Pre-Show Magic Subtleties

Pre-Show is a tool primarily used by experienced magicians, and it has become increasingly well-known in recent decades. It is difficult for magicians to learn something they never see, and Pre-Show goes unseen every time.

There was a time when hobbyist magicians would accuse TV performers of using stooges rather than simply admit they got fooled. The blame later shifted to camera tricks, and these days, when fooled, it can be all too easy for them to pin a trick on Pre-Show.

The tricky thing—it often is Pre-Show.

It's getting more and more often by increasingly confident performers. I worked with a consultant once who would use pre-show to literally give spectators new memories—madness (not something I would advise).

We've written about Pre-Show before at One Ahead, but it's time to break it down step by step and offer some tried-and-tested subtleties.

There are really three parts to any use of pre-show.

1. The Implementation. This is what most people naively consider to be Pre-Show in its entirety. It's the moment when you interact with the hero spectator before the performance for the wider audience.

2. The Selection. A crucial moment when you select the hero spectator from the audience. The fairer the selection feels, the less likely an audience will assume you met them beforehand.

3. The Dual-Scripting/Transition. The best pre-show involves scripted dual-reality, allowing the hero spectator and audience to hear the same thing but understand it differently.

We're going to focus on the first part in this edition, and catch up on the rest in later editions.

Most magic buyers would get very upset if a product they purchased involved pre-show as a method. They tend to want self-working toys with no extra work required before or after the routine. God forbid a trick does not have an instant reset!

There is not much published work on Pre-Show, and it's close to impossible to write about steps 2 and 3 without worrying that I might be inadvertently stepping on someone's toes.

Part 1, however, tends to be pretty straightforward, and I have plenty of experience to share.

The Implementation

There are many brilliant use cases for Pre-Show, and the example we're going to use in this edition is by far the worst. However, the worst example is the easiest to explain and use for all of the subtleties I'm about to outline.

You will use Pre-Show for a "dream destination."

You'll either use any force or peek to establish ahead of time which destination is selected, but let's look at the subtleties.

1. Force the party. You will undeniably end up choosing someone who did not come alone. Repeat the process with their entire party/group. So if it's a couple, and you force the choice of "Paris" to one of them, be sure to let the other person make a choice, too. The second person can choose a truly random city. This makes the process stand out far less than simply asking one person to make the choice, and it makes the Pre-Show seem more of a fooling for the hero spectator because they know they were not the only person who participated.

2. Provide a reason. Motivation, motivation, motivation: a term which should be used by magicians as often, if not more, than misdirection. You must provide a reason to the hero spectator for the Pre-Show. Typical examples include: "I want to make sure there's a different destination named each night, so I have a list of 1,000 cities that haven't been said yet," or "Sometimes people freeze on stage, and it can be really embarrassing, so I'll let you make a choice now and lock in your answer," or "sometimes people try to spoil the fun so I need you to write down your choice so you can't change your mind."

   1. You should also provide a reason to the audience members who see this take place before the show. The two easiest reasons for this are to welcome audience members (interact with more people who arrived early and thank them for coming) or to hand something out (give people stickers or business cards). Another reason I've seen given in smaller rooms is to ask people whether they'd be comfortable joining you on stage during the show, which is rather direct and amusing.

3. Use a Gather More. If you are in an environment where splitting off one audience member is hard, you can rely on a Gather More. Hand out cards to every audience member to write down something for a trick in the show. Ensure that a handful of cards you hand to specific spectators include an extra question (e.g., their dream destination).