(The main question is the last sentence)
I would like some advice, I want to use my next effect as a final load. My current act has: Cups and balls, 4 rings, rope, cards, 3 Card Monte, Shell Game, not in order.
My shows are not the type that people would watch all the way through, Kind of a walk up, watch as many effects as you want, walk away, thing.

What I have been working with is using my shells as the 3 final loads, with the shot glass as a kicker.

I want my tricks to kind of blend together, yet have an ending for each. So if a spectator walks up at the end of a effect, they will be kind of getting in on the start of the next.

The basic question for those who prefer brevity, is: Do you think shells would be a good final load for the cups and balls.

I'm just trying to picture it in my head, and what I think would be great- is indeed the 'kicker' ending of the shot glass. Good ideas.

My only comment is this: So, you're going from one shell game to another? I kind of always associated cups and balls and shell games together. Not as one, but in the same category. Both could be presented as a gamble. You're going from using three covering device, to using three shells (hence three more covering devices.) My only 'fear' would be that spectators who DO stay and view the performance- might end up thinking that the next effect seems similar, if not identical. See any relevance? Maybe it's just my thinking.

best regards,
Matt Tomasko

I agree with Matt on this. The audience does tend to equate the Cups & Balls with the shell game. Apples and oranges to us, but they tend to be less observant of the subtlties and details of magic. What they see are objects and covers.

I tend to think very laterally, and less straight line, so I would be looking for a way to produce the 4 rings from the cups... ok, maybe not precisely like that, but what if you were to produce a bag from one of the cups, unfold it, and a moment later pull 4 large linking rings from it? With that second scenario, there very well may be a method lurking nearby.

~michael

I think you'd be selling your C&B routine short if you used the shells as a final load. The three small shells won't have the same impact as three/four large final loads. Why not do the cups & balls as a closer - then you're free to use tennis balls, lemons etc etc as final loads.

Richard

C&B routines are monumental in my opinion. Everyone does them- and I never get tired of seeing them. Taliesin is right. If you're just going to progress into another gamble/of the same nature- then you'd lose the effect that a C&B routine can muster. I use mine as a closer personally. Just always gets the largest reactions. So, I build my routine up to that point.

I also noticed that you're including the three card monte in your act as well. Once again- a gamble. Find the pea, or find the red pipped card, or guess how many balls are underneath the center cup!? Might want to just pick one of these routines- learn them really well, and then build a routine up to this effect. And then close with it.

What other effects do you value and would want to throw into this routine? Any others?

Hope we can help you some,
best regards,
Matt

Well, I wanted a "different" final load, so I was just considering this idea, thinking it might go well with the concept. The idea of a bag that hold rings impossibly large for the cups is interesting.

I didn't think of the similarities between the cups and shells, I just see them as being so different in effect, a problem with being a magician. I see the difference in the french drop and a classic false transfer, the spec. only remembers the vanish.

I also use silver cups of my own design now, so size of the final load is limited to about 2"wide.... I have to consider this more deeply.

Matt,
Well I have come to love the Monte, shells and C&B too much to give any up. I have thought it out dropped a lot of the stuff I've been working on, but I can't forget those.... rope, rings, cards, coins=Limited, and mostly gaffed. This is whats on my plate, perhaps I should just be careful of the order in which I use them.

First of all, are you doing a magic show or a gambling show? If you are doing a gambling show, can the cups and balls and the rope tricks. Get the endless chain and do the monte, the shells and the chain.

The shells and the cups are the same trick, just a different scale. If you use the shells for the final load of the cups, you are going from a big trick to a little one. But the audience knows it's a trick, now, so they won't be likely to bet on the shells.

To tell the truth, there is a lot of similarity between the monte and the shells.

The cups and balls should probably be your final trick.

Now, you keep saying that you want final loads that are "different." How different do they need to be? Do you think that everyone in the world has seen people do the cups and balls? They haven't. Certain things are used because they work. Others are discouraged because they don't have as much impact.

Get Bob Read's Penultimate Cups and Balls. That will show you "good different."

Manuel Muerte does a cup and ball routine where he ends with a lemon. Then he does a bill and lemon routine with this lemon. Magicians think this is very strong. I don't. I think it makes the lemon look like a gaffed lemon. I want those lemons to be out in front of the audience for the whole time before I do the lemon trick.

Flowing continuity in a show can be overrated. If you want flowing continuity, work silent. Then it makes sense. There can be flowing continuity between segments, but there needs to be places where you stop and let the audience react very strongly.

There are ways to establish continuity without having each trick produce the next one.

If I were using a shell game as a final load, I'd do a large load first ("If you missed how THAT got under there, then you'll just be stunned at..."), then the pea ("...how hard that one was, or..."), all the shells under another cup ("...these guys... well, actually, these were a little harder, but if it had gone wrong..."), and then a full shotglass, with some kind of caramel coloring to make it look like scotch ("...this last item is always appreciated!"). I'd then knock back the shot of colored water, dry out the glass, and move onto a different item, getting back to the shell game a bit later...

I'd also have loaded the hard pea, so as to not worry about the spectators messing with it while I was otherwise occupied, and switch it for the worker when I was ready to get down to business.

Why waste your time with caramel colored water -- do what the movies do. Use tea.

OR
Scotch

kOnO

I think whiskey would be best, Nate and Nickie don't serve tea, I have an aversion to water. Thank you for the response everyone. Every time I think I have a novel idea I find it in not. Sometime it isn't even good. This is the good thing about working with other magicians (even if it is through digital means). I don't mind other magicians finding fault with my ideas it is better than the spectator doing so. I will try to get Mr. Reads book, and devise a different method.

Mr. Palmer,
you ask whether I am doing a magic show or a gambling show, can't I do both? I respect your opinion, I'm just curious. (I haven't forgotten about the rings I promised you, they are hard to make, I have help now).

Where I am going to do my first performance for random people (Magic shop). I haven't seen anyone stay longer than one or two effects typically for the other magicians, which is why I had the original idea. I just want to be better than average for my first foray into the spotlight. I would like all these years of random practice to mean something for 2 hours on a Saturday. I have done too much random magic, I want to take the next logical step. Thanks for the good advice, everyone. I don't regret asking the question.

Oh, I see volumes in that one statement.

Josh:

Let's look at the concept of the gambling show. With a gambling show, the only "force" at work is supposed to be chance, not the skill of the performer. Now all of us know that the "operator" is cheating, but he isn't supposed to be.

Once the element of sleight of hand is introduced openly into the mix, then it ceases to be "gambling" and becomes "magic."

Now it depends on your point of view as to whether this is right or not. It's like the age-old dilemma of mixing magic and mentalism. The hard core mentalist says "I don't mix magic and mentalism." Then he does the Himber rings. And the audience thinks it's real magic.

I see two problems here simultaneously.
1) the similarity of the shell game and the cups and balls
2) the disparity of the size of the props. You are going from BIG CUPS AND BIG BALLS to little shells and a tiny pea. Well, if you can make the balls go from one cup to another, then why shouldn't you be able to make a pea do the same? The change in scale is basically in the opposite direction that it should be in, I think. I think the cups and balls as an explanation for the shell game would be a much stronger combination, even though you wouldn't be producing the props from the cups as final loads.