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You don't want to go outside your comfort zone when you get onto a stage, so stick to the type of material you are already happy with.

For a brief stage appearance you could begin with some sort of mental force on the entire audience, followed by ID. End with a fun cards across. All well within the scope of any competent close-up worker.

Then throw something in briefly between the card effects, and you have your routine. A rope effect, rope and ring, linking rings, silk vanish and reappearance, book test, bank night - any of those will work.

And Mark Lewis is right; if you read palms instead you will be a huge hit. But that's another story.

Lawrence may think he is being clever misquoting me but I can assure him that a palm reader will leave a magician trailing in the dust. Mind you there is some similarity in Balloon Modelling in that a queue forms. However, that is something you only do if there are great wads of children present. I well remember making balloon animals all day in St Stephen's Green park in Dublin. Quite a feat since I only know how to do about three animals.

Still it is all theoretical since Johnny doesn't know how to read palms anyway. However, it might be a useful skill for some of you to develop for future possibilities.

I am not a great fan of doing untried new material in great quantities. And 20 minutes of it is great quantities. It is always best to do what you already know. Perhaps Johnny can adapt his kid show stuff for adults. If all he does is Run Rabbit Run and stuff like that he is sunk. But sometimes selected kid show items can be done for adults if you alter the patter.

I am a great believer in the classic tricks. Things like the Chinese Rings, Egg bag etc;. Hackneyed they may be but there is a reason they have stood the test of time. Mentalism can be very strong but not if you are new to it. It can often be the most atrocious entertainment known to man if you do it badly.

Since this is going to be new stuff that he hasn't broken in properly yet he should at least make it as sleight of hand free as possible. In other words technically easy since it sounds like he is going to have enough to worry about.

I knew that I could rely on TM to give me some sound pointers on this subject.

I will answer a few of the questions that have been asked. Firstly, from Mark Lewis the question about palm reading. No, I can't but I do see the merit of adding this to my repertoire. I am getting quite smooth at Tarot reading however, is this a reasonable option to palm reading?

Part Timer asked what sort of magician I am. My close up work has a lot of card work in it, both sleight of hand and gaffed deck work. I will use the ID extensively in my walk around and table hopping so don't think I can use it again in the stand up set. I also work with sponges, some coin work and a few other bits and pieces.

Thanks for the suggestions about Bank Night, that looks like a goer and the rope work idea is something I believe I can put together in time. Mark Wilson has some good basic stuff in this field.

I have a passable amount of straight mentalism that would fill the time nicely. I am just concerned that 30 people 3 hours in to free booze will not be the best audience to ask for a bit of concentration from.

If I can make it funny I would like to and I have been asked to draw in the MD to some of the tricks so I will be working on that as well.

Thanks for the advice so far and as far as I am concerned no idea is too crazy to think about so please keep them coming.

For all of you who have advised that whatever I do I should keep it in my comfort zone, the advice is taken on board seriously and will be acted on.

If you can get hold of a copy of Paul's book on Palm Reading it'll give you a great basis in the art. The thread (at http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic36993.php ) also contains Mark's crash course to get you started!

The beauty of a bank night effect (or indeed Just Chintz as someone already mentioned), is that it is so very easily customised to your target audience.

My initial thoughts for if it were me, doing something light hearted for a group of estate agents would be a bank night effect performed in a 'game show' style. Show them one of the prizes, a £50 note perhaps and the rest could be Monopoly related.

"You've won a house!" - produce a little green Monopoly house. "You've won a car!" and so on.

Andy Nyman has a wonderfully little cute effect on Get Nyman that's very much in the game show mould. It involved eliminating prizes. Grab the MD on stage and explain to everyone that it's a game to determine their xmas bonus.... eliminate all the overly grand ones, leaving a comical prize as the one won.

Mandrake wrote:If you can get hold of a copy of Paul's book on Palm Reading it'll give you a great basis in the art. The thread (at http://www.talkmagic.co.uk/ftopic36993.php ) also contains Mark's crash course to get you started!

Will be ordering today! Thank you for the tip, that's why I come to this forum so often, so much good advice is out there.

You can also Google for additional hand charts to add extra info to your stash of mystical prognostications!

For palm reading, you can't do much better than Paul Bell's latest little book to get you started.

Hmm, interesting - what you've described is a format I'm encountering increasingly often on corporate events - around 20-25 people at one table boardroom style, then short 'cabaret' after the meal (agent's description, not mine) - I did one of these last week, for example, and have another in about ten days time.
However, I can tell you that, in my experience, there is an oddity about this kind of situation - particularly with a horseshoe table - you are basically going to be spending the evening performing for twenty people at a single table, pretty well all of whom will be watching you at any one time, so then there is very little change to giving a stand up perfomance to the same people.
Personally I have found that my 'proper' after dinner stand up is a bit too formal for this environment - the gags are a bit more structured than my close-up work and so on and it seems too 'scripted' (the cutoff numbers incidentally seem to be about 40-50) and so I've recently been working a performance which is basically closer to formal close-up - as long as it's done up in the air and not at the table top level it's much the same environment as convention close-up after all.
I've tried various types of material, but you've probably got all those effects you've played with that are unsuitable for strolling that you might like to try - they are really no further away from you than they were during the close-up, and they will expect to be involved in just the same way as they were during the close-up because, to them, there's no difference, it's just that they are now giving you their full attention for 20 minutes or so.
As a sleight of hand close-up guy, you could look at cups and balls, a rope routine, Phil Cass' routine for the shell game, the kind of more formal card routines such as Greg Wilson's - think Magic Castle close-up room rather than stage. I've been having a good deal of success with a handling of the Revelation in Spades, Sankey's Airtight, Sucker Silks, a $100 bill switch routine, and a McCombical deck, amongst others. It may also pay you to keep your ID for the after dinner - it's a perfect routine for parlour conditions - if you can master the palm readings (and Paul is your man) I would be using them to extend your close-up segment, freeing up some other routines for the parlour show.
I hope this helps - I personally believe this is going to become a much more common type of gig in the future - several clients for whom I used to do the usual 15 - 20 tables for a dinner have booked me this last year to do a specially invited group of around 20 guests instead - more material is needed, obviously, and it's still a work in progress, but it's becoming quite fun.
As an aside, if you're interested, I'm currently pondering the practicalities of restructuring Dave Forrest's 'Man Who Paints the Future' for just such a performance environment.

Since Paul's book on palmistry is being advertised I suppose I should mention that I also have a DVD out on the very same subject as in fact I also have about other facets of divination such as Chinese Numerology and the Tarot. A mere 30 quid to UK customers or $50 to American or Canadian punters. I pay the postage. It costs a bit more to send to the UK hence the slightly higher price to Brits.

In answer to Johnny's question Tarot readings will work in this environment providing you cut them short and don't get in too deep with the client's problems. It is a little trickier to do this with the Tarot than it is with palmistry but it can indeed be done and many do it. Some clients do look askance at the tarot so I prefer palm readings in this situation. And palmistry is more general which is what you want for entertainment situations like this.

The Parlor setting is pretty much like you see on many L&L dvds.

I feel at home in this situation myself. What you need to do, is get somebody in to cover that section, who is willing to do a deal.

Johnny Wizz wrote:Part Timer asked what sort of magician I am. My close up work has a lot of card work in it, both sleight of hand and gaffed deck work. I will use the ID extensively in my walk around and table hopping so don't think I can use it again in the stand up set. I also work with sponges, some coin work and a few other bits and pieces.

Something like Bill Abbott's Smart Ass, as Relish suggested, sounds like it could be ideal for you. Get the boss man up to sit on the card.

I have a passable amount of straight mentalism that would fill the time nicely. I am just concerned that 30 people 3 hours in to free booze will not be the best audience to ask for a bit of concentration from.

I think you might be right. You might not, but as this is your first gig of this type, my suggestion is stick to magic. If you have a bad show, it might knock your confidence.

Don't try to learn too much. Something like Smart Ass, plus a Bank Nite routine, may well be all you need for a 20 minute show. You can always do a couple of small tricks as well.

If you're interested, Jack Kent Tillar has a trick he performed specifically for a real estate audience, which is described in Burton Sperber's book Miracles of My Friends II. This is a mentalism routine, but it doesn't require a huge amount of thought. In short, the performer has a stack of postcards, each of which bears the name of a town. Two people help, and each picks a postcard. The performer has a map and puts two pins in it, at the correct locations. It uses a principle I've seen in a couple of other tricks, but Jack adds a couple of very nice handling subtleties.

In the UK, estate agents cover a smaller area, so I would consider changing the towns to streets.

Actually, thinking about it again, you'd need a really visible street map, and some kind of easel, so it's probably not ideal. Having typed all the above, I'm leaving it, just in case someone is interested!

Shaun mentioned Phil Cass's shells routine. On that DVD, he also does a rather good trick where he pours some beer into one hand, and it travels to the other. Might be one to have in reserve, should it be quite a rowdy audience. He says he's done it to bikers, swiping some of their beer!

Vanderbelt wrote:Andy Nyman has a wonderfully little cute effect on Get Nyman that's very much in the game show mould. It involved eliminating prizes. Grab the MD on stage and explain to everyone that it's a game to determine their xmas bonus.... eliminate all the overly grand ones, leaving a comical prize as the one won.

Johnny, if you want to do this, I came up with a couple of ideas that you might find useful. One is simply a gag, the other is a handling change that I think helps cover the method. I did this trick, in its original form, for my boss when she got remarried a few years back, and it was a lot of fun. I'd say it took a good ten minutes. If you decide to do this and would like to know more, PM me. It's (for now) an offer only available to Mr Wizz!

Part-Timer wrote: If you decide to do this and would like to know more, PM me. It's (for now) an offer only available to Mr Wizz!

Consider me standing in an orderly and polite queue!

Si