talkmagic.co.uk

Well, I did a search and nothing came up so I thought I will give a warning out with a little story...


Yesterday I was at a local KB Toys just looking around for the heck of it doing a few card/rope tricks for the kids and all that jazz. As I procceeded to leave the store I start talking to one of the cashiers after showing them some card tricks; guess what I notice right there in the checkout area...D'Lites for their normal prices ($15 USD for a pair and a DVD)...Apparantly they have been sold there for 5+ months and sell pretty well...I was quite irritated with this (this might not be applicable to UK'ers here as I do not know if the store branches out to the UK or any other country). This means that any kid, while waiting in line for their mom and dad to buy something for them they see "make lights appear from your fingers" and their young minds make them go "Mommy, I want it, I want it, I want it!" until their parents give in 90% of the time which is making it now very dangerous to perform D'Lite especially for a large group of people.

Sorry if this does not apply to most of the users on here, but everyone from the U.S. prepare to hear "Oh! I Have those!" from a spectator...

Oh how I wish it would be against the law for them to do this...

~David

Nope, it's the same over here - possibly the same company - Marvins Magic have released them. Even though I don't use D'Lites, I can understand people's irritation. The problem with them is you can't really present them in a different way. Well, I have one idea, but I'd have to check out the D'Lites first.

I saw a guy selling them on the street in Charing Cross Road, London.

A non-magical amateur theatrical friend says all his mates know D'Lites very well as they make excellent 'Tinkerbells' when performing Peter Pan.

yeah i have been to my local toy R us in the UK i was walking arround christmas shopping and yeah i saw D-lites on sale

The same in Canada.........I get called out on these all the time when I do them for kids/families! I have basically put them to rest unfortunately. Drives me nuts......what do you do? Like someone said earlier, they really provide you with one performance effect, so not even as though you can present them differently.......

I am sad to say this...but I am thinking about putting my D'Lites down...I cannot think of any other performance for these except the usual one. I guess you could use them and once you get caught (try to stay away from large groups as a higher probability someone will know ruining it for more people) just say, "Oh, that's a shame. Mine are slightly different than yours I believe, but lets move on." but D'Lites as a whole have been ruined by the toy company ***holes...

<end of rant>

~David

I don't think that it really matters if people know how it is done. I think the performance makes the whole trick worthwhile. Not every person who buys this trick will put the time and effort into coming up with an impressive performance.

But they can heckle you no matter what if they know the secret .

David R. wrote:But they can heckle you no matter what if they know the secret .

They can also say they know how all of your act is done, whether they know or not.
If you aren't 100% sure if you should use these still, don't for a while. It will be a niggle in the back of your mind while you are performing.
Give them a break, then see if some new inspiration comes to you. If you entertain, it doesn't matter if people already know the secret.

All those who have been to a magic show, put your hands up. Did you know how some or all of them were done? Did you still enjoy the performance?

Darrel wrote:All those who have been to a magic show, put your hands up. Did you know how some or all of them were done? Did you still enjoy the performance?

Yes....Very good point. All I have to say is very good point...

*David walks away thinking "Why didn't I think of that?"*

Ah this throws up an intresting artistic debate dose it not?

How many times have you done a piece of slight of hand only to have some snotty nosed little brat shout out “IT’S IN YOUR OTHER HAND?” I know this is a problem for a lot of children’s magicians. Dose this put them off using a brightly coloured production box? Put away the brake away wand? And make a pie out of Roberto the magic rabbit?
Nope it doesn’t. I think there is a difference between knowing how a trick is done and the performance of the said trick in entertaining way or a “magical” way after all that’s what we are striving for is it not?
The linking rings old has the hills every one knows how they are done don’t they? And still they get used all over the world. Even Jeff McBride dose a ring routine. What is the point if every one knows how it’s done? Well it’s performed masterfully. Ok I don’t think the D’lites will ever become synonymous with magic as the rings but why not throw them in? Maybe not as a serious peace of magic but a little intro in to the world of magic. Magic is freely available in toy shops all over the world? TTs can be brought in a Varity of places have you thrown yours away? Svengali decks the same I still some times in a close up setting us one. And we all know about Mr Mark Lewis building a career out of the said deck.
So you might get caught a few times lets face who hasn’t but I am sure they haven’t seen the rest of what you can do.

Wow, I was actually going to post about this a week or so ago, forgot about it until now when I stumbled upon your post.

I had a very similar experience. I saw them and said "hey, cool, ..... no..... wait!" the more I thought about it the more upset it made me. I've never seen these in use as a magic effect - but I know that there are a lot of magicians that *do* use them.

I went about browsing the store and had mostly shrugged it off until I made my way up to the cash register. I picked up one of the D'Lite boxes while the clerk checked me out and realized it was empty. "Likely a pair just got stolen, or they have them here as promotion and don't want a full box to get put in a bag by mistake", I think.

I move to return the box and to my horror I see that I was wrong, the box was empty because THE D'LITES WERE ON DISPLAY. I stared at them in disbelief as I turned over my debit card to the cashier. A delay with their card machine prompted me to pick up the D'Lites and start to mess with them standing directly in front of the cashier. There were no protests or questioning if I took them out of the box, they were actually, purposefully, on display.

Beware KB Toys. It may do anyone using D'Lites well to give them a rest until they fade out of the publics recent memory.

- Tyler

I don't think that it really matters if people know how it is done. I think the performance makes the whole trick worthwhile.

It's not too hard to figure out that the only way to produce light at your fingertips... is to be holding little lights at your fingertips. Anyone would know the "secret" the first time they saw D'lites-- the issue with selling them in toy stores is that they may (or may not) become somewhat commonplace. Still, I think they are a great utility to weave into a routine-- they're an attention grabber...
and who's to say that you have to do an entire D'lite routine (although they can be beautiful to watch) -- I think they could easily be inserted into many other tricks- ie.. card switches (where the spec. can see their selected card travel in the form of light... to the card that's been sitting on the table the whole time)