The Perfect Magic Trick Opener

For more than a decade, I have written on projects for TV magicians.

Few magic shows were made during the pandemic, which led to the founding of this newsletter and consulting work on non-TV projects for the first time.

Some magicians had cleverly pivoted to virtual shows and made more money in the pandemic than ever before. Large companies booked those magicians to perform Zoom magic shows for hundreds of their teams. I, too, was now providing my services via online 1:1 consultancy calls, rather than in person.

TV magic still existed in the form of talent shows due to their stable foundations. An early consulting client was Savio Joseph. He booked a call to get advice on his application and story for Got Talent. We worked together on every act as he got onto the show and even reached the finals. I'm particularly proud of his first audition's story-driven performance.

Since then, I've worked with many performers who primarily perform at corporate events. One question repeatedly arises: What's the perfect opener?

The challenge of finding the perfect answer to this question began to take hold last year, when I first wrote about the topic for One Ahead.

• What Is A Good Magic Trick Opener

• How Pro Magicians Use Multiple-Outs

• Low-Odds Convincers Explained

A question as simple as this would have a universal solution when working on television projects. Every TV magic consultant would give the same answer to something as consistently necessary as this–a perfect opener. Why was there no obvious answer for the non-TV scenario?

Again and again, the performers I worked with did not have a unanimous answer. So I decided (well, it bugged me enough that I felt I had no choice) to try to solve the question: what is the perfect magic trick opener? The goal was to come up with something that ticks all the boxes to be a universal opener for any magician.

The Requirements

A challenge is not a challenge without some strict definitions. An opener will be qualified as the first trick a magician performs on stage. We are going to focus on "stage" performances in circumstances under which the audience is unfamiliar with the performer. Perhaps they booked tickets to the event you're performing at, but not to a show explicitly billed as yours. You might be performing at a corporate party or awards show, or maybe you are competing in a local talent contest.

Now it's time to define "perfect."

Based on hundreds of hours consulting for corporate magicians, we'll set out five clear checkboxes.

• Packs Flat: It's the biggest roadblock I encounter in consulting sessions, so let's get this one out of the way. If a trick fits inside a carry-on suitcase (and is allowed to be taken onto a plane), then it ticks a big checkbox. Yes, it sucks that this is the case, but I trust my clients when they say this is due to costs and confidence that your props make it to the event with you.

• Builds Communal Energy: There's a reason Derren Brown spent so many of his early years opening his theatre shows with games. A good corporate opener also needs to create energy and bring an audience together as one–that's the goal. Going into this, it's clear that any routine that involves the audience participating as a whole will easily check this box.

• Sets Shared Expectations: Everyone in the audience comes in with different expectations. Your first trick should get the entire audience's expectations to the same level. Sync them up. Comedy (specifically to deflate pressure) is usually the best way to do this–more on this soon.

• Tick the "Magic" Box: There's a significant benefit to your first trick being stereotypically magic-related. Without this, an audience will spend ten times as long trying to figure out what they've come to see. They'll have some idea of "magic" in their mind, and it's best to get it out of the way fast. Strongly consider using a typical magic prop and performing a prediction, vanish, appearance, or a similar plot associated with magic.

• Fast and Direct: The next time you see a magic show, look around at how tense everyone gets with every passing minute that there has not been a first trick. You must, please, I beg you, perform your first trick in the first three minutes of your show at an absolute maximum. Imagine if a band made you wait ten minutes to hear them play, or if a comedian told their first joke seven minutes into their act–madness.

It goes without saying that the trick also needs to be impressive and fooling–anything that doesn't meet that mark shouldn't be in the show, let alone an opener.

Finally, I am constantly reminded of something Luis De Matos said when I worked with him. He was obsessed with "The Lion King Moment," which he coined as the way in which the Lion King musical was able to give audiences the entire value of the ticket in the first five minutes. This does not really apply to the scenario we are using for this perfect opener challenge. Still, it is worth keeping in mind for instances when an audience has paid to see you by name. Satisfy the price of the ticket as quickly as possible.

Oh, and why is comedy used to deflate pressure a great way to sync up an audience's expectations? Well, it's secretly a lot easier to lower everyone's expectations to the same level than to raise them all to the highest in the room.

Comedy is a great way to do this, as you are part of the joke and in control.

By lowering everyone's expectations in a humorous way, the audience suddenly becomes on the same level, operating as a collective. The pesky skeptics no longer need to double down to defy the magic lovers around them–we've lowered everyone's expectations with comedy to the same level, and now it's 100x easier to raise everyone as one quickly.

Early in a set, DJs will begin playing music at around 100–110 BPM (beats per minute), which is close to a resting or slightly elevated heart rate. This helps ease the crowd into it without overwhelming them right away. Doing so syncs everyone up, meeting them at a resting point, regardless of the few party animals whose energy was higher to begin with, and then the DJ lifts everyone together.

Jumbo Card Trick

Mortenn Christiansen's Jumbo Card Trick was repeatedly mentioned on consultancy calls. A jumbo card is held facing away from the audience as an open prediction. The audience makes a series of choices to eliminate cards from a regular deck, and the final card perfectly matches the prediction.

It's a brilliant, practical effect, which certainly packs flat. In fact, the trick checks all of the boxes we decided upon as a "perfect" magic trick opener.

How can we improve upon this trick? Well, if you're Mortenn Christiansen–there's literally no need. The trick is perfect for Mortenn in every way.

Magic products designed for this performing market are almost always invented by working pros like Mortenn. Unlike tricks intended for hobbyists, where there are plenty of "creators" designing tricks for the masses, many practical products designed for parlour and stage were created for the inventor to perform.

In pursuit of a universal magic opener, and with the most respect to Mortenn, there were two pieces of feedback from performers on ways to make it tick even more boxes.

Firstly, the trick creates a mess. Mortenn's presentation involves throwing cards down onto the stage and into the audience. There are certainly workarounds to this, like dropping the cards into a stage case or placing them in your pocket.

The other piece of feedback we heard was that the jumbo playing card felt too comedic and silly as a prop. This was unexpected, but it makes sense for some performers to be hesitant to hold up a jumbo card on stage.

Creating a chaotic mess and holding up a comically large playing card perfectly suits Mortenn's comedy style. We're not trying to come up with a perfect opener for Mortenn, though; we want the perfect opener for the masses.

The angles on Mortenn's trick are excellent, but not 360–a ridiculous requirement of any magician, but we might as well add the ability to perform surrounded to the list of things to strive for here, too.

Two key things to love about Mortenn's trick are that, besides being incredibly entertaining, it brings an audience together, sets collective expectations, and ticks the "magic box" perfectly.

Most audiences have never seen a magic show, and if you look around at the start of a performance, you'll notice a surprising number of people appear to be inquisitive, thinking, "Alright, then, let's see what this is going to be."

Performers like Pete Firman and Tom Crosbie are excellent at showing or telling their audiences what they're in for at the top of their shows. It's essential to do so because once an audience has a base-level understanding of what they've paid for (or been dragged to see), they'll sit back and enjoy it much more. There are some shows you see which do not do this, and when you look around twenty minutes in, audience members are still trying to figure out what they're watching might be, reaching this conclusion based on an average of each trick they see.

You can do this through anchoring, or (perhaps better) by ticking a big fat "magic checkbox" when you first come on stage. Suppose you quickly do something we associate with magicians and magic tricks. In that case, you can literally watch your audiences sit back and relax–even if you immediately say, enough of that magic shit, and never do anything heavily "magic" again (Pete Firman perfectly does this in an Edinburgh Comedy Fest live clip on YouTube).

Our perfect opener should include something like an appearance, a vanish, playing cards, or a prediction to tick our big fat "magic checkbox."

The other thing we'll take from Mortenn's trick is his use of multiple audience members to shuffle and decide the card selected. This is a good way of bringing an audience together, such that they make a communal decision and all feel involved.

The feeling that anyone in the audience could be chosen to participate also makes people wake up and pay attention. The simplicity of the decisions means they don't end up too awake and nervous about what you might ask of them.

Envelope Opener

Blake Vogt's Envelope Opener was the second opener trick that came up often on these consultancy calls. It's ten times the price of Mortenn's, but that does not seem to stop plenty of corporate performers using it to open their shows.

In his trick, Blake asks the audience a series of questions, and he predicts their choices in comical ways in a series of nested envelopes. Inside the final envelope is the playing card selected by the audience.

The method and open process of this trick feel far too interlinked for my liking, but many performers I respect use and own the effect, and I do feel that the trick suits Blake's style of performance perfectly.

A strength of the effect is the way it involves the audience, calling on multiple members to make decisions to get down to the chosen card (high card or low card, etc.). When watching performers do this trick in person, though, I am always struck by the fact that this could just as easily rely on the Equivoke method, and the presentation would look similar, be easier, and perhaps even appear fairer.

Equivoke could be a strong method for the perfect opener. It would certainly eliminate the need for complicated outs and grossly simplify the trick we come up with. Using this method would also build communal energy in the audience.

It would be crucial, though, for the Equivoke to only act as a Narrowing Force such that the final decision is super fair. This would mean that a small number of outs would be required.

Something else that works really well in Blake's Envelope Opener is the use of prediction envelopes. By using prediction envelopes, you're able to tick the magic box without needing props that could be seen as too stereotypical or comedic. A comedy magician, family magician, and more serious performer could all arrive on stage with prediction envelopes, and they would feel at home with them.

Blake's opener has a sort of arts and crafts, homemade feel, which suits him as a performer. Once again, this is a trick he invented for himself, which later went on sale. If our perfect opener were to include an envelope, it might be good for it to be gold and shiny to suit a wider variety of performing styles.

Every television commissioner I have ever met has said that when a magician pulls out a deck of cards, people change the channel (they can see the data).

Unless you're Shin Lim performing visual miracles or Jason Ladayne literally inviting the haters to catch him out, this data point is always worth keeping in mind. If we decide to perform a card trick for our perfect opener, it should not involve physical playing cards–let's see.

The Perfect Opener

A year of development, lots of trial and error, and many bad ideas later...

The magician appears on stage holding a medium-sized shiny gold prediction envelope with a question mark drawn with a thick marker on the front of it.

Three random audience members stand and take turns making decisions to choose a playing card together: a number card or a picture card, kings and jacks or queens, hearts, clubs, spades, or diamonds?

The final decision can even be changed at the last moment.

Let's imagine the card they choose is the queen of clubs.

The magician opens the envelope and comically riffles through its contents, inviting a laugh from the audience, before retrieving and displaying the correct piece of paper with QUEEN OF CLUBS written on it with the same thick marker.

"Okay, okay–I know what you're thinking," the magician says. "It's not the only prediction inside the envelope."

The magician dumps the stack of paper out of the envelope.

"But that's only because I was so confident that you would pick..."

The magician riffles through the stack of paper.

"The queen of clubs!"

Every piece of paper has the words QUEEN CLUBS written on it.

That's it–that's the trick.

–

Two key methods are at play: equivoke and multiple-outs via the Sven principle. The performer relies on equivoke as a narrowing force to get the selection down to the four queens. Next, multiple outs and the Sven principle enable the performer to show the correct singular prediction and full stack.

The envelope has a secret compartment in the inside back portion, which holds four singular pieces of paper for all four queens. The magician pulls the correct one out and has time to do so under the comedic cover of rifling to find it.

Then, the main stack of paper in the envelope, which is dumped out openly for the audience to see that nothing is left behind, is built with the same Sven principle you will find in a classic Magicians' Coloring Book.

The face of this stack is blank, but we never see this because the correct singular prediction page ends up placed on the face of the stack when it is taken out of the envelope.

You can riffle through the prediction stack in one of four positions along its edge (a Magician's Coloring Book usually has three outs, but this uses four) to display what appears to be an entire stack of the correct prediction (each of the four queens). We've prototyped this and it works well.

All in all, the trick packs flat, builds communal energy, sets healthy expectations, ticks the magic checkbox, and is fast and direct.