talkmagic.co.uk

I've recently started to expand my magic beyond simply friends and family. Although it is always somewhat terrifying, it is also an amazing amount of fun.

Since I'm fairly new at this and only have about 10 or so tricks I feel extremely confident about, I have discovered that the subway system is the ideal place to try out magic with strangers.

People on a subway are stuck there and are often quite bored. Subway etiquette says that you shouldn't look at everyone else - but people's eyes are always roaming.

I usually just sit casually on a seat, doing a coin roll or a few card flourishes, specifically not looking at anyone. Lately, if I'm waiting on a bus platform, I have been playing around with my rope to silk, which is ideal because I've created a 5 minute long almost mime routine. That generally draws a crowd. Most of the time, people will be watching me from the corner of their eyes but won't say anything. If my bus comes, I will look over at one of my observers, smile, do the silk change, and jump on the bus. The reactions are priceless and I've just added a bit of magic to their day.

I think the subway is an ideal location for a new magician. It has the flexibility of a constantly changing crowd, an atmosphere where most people are desperate for amusement and gives me the perfect opportunity to leave after a few tricks because "it's my stop".

Is anyone else a subway magician?

LOL very nice idea. I´m not a subway magician but a "train coin roller" .
Everytime I´m on the train I´m practicing my coin rolls and other manipulations.
Most of the time people doesn´t realize about that but every once in a while someone watches me and that´s kind of fun.
Again, I do not do what you do but I guess is a nice idea because you can get confidence with strangers or at least perform more often.
So I guess it is good to try it

Peace

Ah nuts, I thought this was going to be about magic using ubiquitous footlong sandwiches... I can make those disappear pretty effectively, and once, after a bit of a heavy night, I made it reappear...

I've started to do this on the london underground myself- it's quite satisfying getting reactions from people! I need to adapt a few of my favourite card tricks which require tables etc for train conditions where I don't have a table though... (I mainly use cards instead of coins/other props etc see) laypeople seem impressed enough with flourishes anyway... most of which don't need a table anyhow also, can anyone ribbon spread on their arm? I saw a video of someone doing this, and I've tried it, it looks quite suprising!

I don´t know how many people here can spread a deck on their arms but is not hard to do at all, with a little practice it is easy to master. But the thing becomes a little hard if you want to catch the spread in the air.
This is known as "armspreads and catches".
There are several sources to learn this but I recomend spreading the cards the same way you would do on a table. I mean by beveling and NOT springing because it´s hard to do an even spread.
Check out Superhandz clips and/or their products to have a good example of these moves.

Good luck

I was on the London underground today and thought of this very subject as I passed a busker playing in one of the growing number of Carling spots.

Whilst you could clearly hear his guitar strumming it was noticeable that despite him being a reasonably good player, people just totally avoided eye contact as they walked past so that they didn't feel that they had to give any money.

Not much point in performing magic then - I thought to myself

I think that on the London underground in particular, people just want to get from a to b as quickly as possible and just won't be prepared to stand and watch something as visual as magic. Obviously someone's going to post to the contrary.

Maybw you should try kings cross then because there are always people waiting for trains, and where the big board is there is a rather large area always full of people.

I've had the most success when I'm on the subway itself, usually fairly late at night when it isn't too busy. Obviously it would never work during rush hour. But if you get a train when there are only 4 or 5 people on it and they are likely to be stuck there for half an hour, they are generally quite happy for some distraction.

Of course, I also get the people who look at me like I'm a bug they want to squash or refuse to make eye contact, but it' s easy enough to just switch to another train!

i sit on buses practicing isolations with a contact ball, that gets a few looks of confusion

Farlsborough wrote:Ah nuts, I thought this was going to be about magic using ubiquitous footlong sandwiches... I can make those disappear pretty effectively, and once, after a bit of a heavy night, I made it reappear...

This is what i thought too! I could start on about all kind of Sandwich effects, but im not going to...

Getting them to reappear is the hard bit, you should be very proud of yourself!

Ahhhh good old TTC transit.... yea I'm not much of a coin roller myself but i do like to keep myself entertained during those longer rides. I have not gone up to people on the subway to perform tricks but I do fool around with cards and may do a flourish or a simple visual trick. I find the moves that get the most people amazed are card/color changes or moves you would use in an ambitious card routine.

Strangely enough, I dont' know if I have been missing out or not but in the past month I have seen at least 4 or 5 people with rubics cubes on the subway trying to solve them as fast as they can.... Now thats something that draws a crowd of people! lol