friends. Giving your friend that moment of turning over the prediction card, making it appear as if they're doing the magic themselves, or having them make the correct final choice are all ways of shifting the congratulatory spotlight from you and onto them.

Many, many people are afraid to see magic shows because they don't want to get picked to go on stage. Where does this fear come from? They don't want to be embarrassed. There are two great crowd-work comedians called Jessica Kirson and Jeff Arcuri who constantly put the audience at ease, paying them compliments and reassuring them that they won't make fun of them – even when they do so positively.

You want to engage with your spectators in a way that makes them feel good about themselves and comfortable to take part again.

Next, you've got to entertain them. Entertaining them doesn't mean showing them a trick you've been practicing and hoping it'll fool them. No – you need to invest in real storytelling, make them laugh, surprise them, and make them forget about everything else that's happening that day.

Teaching magicians to be entertainers is really, really hard, and you're not going to like the best way to learn how to do it. Put the magic trick away. That's right – the one thing that all of the world's most entertaining magicians have in common is that they're all entertaining with or without the magic trick.

I could happily watch all of my favorite magicians simply tell stories.

I know this isn't the advice you want to hear, but try it. Instead of showing your friend that one trick you've been practicing this week – tell them a story. I promise you'll learn more about making magic entertaining if you put the magic away.

This is what I find so interesting about magic, and it's why I find "Fool Us" to be so frustrating. I connected so well with Penn and Teller when they let you in on the tricks and made entertaining you the most important thing. The same goes for Blaine when he blends stunts with magic or Derren when he tells us he's reading our body language and not just waiting for the electric magnet detector to kick in.

Imagine performing the whole routine without the trick.

If it's still entertaining, then you're doing something right.

All that's left is to encourage them, and there are a few ways your magic can do this. The best way to do this is to give your spectators a feeling that anything is possible: the same feeling you get when you watch a Disney film.

For this to happen, you need to create a sense of magic and not trickery. You need to hold space for the spectator, listen, and encourage them. We often think of famous illusionists encouraging us to dream big and that anything is possible, but, actually, you get the same sense when you see a close-up magician like Christian Grace demonstrating his abilities. Just watch as he gets excited, smiling and even physically nodding at spectators, giving them the space and encouragement to get swept away in the magic of an effect.

If your magic entertains, encourages, and engages your friends, they will want to see it again – I'm afraid it really might be that simple.

Besides that – it's all about choosing your moments. I've spent evenings with well-known magicians, and they haven't performed a single trick. I've also spent whole days with magicians who were there to perform specific things but changed their act at the last minute after feeling out the tone of the room.

Finally, reward your friends when they ask to see magic. This means being ready to perform something great or meeting them with a healthy amount of acknowledgment. Express to them how much you appreciate them asking, but now isn't the right time, or inform them that you'll show them something later. They need to feel like they can ask you to show them magic and that doing so will always end positively.

If I had to give you one piece of actionable advice, it would be this: be genuinely thankful when someone asks to see your magic. Express this verbally, physically, and in the magic you perform for them.