Magic Tricks

I’ve already done this twice in person and twice virtually and will be doing it again for another virtual event in the coming weeks. It has actually received better reactions than I thought it would. The spectators seem to have fun and are actually surprised by the results. I was expecting that, at the end of it all, someone would say something sarcastic like, “it’s just math”, but the shuffling and moving of cards around seems to sufficiently hide the simplicity of what’s really going on. I even had one spectator who was not so great with following my verbal and physical lead, make a mistake at the end, spelling the magic phrase. I stopped the presentation and got her to where she needed to be. I thought the impact of it would now be completely lost. But it wasn’t. She turned over her card and was amazed.
I’ve added a few jokes, my own patter/script, and added a step outside of what’s taught. I’m enjoying it. And it works in person or over a video conference. I wouldn’t recommend trying to explain it all over the phone. It could be done, but I think your visual cues/examples provides some interaction that benefits the truck overall and it allows you to verify your instructions are being carried out correctly and allows for making adjustments to what your spectator is doing via that interaction along the way if needed. Yes, there are steps and repetition; but so far no one has gotten bored with it; which is good, as self-working tricks that require the spectator to follow step after step can sometimes cause them to lose interest quickly and/or make mistakes. That hasn’t happened with this, yet.