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In the next week, I have two small shows to do.......

Party #1 is a staff christmas party for a Casino
Party #2 is a restuarant party with a theme "Back to your youth!"

I have a pretty good idea what effects that I am going to perform, but was looking for any interesting suggestions that I may have not thought of (effects, props, patter, etc) to suit the two party groups/themes.

Well at the Casino, definately some balloon swallowing and a disappearing elephant

No, really, how about some of the tricks on Lee Asher's site using Aces? They are pretty simple, but trés effective

Also, if you have RRTCM "A Poker Puzzle" on page 129 is good

Yeh......those sound like good ideas, I have both the book and tons of Lee asher stuff.

anything with a gambling theme for the casino obviously so for example -

- any poker tricks
- endless chain routine
- anything with dice
- any betcha type tricks / gags
- money tricks (coins or paper including bank notes to blank notes, bill change, just chance money in envelope, torn & restored money, bill in card etc.)
- anything using poker chips (maybe a misers dream using chips ?)

For back to your youth -

- tricks where you go 'back in time' eg. a number of items get destroyed in various ways then you turn a clock back to discover they have all restored
- anything to a musical number from your youth
- lots of teenagers love blood & gore so you could do needle thru arm, any guillotine routine, knife thru arm etc.
- teenagers love to party so anything using alcohol
- teenagers often smoke to look older so anything with cigarettes

Perhaps you shouldn't do to many dice and card effects as all the people at the cassino are probably sick to death of those things.

Pitto

Pitto wrote:Perhaps you shouldn't do to many dice and card effects as all the people at the cassino are probably sick to death of those things.

That's exactly what I was thinking. Think about it; who would be least impressed by feats of cheating with cards and dice (after magicians) than people who work in casinos?

As to going back to youth, if the theme is that broad, you can do stuff with kids' toys.

About a month ago, I went to a party where they'd hired a magician for the children, but he encouraged the adults to watch too and it was fun. How about doing a kids' show, but aimed at adults? That doesn't necessarily mean fill it with rude jokes, but do stuff with helpers where you treat them like children. You could get laughs by asking what they want to do when they grow up, or if they've come with mommy and daddy.

Kevin Cann wrote:teenagers often smoke to look older so anything with cigarettes

I hate smoking, but if you do anything with cigarettes make sure its is disappearing on destroying them, as you do not want to promtoe bad health

ace of kev wrote:I hate smoking, but if you do anything with cigarettes make sure its is disappearing on destroying them, as you do not want to promtoe bad health

I also hate smoking - unfortunately 'youth' don't worry about that sort of thing.

Instead of cigarettes you could use crayons or sweet cigarettes for some similar effetcs.

'Youth' do worry, as I am myself a 'Youth'

Just found a new DVD by Brian Tudor that shows all these poker cheat moves. You could use those in your performance. (Not telling you to cheat by the way )

I agree that the casino folk probably dont want to see a bunch of poker cheating. But maybe some strong mentalism with cards so it looks like you arent just cheating, but beating the odds in incredible ways. Those are fun to do. And would be more impressive.

Well the casino night is done.........

I used a variety of things, but the coolest thing I found was a store in town has choclate casino chips....they are covered in colored foil, and look great......I used these two do some coin transpo work, with a real chip mixed in, and in the end, they kept, and ate the choclate chip.....was a cool little touch!

stevebo wrote:Just found a new DVD by Brian Tudor that shows all these poker cheat moves. You could use those in your performance. (Not telling you to cheat by the way )

Yeh I saw that aswell. The demo vid is amazing

The card cheating moves could be a finisher.

Say you've done alot of tricks and everything. Then you say stuff like "You guys have been great. I'll let you in on some secrets about Poker Cheats. I'm not a cheat myself but I do know a few moves that they tend to do (and this is why no-one plays poker with me)." Then do a few of the moves and just make it look like magic!