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Hi.

I was wondering if someone could suggest some effects or resources that I can use to get into corporate magic. I am doing my first show soon at the company I am working for. I will not post the entire extract here, but please feel free to read about my "audition" for this show on my blog at: http://vernesto.blogspot.com

On the left is a heading called "Experiences". Just select the "My first audition" link.

Thanks in advance.

Oh! By the way. I have 30 minutes to perform and these are the effects I chose to go with. I have scripted the show and am practising as well. I'm hoping to use this as a show case for many future paid performances.

Premonition

A spectator's thought of card is missing from the deck and found in the magician's pocket.

Envision

The magician reads a spectator's mind and duplicates their drawing.

Between the palms

A signed playing card is found to be the card placed between a spectator's palms before the trick started.

Clutch

A spectator's selected card is instantly pulled from a sealed deck of cards in their pocket.

If anyone knows any of these effects and have some performance tips for me - that will be GREATLY appreciated.

There two things that really strike me about your routine is that there doesn't seem to be all that much flow from effect to effect and it's very cardy. It's very hard to really say without seeing you perform, but I'd really think a little about the routining.

With a parlour show, I love to get as many people involved as possible right from the start, as long as they're involved, you'll have their attention. I always start out with a little fun, boys vs girls psychic competition. The ones who prove to be the most psychic, I'll then go on to use in later effects. It's good fun, relaxs the audience and gets them chatting.

The key to corporate gigs is to perform WITH the audience and not AT the audience. All of your tricks do that but every one of them only engage one person at a time. Clutch is not something that I would use as a closer.

I recommend picking up Mark Wilson's Complete Course in Magic. Funnily enough, you will find Clutch in it but more importantly you'll also find tricks of different styles that involve a handful of people at once.

There's a nice Three Way Test, a half gag/half trick Ping Pong Ball lottery prediction type effect, multiple rope routines that can use the entire audience in some way, a handful of Do As I Do effects, envelope work, etc. In fact, in addition to the Three Way Test being a great effect on it's own, it's also an opportunity to introduce the other objects that you will go on to perform other tricks with.

Generally speaking, cards should be avoided in this setting due to their small size. There are exceptions, of course. Usually the exceptions have one thing in common- the cards are nothing more than a smaller prop for a bigger effect. An afterthought, not the focal point. An exception is Tossed Out Deck which works well with bigger groups. Any effects that predict what card will be forced, er I mean selected, by the spec and then revealed by the magician in a much bigger way go over big. There are two approaches to that- a time sensitive prediction made before hand such as a mailed letter, interoffice memo in a manila envelope, Classified Ad from that day's newspaper, etc. or an off the wall revelation such as "card in (whatever you can dream up)", etc. Anything that doesn't involve the revelation being involved with yet more cards like an ID and the like.

Just read your blog post about your audition. Bad news that you screwed up, good news that your coworker covered your ass. Since she's on your side, you might as well as make use of it and get her in on the action as a behind the scenes type of assistant or a plant.

In all honesty, based on your blogs and what you have put forth here, I think you are doing too much too soon. Even if your current plan went 100% right on, you're looking at performing a total of four 1 to 2 minute tricks that are aimed at one person to a group of 150ish people for 30 minutes.

You should always keep the routines simple so you can concentrate on the performance, this is the most important thing with any stage or parlour.

And in parlour you should make sure there is nothing to small or confusing. (I would say between the palms is more close up)

I agree that its very card heavy so maybe break it up with something else as well?

Have a great show and I am sure you will enjoy it.

This isn't a knock at your selection of effects, as I think all of them could be very strong. However, you need to remove yourself from the equation, and try to look at it from the perspective of the audience.

If you take an effect like Envision - which is a drawing duplication - this can be an incredibly powerful piece. In many ways, you could potentially link Premonition to Envision, in that you can relate them to "visions" you had night before. However - you then follow with Between the Palms. As good as Between the Palms is, it is not strong enough to follow a drawing duplication effect. Not only is the effect less powerful, there's no correlation between the two.

Thinking from the lowest common denominator, you're following an experiment in thought/mind reading with a card trick. It's a great card trick...but it's still a card trick.

You're then closing with Clutch. Again, another good effect - but not strong enough to follow the effects preceding it. As well, there's no link.

Premonition and Envision are incredible effects, and I think having both of them will work very nicely in the routine. However, I feel you should rethink the rest of your act. Find elements of the first 2 routines that can translate, or at least seamlessly evolve into other effects/demonstrations.

You have a premonition/prediction effect, and a thought transmission/projection effect. Where can you go from there? Think of where you want to lead the audience - what emotions or explanations/mysteries are you trying to deliver? Once you know what you want to show them, the effects will come.

I posted my script on my blog. Maybe my choice of effects will make a bit more sense.

I've just read the script up to "BETWEEN THE PALMS" and skimmed the remainder.
The one thing I have to say is about the psychics/mind reading/wife/angel part. I can see the joke but though I may be wrong I have a feeling it could go badly unless you've got the right type of crowd/mood/presentation/character. I can't judge any of them but gags like that could backfire if it's not right for the show.

The one other thing is for the beachball "volunteer" selection... I suggest you have some sort of Plan B for if the music stops when the ball is with someone who won't come up. Pressuring them into it might not be so good as some people are just mortally shy and would enjoy nothing less than being on stage... but if you have something in mind to get someone up without it being a really big deal you'll be fine.

Just keep one thing in mind, at corperate events you are there to attract people to the booth or/and too the salesperson. Magic is really just a sales tool. And in this case it is literally a sales tool. My best advice to to research the company you wish to work for and use the products and marketing material in your performance. Or are you talking about corperate parties? Two different venues.

This is at our end of year function (aka party) not a trade show.