As I am building a Cups & Ball routine, I have heard that you shouldn't have too many phases in the routine. I have Ammar's Complete Cups & Balls DVDs, Mark Wilson's Course, Tarbell's Course, and the Royal Magic DVD as references.

I am using brass Johnson cups, 4 Mike Rogers 7/8" mini baseballs, Fab Fruit, and 13.5 brass tipped wooden wand.

Here is my routine so far:

Phase one: appearance of balls from stacked cups
Phase two: basic penetration of balls
Phase three: Three balls gather on top of a cup (I really love this display)
Phase four: Three balls gather under middle cup
Phase five: Two-None-Two
Phase six: Final Load Sequence (balls vanish and return to cups leading to final reveal of Lemon, Tomato, Lime, and Potato)

In the many routines I have seen and and in threads I have seen posted here, most people seem to have only 3 or 4 phases in their routines including the final loads. Right now I have 6 phases in the routine that I am working up. Is 6 too many? I don't want to bore the audience before I reveal the final loads. Also, I am wondering if I should add in any of the little bits of business such as cup through cup and measuring a cup with wand.

How many phases doesn't matter. It is "does the audience follow what your are doing? Do they remain interested and are entertained (not to mention fooled)."

I have seen very short routines that killed and long ones that did the same.

I firmly believe it will take dozens if not hundreds of performances to really find out what works best for you.

I certainly agree with Pete here on this one. As long as you can keep them wanting to see the routine..phase after phase after phase..and keep them and it interesting. Length isn't important.

If you are concerned with length..video it yourself.. time it.. maybe see whre you can cut some fat. But really without trying it out on some real audiences and seeing if their eyes and attention start to wander.

In reading your phases..you seems to have a nice quick tight routine.. to oin Ammar's phase "Bubble Gum for the eyes". Thee is nothign where they have to sit.. watch, remember, memorize... Seems testing will need to be involved.

Best of luck!

Gazzo's few-phased cup routine (basically Vernon's routine) can go for forty-five minutes. It is not too long.

I have been bored by some three-phase routines.

Thanks for the responses. So far I am still memorizing the moves and prop management for the phases. I practice the moves and the routine daily. I am sure my wife is sick of watching it, but at least she can help by telling me when I screw up. My next purchase is a trifold mirror to watch myself practice.

I am not about to show the routine to laymen until I know that I won't flash any moves. My next victims will the rest of the family >:)

I'm not an expert on this, but when I made my cups and balls routine I thought about how fast I would do the moves. For example, Ammar is really slow and does a whole lot of talking. So, Ammar doesn't use a lot of phases. On the other hand, John Mendoza uses a bunch of phases but he works at a fast pace.

I have a question for the more experienced guys. For the person new to the cups and balls, how long should a routine be in terms of time? 3 minutes? 5 minutes? 10 minutes?

4 phases is to many.

Matt : I'm not sure you can approach it in this way because as someone else just pointed out the real test is whether the interest of your audience is being sustained. Some routines can get very boring very quickly if not presented well; other routines can go on for a long,long time, like Gazzo's does. That said, 3-5 minutes seems to be rather standard for most of us.

Fortasse

Posted: Oct 11, 2007 5:18pm
Misterbill : How long does your routine take?

Fortasse

Matt: Focus on the entertainment part of the performance. Make sure the audience are having fun with you. Timing is not critical here. The audience's response is more important.

I agree with some people here in that the routine must fit you and above that must be entertaining for your audeince.
How are you involving the audience in the routine.
Johnny Thompson's routine is 4 phases and is very entertaining and really involves the audience.
John Mendoza involves his audience in the routine.
gazzon certainly involes the audseince whether they want to be involved or not hahah and it works well.

I think that it can be as long as you like as long as it is entertaining. Entertaining to the audience is very different than entertaining to magicians or yourself.
Mobius

Right now the routine takes me about 4 mins. or so but has minimal patter. I could begin blabbering and streatch it out to an eternity, but I don't want to lose the audience, I want to entertain them.

How much time do you need to kill in your show?

You should strive to make the routine last as long as possible and still enthrall the audience--once you have them hooked on a trick like this one, make the most of it.

Every time you end a trick and start a new trick, you can lose some of the audience's attention and focus. They start to walk off in their heads. It is good to keep them focused along one continuous effect for as long as possible.

I don't like to do more than four different routines in a half hour show. The shortest tricks are my opener and closer. An hour show for me is those same four plus two or three other long tricks.

It also simplifies your set-up and packing. Most talking magicians do way too many different effects.

Lot's of short tricks are for silent acts.

Well said, Whit.

It's not the length of the routine, but how you wave it.

Or something like that.

My routine has been six phases for some time and seems to play well. I feel comfortable with it and it flows for me. I'm going to experiment with adding the Malini routine as an opening phase at a Fall Festival in about a week. I'm interested in seeing if it creates interest at the start or falls on its phace.

The routine should stop when the first lady in the audience looks bored.

Dwight. If your routine is working smoothly as is, why change it? If it ain't broke....

You may be tired of it, but your audience probably isn't.

Thanks, Bill. I thought long and hard about that. My intent was to get a nice young lady up front at the start to add more immediate audience participation. On various occasions I have used just the Malini opener on its own, and the spectators mouths drop open, especially if they are close. The main drawback as I see it is that having completed that, there will be a little time lag while the young lady returns to her place, and the main routine begins.

Posted: Oct 18, 2007 9:52pm
Bill,

After another night's practice, I decided to abandon the idea. It just didn't seem to hook up well. I suppose if I want to use it, I'll have to develop a sort of secondary routine. I don't know when I'll get to that as I'm working to learn the Johnny Paul routine now.