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The biggest problem with exposure is not that people will know how your tricks are done. What exposure does is turn magic into a guessing game. How many times have you finished, or even only been part way through, and someone asks, "So can you tell us how you do it?"

WHen magic is exposed by magicians, it blows away the mystique. Suddenly, audiences feel it's okay to ask how it's done because other magicians have given away secrets. When you explain that you won't (You do say that don't you?) they become disappointed. This disappointment is magnified because they thought you were going to tell them.

You can make a joke as to why you won't tell them but the damage is done. How do you feel when you have put your all inot acreating a magical experience for people and their first reaction is "So are you going to tell us how you do it now?".

I don't like exposure but I won't go demonstrating in the streets about it either. It doesn't really do much harm in the sense that people forget the secrets anyway since they don't really care that much. And a little selective exposure can actually help get people interested in magic and even take it up as a hobby and bore people to death as they progress just like everyone else does.

However, the trouble with exposure is that it cheapens magic and makes it look easy which it certainly isn't. It strips away the mystique and the prestige. People won't admire us much any more. Not that people admire magicians very much anyway because of all the bad magic and magicians around (probably 90% of people doing it). But there is no need to make it worse.

I learned a long time ago that you should never expose a trick. It is the first thing you learn in magic. An exposed secret is like a burst balloon-there is nothing left. A good trick is like a precious diamond and it should be protected.

It is more to do with a professional attitude towards your art rather than a secret given away but then luckily forgotten 3 days after the exposure. For example when some chap who has forgotten to shave comes on You Tube and says it is OK to expose tricks then it does the art and image of magic a disservice. It cheapens what we do.

If you are going to advocate exposure at least have a shave first.

I never really understood why people are up in arms about exposure...

So, it's OK to expose magic in exchange for money (books/dvds/etc) but not for free? Have I got it right? Doesn't make much sense to me.

Besides, exposure only ruins it for the person who was looking it up, not the performer.

It makes a LOT of sense to me. If someone actually pays for the secret it means they have made a sacrifice to get it. If it is thrust upon them whether they like it or not or it is given to them free they have made no sacrifice and don't deserve the secret anyway.

And even if people pay for secrets care should STILL be taken when giving them away. Selectivity and not giving people stuff which is too advanced or too good when they are not ready for it.

I have always been very aware of the importance of keeping secrets. When I have sold svengali decks I have always made sure that the instructions were quite incomprehensible. I wouldn't be able to sleep at night if I thought people were getting value for money out of my products. And by adopting this attitude I can rest easy that I am protecting the secrets of magic.

What a topic

Several ways around this ...
1) Never tell people the name of your trick (or if you do, do a Derren Brown and be subtle about it; "that was out of this world" hahahaha)
2) Write your own material or adjust tricks to suit YOU as a person, so that the trick is something that YOU have done, not you as a magician, but you as "Dan" or "Steve"
3) Dont go for the latest "must have" magic trick - use older material, I may offend or confuse some of the younger members here, but there are these things called BOOKS which have invaluable tricks and methods and ideas in them, which a google search will reveal as "this is explained in Derren Browns VERY limited book, its £450 if you wanna buy my copy"
(This is my current method, with lots of OLD Max Maven material, from 1970's onwards)
4) Just block your mind out of this being a problem ... People will always be able to download films / magic tricks / music etc, and people always will, but that doesnt mean that as a musician you should stop doing what you do ... I know how a LOT of tricks work, but when I went to see Derren Brown last week, I was BLOWN AWAY by the show (is there a thread about this?) and the way in which the tricks were presented - they had HIS character to them, they were engineered to HIS style of magic and there was so much entertainment to be had, that the method was TOTALLY an afterthought

Like so many have said - this is by no means the gospel, just my 2 cents.

Dan

bmat wrote:Has this actually happended to you? Have you actually gone out and performed some magic and your spectators ran home (or whatever) and researched how it was done? If so, stop performing tricks and start performing magic.

If people are stopping you during your performance and telling you they know how it is done or they looked it up on google, then see the above advice. If you are entertaining them they are too busy being entertained to worry about all the rest, if you are doing a trick, or performing a puzzle then you are creating a challenge and/or making them feel foolish and that is why they are looking it up, or trying to throw you off, it is because their back is against the wall.

The absolute worst type of exposure is not done through blatent exposure, because in the end the vast majority of the population doesn't care how its done, (only magicians really put that much thought or time towards magic) and this is quicky forgotten.

What hurts is exposure through magic done badly. Plain and simple, because usually when a magician is just bad, we tend tend to remember such things. And that is what hurts.

Exactly if you perform well, entertain and perform magic, they will go away remembering something amazing. If they go away just wanting to know how you did it something is missing. I recently read a book called sleights of mind which is an excellent book. Penn and Teller amongst others have discussed exposure and the they basically say the same thing. Going of topic a moment it is a book well worth reading.