Be Clear and Concise

When speaking to your audience, enunciate clearly. Don´t mumble or speak softly. Also, don't drone on or be pedantic; be clear in speech, mannerism, movements and especially in your instructions.

Mum´s the Word!

Lie if you have to but NEVER tell them how a trick is done even if they ask you about a trick they saw Copperfield do. It's unfair to the other magicians in the world. You wouldn´t want another magician to reveal the secrets to one of your tricks.

Misdirection is Your Friend

All too frequently, perfectly good tricks are destroyed by magicians who refuse to learn the basics of misdirection. Properly used, the knack of misdirection can allow you to make moves you could never make, if the audience wasn´t momentarily distracted.

Be Professional

Develop yourself professionally. Study magic, stagecraft, acting, speech, anything that will help you be a better performer. Knowledge that you bring in from other fields can only enhance your act and will make you a more interesting person and performer.

Don´t Let the Hecklers Get You Down

When faced with an aggressive heckler, just make sure you're ruder than they are. If they smell fear they'll attack again. Challenge them to perform the trick in your place; that usually shuts them up.

Siempre prepardis - Always be prepared

Never accidentally reveal a trick by being ill-prepared for unexpected contingencies. Always have a fake "double" so that your audience can examine it. Learn how to switch tricked decks and gaffed coins smoothly.

Be Prepared for Impromptu Action

You're a magician; act like one. Every magician is presumed to be an expert with a deck of cards and a pocketful for coins. Stay versatile, and be alert to your audience. Of course, being an insufferable ham does help matters.

Always Keep Them Guessing

Keep your audience in suspense; never let them know what to expect. Unless it is absolutely necessary, never warn the spectator what to expect,e.g., "I shall now make this coin appear," or you'll sound like a caricature of a bad magician. Besides, what if the trick flops? You´ll have no way to cover.

Be Wary of Unbridled Videotaping

Be careful about allowing video recording of your performance. People will be able to closely examine your routine at their leisure, ad infinitum. Remember that, when you're checking all of your angles and the flow from one move to the next.

Jokes for Magicians

A collection of jokes and one-liners for performing magicians

From the site owner:
I thought you might be interested in a website that I have launched at www.gags.20m.com. It is a collection of jokes and one-liners with a particular bias towards magicians.

Although the site is still in its infancy, it is my hope that magicians will use the site a source of ideas and inspiration for their acts and that they will contribute to the site, making it bigger, better and funnier.

Check it out here: Jokes for Magicians

Give Them Their Money's Worth

Don't be a clock-watcher! There's nothing less professional than a performer who continually checks his watch. I've seen magicians leave a gig exactly at the hour's mark - amid trick!. Though you are working to the contract, your social skills will suffer and your callback rate will plummet!

Elements ~ Feelings and Emotions

FEELINGS and EMOTIONS are tied closely with MOVEMENTS AND CHOREOGRAPHY. One´s movements create and project mental feelings and emotions, whether it be inspiring, spooky or exciting. Having the right mix of choreographed movements is important in tying everything into your theme, and projecting the impact that you want and to make your act POWERFUL.

The Use of Animals

Every great man is always being helped by everybody; for his gift is to get good out of all things and all persons.
-John Ruskin

Be careful of animals in your care; they make you look good. Treat them in a humane manner. Train them gently and shower them with love and affection

Keep it Exciting

A trick may be very good [but] the magician must be better than the trick.
- Rene LaVand

A couple of card tricks every now and again is OK, but don´t go overboard. Also avoid card tricks that masquerade as mentalism effects. Mix it up. Experiment with different types and styles of magic. There's more to the wonderful world of magic than close-up tricks. Ever consider an escape? Mentalism offers a great diversity of effects.

Never Let Them See You Sweat

A pound of pluck is worth a ton of luck.
-James A. Garfield

I can´t stress this one enough: Never let them see you sweat. You must be a bastion of stoicism while on stage. Always be prepared with an out. If a classic card force doesn't work out, simply control the card to the top and change the effect. If the revelation doesn't work out, turn it into a comedy moment. Never admit defeat!

Practice! Practice! Practice!

We must not promise what we ought not, lest
we be called on to perform what we cannot.
- Abraham Lincoln

How does one get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice. It's a silly joke but truer words have never been spoken. Every magician, sooner or later (usually sooner) makes the same mistake. They learn a trick and go out and try to do it without practicing it. The simple secret does not mean it is simple to do. It takes work. But every great magician in history practiced for one reason: he or she loved to practice!

Don't Trust to Luck

Good luck is a lazy man´s estimate of a worker´s success.
-Anonymous

Luck is rarely that trustworthy. Leave as little as possible to chance. Check all of your equipment before and after every gig and once again immediately before using it at a specific performance.

Quality vs. quantity

In magic, simplicity makes the masterpiece
- Edmund Spreer

An amateur magician once approached Harry Houdini and told the master illusionist that he knew five hundred card tricks. The man then asked Harry how many card tricks he knew. Harry looked at the presumptuous young man and said, "Fifteen."

Err on the side of having too few tricks -- always leave them wanting more! You'll always be called upon for more tricks. If you drown your audience in yet another twenty tricks, they'll get bored and be more wary about asking you again tin the future. One great way to destroy a magical performance is to insist on not ending it.

Elements ~ Theme/Image

It´s important to always use a THEME in your act. Avoid the normal "top hat and tails" that is the same as everyone else. If you wish to be a top hat magician, there of course is nothing wrong with that. But keep in mind that you really have to be good to break away from the others. In summary, try to create your own theme. I know it's easier to copy, but trust me, you'll thank me if you change. I combine 12 years experience of martial arts and Ninjitsu into my act, combined with fire, roses, candles, canes etc, all of which fit my theme of martial arts and the mystic magician. Try to create your own world of magic that fits your theme.