MagicShow.Tips – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Ditching the Invisible Deck!

The idea of using a Nest of Envelopes as a running gag with a magical payoff is taking shape. In the first version of the trick, the magic trick was going to be card prediction. Playing cards are uniquely grouped to allow several choices of groups to get to a single card that nothing else I could think of can. Ideally, this trick wouldn’t be a card trick, but it’s looking like it will.

When I first came up with the idea, as a placeholder for the trick, I used an invisible deck. The goal is to have something more original or less common than an invisible deck. Also, the invisible deck is less punchy of a reveal. It takes time and steps to get to the reveal.

What I want is a single card in the envelope. That’s it, the card is chosen (in 3-4 steps), the last envelope is opened, and that’s the card in the envelope! I didn’t have a method, but with the re-release of Phil Goldstein’s trick Shinkansen, that jogged my memory.

A few years ago I made a vintage magic trick video of that trick:

@louiefoxx Is a magic trick from 2002 vintage? #vintage #magictrick #cardtrick #shinkansen #magic #packettrick #cardsacross #maxmaven #wow #louiefoxx #philgoldstein ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I also made a jumbo version of the trick and did it onstage as a filler piece. Part of the method of the Shinkansen led me to the method I’m going to start to use to do the prediction in Nest of Envelopes!

If you’re a magic creator, this is why having a broad knowledge of magic tricks and methods is a huge help! Part of the method for cards across got me closer to my vision for a playing card prediction!

-Louie

The Nest of Envelopes – Update

In playing with different ideas with the Nest of Envelopes, I’m trying to decide if it works better as a bit that’s split up as a running gag sort of thing, or if it’s better and a single trick.

The advantage of it being part of a single trick is that the effect and the selection process are much clearer. That’s because it all just happened.

I’m still doing it as a card trick, and I’ve also learned it needs to be done with jumbo cards! I’m personally not a fan of using poker-sized cards where people in the audience need to see that a card is a specific card. Having the reveal of the card bigger will make it hit harder.

This routine has a way to go, but I think it’s a great idea!

-Louie

Magic Show or Wrestling Match?

Last week I was performing at a fair, and a couple days into the run, I walked to my stage like I do everyday and this was my view from the stage!

The previous days I had rows of chairs, but this day I had a wrestling ring!

If I asked this on a social media magician’s group, people would say “put it in your contract that people are seated in rows” or something like that. That’s easy to say, but in reality, it’s not that simple. I’ve already got a couple of days of work into this gig and a couple more to go. That wrestling ring isn’t going to move for me. All the people who say it violates the contract (if written), what are they doing to do, walk away from the gig. If you do that, they’re not going to just hand you a check; you’re going to have to fight to get paid if you walk away.

What would you do in this situation?

I simply converted my stage show into a hybrid street/close up magic show.

This worked great, and this is why I always think that if you do stage magic, you should be able to do close up magic as well. Sometimes it just works better to do some card tricks!

I’ve done many shows with stages and situations that varied a lot, I can adapt to pretty much any situation.

-Louie

Here’s how I handled another difficult stage.

Sound System for Magic Show

Nothing drives me crazier than people who run sound that don’t know how to run sound. Let me start by saying that I don’t know how to run sound. I do know how to run it for my show, but that’s my limited scope. I couldn’t be a sound tech for a band, or your magic show, just mine.

A few weeks ago, I was at a drag brunch, and the person running the sound had a soundboard that ran off some strange cord that wasn’t compatible with the venue’s sound system. They had to set up their speakers in from of the venue’s speakers!

That’s kinda ridiculous and a lot of extra work that’s not necessary. The industry standard is XLR cords for live sound. You can use headphone style 1/8 inch cords, but you’ll usually need additional adapters to get the sound into a professional soundboard. Just carry the correct thing, which is an XLR, and you’re good to go!

Another thing was the microphone receiver placement, which wasn’t the best place, which led to it repeatedly dropping out. Oh, and the microphone was USB-charged, which sounds like a good idea, except if you’re in a situation where the power on the mic is low, you really don’t have any options for instantly giving it power. At the drag brunch, they kept having to plug the mic to charge it for a few minutes at a time. If you’re using a battery powered microphone, you just swap out the batteries.

I currently have two microphone set ups that I use:
1: My good mic which is a Sennheiser
2: My beat it up mic which is a Saramonic

Both have battery powered receivers as well, so I don’t need to find a plug to use them. Having good audio that works is just one less problem you need to deal with.

-Louie

Nest of Envelopes as a Running Gag

This routine is starting to take shape. First, I had the idea of doing a running gag with a nest of envelopes. Then I figured out what the magic trick payoff at the end of the running gag would be. The last piece of the puzzle is to figure out the routine.

Each envelope will have an instruction written on it. This is independent of the card selection process.

The rough flow is that they will make a choice, like red or black. Then they will open the envelope, and written on that envelope will be an instruction. They do that. Then you do another routine and come back to the person with the envelope. You give them the next choice, like hearts or diamonds. Then they open the envelope and do what’s written on it. That is repeated until the choices have narrowed it down to a specific card. The last envelope has the invisible deck in it, which reveals the selected card!

I think this will make the invisible deck play bigger with all the envelopes, but also allow me to get more time out of the prop, without it being a single routine that’s dragged out.

-Louie

The Nest of Envelopes Trick

For the Nest of Envelopes, I need to figure out what is going to end up inside the envelopes. I’m thinking that a choice will be made as each envelope is opened. And those choices will narrow it down to a single thing. Then that single thing or representation (i.e., picture of it) will be in the innermost envelope.

While I hate for this to end up being a card trick, it looks like it will be. A deck of cards lends itself to being a group of items that can be grouped in a lot of different ways that are easily remembered. You can give people choices like: color, suit, letter or number, odd or even, male or female, exact value (i.e., four). A performer friend and I sat down and tried to brainstorm different things that could be grouped in different ways, hopefully four or five groups. We didn’t come up with anything that was good or easy for a person to understand.

If the trick is going to end up being a playing card prediction, then the obvious choice is an invisible deck. I travel with Rough Stick, so I quickly made an invisible deck:

I don’t know if this will be the final method, but it’s nice because it’s self-contained. The deck can go into the smallest envelope, and I don’t need to add or alter anything. Just open the envelopes, and when we get to the invisible deck, spread it to reveal the selection.

-Louie

Magic Show Running Gag

The School Assembly Tour that I did in April had a running gag in it. It was a bit with Jeff McBride’s BEKOS (smiley face version), and you can see me do it in my School Assembly Set. I really liked how it played, and I’m thinking of adding a running gag to my show.

In the past, I’ve done a thing with the Nest of Boxes, I wrote an article about it over a decade ago called Call Back: My Take on the Nest of Boxes. Basically, I was using the nest of boxes as a running gag throughout the show. I really would like to use them again; however, the reality of how my show travels prohibits me from using a traditional nest of boxes.

The Nest of Envelopes!

The idea is a Nest of Envelopes. The idea is that something is inside a nesting set of 4 or 5 envelopes. The thing inside doesn’t have to be an object that has vanished; it could be a prediction or even some sort of punchline. This opens up a lot more possibilities.

The nice thing about envelopes over a set of boxes is that they pack flat and are much lighter! Also, something that, in an emergency, could be sourced in any city with an office supply store.

-Louie

Old Magic Props in Real Life!

There are magic props that look like they were created to make a trick work, and don’t exist in real life. The TV Card Frame magic trick where a card appears between two pieces of glass is one of those tricks.

Recently at a junk shop I saw a picture frame that I’m guessing is what the TV Card Frame is trying to look like:

I’m always amazed that these things that look strange to me, but were created long before I was born, were designed to sort of look like things that existed in real life back then.

I wonder what props that look like everyday items now won’t look like anything people will have interact 40 years from now?

-Louie

Stage Show Props

These are the props that are in my hands or pockets when I walk onstage. This is for a 90 minute theater show.

The paper will have a person’s name under “congrats”, but that will be filled in right before showtime. The paper goes in the envelope, and that, along with the mic, goes in my hands. Everything else is in a pocket or under my coat.

I will say that switching from putting the ball in my back pocket to a ball dropper to steal the tennis ball is a game changer for me! I use it in my Stand Up Chop Cup routine (from my 2025 lecture notes). The steal is cleaner, with less motion and I don’t have a lumpy butt for half my show!

-Louie

What’s the Out?

Personally, I have a love/hate relationship with magic props that use electronics. There’s so much that can go wrong, and when it does, how do you still do the routine? For me, I usually run two different methods at the same time and can switch from the cleaner/easier electronic method to the analog method instantly.

I’ve got a bit in my new show that uses an electronic magic prop, and the easiest solution to it failing is to have a second one running at the same time!

I do have a third backup method that’s analog; however, the more efficient way is two of the electronic gimmicks.

With magic methods moving towards apps, and electronic gimmicks, I think it’s important to look at your show and figure out where the potential failure points are for tech and how you would deal with them when it happens.

It will happen!

-Louie