Play More With Your Audience

There’s a type of routine that is rarely explored in magic, yet it’s a fundamental part of the repertoire of many great magicians and TV performers alike.

It’s the idea of presenting a magic routine as a game—sometimes with prizes, sometimes just for the fun of playing. A game where two or more participants compete under certain rules, and where magic appears in unexpected ways.

Framing routines as games is a fantastic concept that opens up a world of creative possibilities. Derren Brown often uses this strategy in his shows (we’ll talk about his famous Guess Whom routine), and so does Justin Willman.

Performers with very different styles have all adopted this approach—because it works. We’ll explore why, and how you can incorporate it into your own routines.

We’ll also look at a powerful card magic principle that almost no one uses, but that seems made for turning a card trick into a game—one where the magician never touches the deck and can still predict the outcome, even with a borrowed shuffled deck.

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