I have been working on the cups and balls for quite some time (Cellini's routine), but I performed it for the first time in front of spectators. It was ok, but I was hoping for a bit better reaction from the audience. I think I might be going to fast. The only place that I get a half decent reaction is when I produce the fruit and hat load.

Can anyone tell me about their experiences in getting their cup and balls routines up to scratch? I have worked hard on the routine at home but I hink I need to keep doing it in front of audiences. Maybe it is a confidence thing... I hope more flight time will bring better results but anyone with tips to speed up the process would be appreciated.

Simon

I don't know the cellini routine, but they are all similar.

The final loads are everything. By now you are probably smooth with all the moves that like tip over load and stuff like that, if not, there's part of your answer...
So in terms of the cups and balls routine (without final loads) slowing down, making eye contact, throwing in a couple jokes, all that will help.

Final loads though. This is most likely the part that is tripping you up. No one should see the final loads' loading process, if they do, you're dead.
I'd practice the final loads a lot. Then, before a show/performance, just tell yourself to slow down, make eye contact, and smile.

Any audience participation is helpfull of course. Even if it is just them picking a cup... or checking to make sure they are normal, or anything of that nature. If you haven't seen someone perform it before, I suggest you do, that might help.

Good luck!

Simon,

It sounds like you have answered your own question. Going too fast. I know it was my biggest problem for a loooong time.

The entire point of the situation is to build up that tension. There are four phases to cellini's routine and the secret to getting a reaction is all in the pauses.

That first revelation of the balls coming back under the cups after you vanished them one by one is very strong, if you pause for the audience to react.

When I first started doing that routine I would make the revelation, not get an immediate reaction, fill my shoes with flop sweats, and immediately go into the next phase of two balls, no balls, two balls.

After seeing other performers do the trick I realized that the key was to make that revelation, look directly at the audience, and make a subtle cue. They are so surprised by the fact that those balls have come back that they will sit there and stare at them gape jawed until you cue them out of it. That is done by just connecting with them. Look at them, step back, hold your hand out toward the table, and wait a second or two. They will catch up and react.

The second phase you can actually cue the audience verbally. After the spectator has selected a cup you can say to him, "Okay Joe, What is going to happen is the ball is going to travel from this cup to the cup you selected hopefully causing the audience to let loose with a big round of applause for you."

When you do what you said you would and look at the audience they will let you have it.

The next flurry of moves I downplay a little bit because I am doing the final loads. The only pause for applause I do during that phase is when I am doing the false explanation and after you show the ball going to your pocket and say, "So it would be impossible to come back like this."

After that the trick is done, all three cups are loaded on the table and you are set up to take the bow and load the hat after the revelation. Because the trick is over for the most part if you verbally build the moment those three balls will make the hat load unnecessary.

In the Cellini routine as described in The Royal Touch the hat load is almost a blow off. If you leave it out and sell the moment on the three loads, I wouldn't even bother with it. It is an easy thing to make the hat load in that routine anticlimactic.

So, after all of that it pretty much boils down to what you said, slow down.

Best,

Dan-

Thanks for that! I will slow down tomorrow and see how it goes! I will try and give the audience time to react. I think it is because although I have practiced the routine a lot I still get a bit nervous trying out a new routine. It is a great routine so I hope I can do it justice. Got two gigs tomorrow so I will be working on it again tomorrow. "Slow down and connect with the audience" - my focus for tomorrow!

Thanks again for our advice guys! Much appreciated.

In the Cups and Balls DVDs by Michael Ammar, he comments on how in the beginning he thought doing everything fast made for better magic. Now he takes that pause just long enough for the move to sink in but not long enough for it to be thought about.This is truly what makes it more magical. Thanks to some more priceless information from a true master.

The cups are a blast to do... I've been doing them since I was a kid and they are magical and pack easily into anything I carry around.

With that said, I do them for the audience, but I really do them because I like them. There are Masters of the cups and balls and I respect them all. I'm not. I do a good routine, and my audience likes the phases. But when it comes to the cups being my best routine, I have to say it isn't. I always wanted it to be, but sometimes it's in the show, sometimes it's not.

My thoughts are that most everyone I show the routine to has never seen it before. There are phases that just kill and sometimes when the time is not right for the loads I end the routine at one of the phases. I've noticed that over the years that there are a couple of places in my routine that the jaws have dropped and the applause is up. If I can tell that I would get burned on the loads, I just take the bow and move on with the show. The audience is satisfied with the magic and I keep my flow going.

Magicians hate this! I have had magicians come up after the show and wonder what went wrong. I play with them and say, "What do you mean?" They say I didn't finish the cups and balls routine. I just explain that the audience didn't know that and then I see the light go on. It's fun.

Don't get me wrong. The loads are great, and I do them most of the time, but there are times when I see an audience getting ready to move, or there is a distraction or there are people in the wrong spot and I just move on.

So the cups are like a Bloody Mary... It'a a very personal thing. The more you do the routine, you will connect to what makes it good for you and your audience. Just work it and work it and watch it evolve into your own personal magic. Have fun and remember... Expectations will kill ya!

I currently have two working routines. The main difference between the two is that one follows a more or less single plot from beginning to end, while the other is made up of phases. The former must be run in the sequence written, and because of this, is reserved for more calibrated audiences and shows, such as a small formal dinner party. The audience is glued to the performance, so longer plots can work.

The latter is more important to this discussion. being routined in phases, it is possible to delete phases as needed. Somewhat similar to what Bro. Paul described with his ommission of the large loads, the audience is never aware that something is missing. They would only possibly notice a difference if they had seen the show previously.

So why (and when and where) would I make the decision to leave parts out? Some shows are performed in environments that are less controllable. Outdoor shows, or any event where there are other things happening around you that can possibly distract an audience are examples of situations where I might make the decision to alter the routine. Often this is done at the moment, during the routine.

If I feel that I need to snap the audience back to what I consider to be ground zero, I will drop a phase (or two) from the routine, and immediately go for the kill. This connects with the audience by focusing their attention on a more compelling part of the routine.

Let's face it... many C&B sequences are only as interesting as the interaction between the performer and the audience. We, as magicians, tend to notice the esoteric differences between different sequences with the Cups and Balls. However, after the first sequence, the audience can easily regard subsequent movements of the balls to be just that... more of the same.

Unless any subsequent phase has a bulletproof bit included, it can easily be dropped without the routine being affected negatively. Danny described a couple of these so-called phases. Each phase is a complete plot in itself, and at the conclusion, you are not locked into proceeding with a defined sequel... you can proceed in almost any direction, with almost any other phase, assuming that you will be following with something that allows the routine as a whole to build.

Slowing down to allow them to catch up is good, if the root source of the problem is indeed that they are either too shocked to react, or if you have actually confused them by working too fast. The former is just a matter of timing based upon your ability to read an audience. That comes with experience. The latter is likely due to newbie jitters, and that is cured likewise, by experience. Even someone who has been doing performance magic for a long time can experience newbie jitters when breaking out a new routine. Knowing that experience will likely make them go away, should be comfort enough.

Now, aussiemagic, one more thing that caught my eye from your initial post...

You are learning a routine of Cellini's. Knowing that someone of his caliber created the routine, is enough reason to believe that it is good. However... are you performing the routine based upon your ability to properly follow the sequence he wrote, or are you honestly selling the routine to the audience? Are you beginning the routine with some point of relevance; a launching pad by which the audience can develop an interest in what you are about to do? Are you clarifying your actions, so the audience can easily follow what they must in order for the routine to make sense? Are you interacting with the audience, or talking to them (or worse yet, at them)? Are you building tension between the known and the unknown? Are you giving the audience a chance to anticipate the magic (either correctly or incorrectly)? Are you pointing up the impending climax (of any phase)? Are you allowing the climax to happen without concurrent events fighting for the center of the spotlight? Are you pointing up the fact that the climax just happened? Are you allowing the audience time to react?

Are you??

~michael

I would agree with Bro Paul here in that I do the cups and balls because they are just so much fun to do. Slowing down is excellent advice and enjoying the moment.

As far as reactions go, I wonder if we magicians tend to downplay the magical moments. I do the basic Vernon routine (and have been since the 1960s), and I almost always get applause from each phase of the routine. This almost always surprises me as they are just false transfers and vanishes. No big deal, right? But to a lay audience it is magical and entertaining.

In addition, I would not be too worried about the reactions you are getting and forget about the entertainment value that the cups and balls offer. Have fun!

I used to perform at a touristy place in Sacrmento and I loved doing the cups and balls. I still do them but the routine has changed a lot. When I started I did the routine from mark wilsons course in magic because it was the one that I had been doing for the longest and I felt the most comfortable doing it. Due to the fact that I didn't have a pouch and had to wear period attire that was not condusive to loading from the pockets I had to use a servante to load and for that reason I had to adapt the routine because I had trouble loading three loads from under the table. I then got the Gazzo book on the cups and balls and tried that for a day before I relized that with the type on venue I was working, a sidewalk show with the people right on my table I couldn't get away with all the loads and so I dropped back to the simpleset routine that you can possibly do with the cups and balls. I vanished all three balls to have then reappear under the cups, had all three appear in the center then produced on load fromthe center cup. Every once in a while if I felt that the audince was getting into it I would do the 2-0-2 phase and maybe a penetrating phase but for the most part it was two phases and one load. Then I got the sherwood cups and a small pouch and started doing a similar routine but ending with four loads, one small tennis ball and three regulation ones. But then one day I was performing and I dropped one of my cups and it got a dent and now it doesn't stack right. And even though I don't always stack the cups it is just annoying to have a wobbly stack, pardon the pun. And so now I do a two cup routine which I actually like better because I can use different vanishes and I don't have to use so many false transfers, which makes it harder for the spectators to catch on, I think. I have been using three tennis balls for loads but I am going to try somethign new today. I am goin have 5 final loads, two small tennis balls, from the same cup, and three regulation tennis balls.

So to get to my point, I had to adjust the cups and balls routine I was doing because I didn't have the pocket space, or props, or it just wasn't flowing. If all the phases aren't getting great reactions, try dropping the weaker phases and selling the ones that you keep even more. One liners and gags are great, the two best resources that I have found for these are the Gazzo books for lines and the Bob Read book for sight gags and physical bits.

Leeman,

GREAT post! A true testament to the versatility of the cups and balls. I think it is fantastic that you are trying out so many things to find the stuff that works for you. When it is all said and done I am sure you will have an awesome routine!

Best,

Dan-

Leeman:

You should have been able to wear a pouch. That is authentic for Medieval and Renaissance work. A Gazzo pouch might not be the ticket, but there are gibecieres pictured in many of the texts and graphics of the period.

Well, I am happy to say that I am getting much better reactions with the cups and balls now. Not perferct, but much better.

I have made some changes and I will probably make more. I dropped the hat load, changed from fruit to tennis balls, reduced the loads (4 tennis balls), I slowed down. I still need to slow down in everything I do. It is so hard though. I worked busy restaurants where I had to get to every table and so I now have a tendencey to rush everything I do.