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I learnt something a couple of weeks ago... I was aware of it already, but didn't realise how true it was!

So... I was staying in friends house for a couple of nights, and they'd asked me to do some magic for them one evening. I had a routine planned out for them...

The routine I'd planned was just three pieces. (The idea is that less is more.) A thought of card revelation which would introduce the deck of cards, then OOTW, followed by a simple CAAN (Cameron Francis Easy CAAN to be exact... I like this a lot, and with a little direction from me and a small slice of luck, it's virtually hands off!) Just those three things would be well over half an hours magic...

I've been rethinking a lot of my magic of late, so I'd worked hard on this, scripted it as far as I could, made it a strong as I could.

So I did the routine and it went down really well! My small audience was (almost) stunned! I was rather pleased with it all! My hard work had paid off, and I'd got a far better reaction than I'd expected!

And they asked for more...

Here's where I learnt the lesson!

Granted, I then had a couple of glasses of wine, and was having a good time, so I did more... lots of card tricks, and my friends enjoyed it!.. they kept asking for another one.. and another one! It was possibly some of the best card magic I'd done! I'm not big on sleights, but it all went really well, I was confident, and every trick went better than I'd done before! (Must have been the wine!)

However... it all detracted from the original carefully planned performance! What were intially pieces of magic that seemed to have left a strong impression got lost in the blur of all the tricks... and also became thought of as just tricks like all the rest...

Whilst it was certainly a good evening, (and great for me to practice and find that I can do some of these things better than I realised!) in hindsight, I really should have stopped after the first three things... at the most, have one more piece tucked away for any unplanned moments!

I'd say it sounds like you did well. Perhaps you should have stopped after you'd finished the planned routine but if you're having fun and they're having fun then why not just go with it like you did. I always go to a gig with three different planned routines but I've had gigs when I've just ended up making it up as I go along. If you've got the right audience who are in the right frame of mind, then sometimes the best thing to do can be to throw away your plans and just go with the flow and have fun.

Wise words indeed! Most professional entertainers have a set act but with well rehearsed encores which look as though they're impromptu. I always stick to the 'three things' rule but I have another two which can be added on if necessary.