Alright, I know this might not fit under the "Grand Illusion" section, but it eventually has a lot to do with an illusion... so here goes...

I need to be able to randomly select a woman from the audience who is wearing a ring. I want to select her by tossing a rose, ball, wad of paper, etc. I don't want to come out and ask for a women with a ring on to come onto the stage... Does anyone have any suggestions?

I figured some of you who perform; ring to nest of boxes, ring-flight, ring to hourglass, ring to racquetball, etc. would be the best source to this question...

Thank you for your help!

Bryan Gilles

A simple solution is to throw out multiple things and bring multiple women up on stage. By having multiple women you increase your chances of picking one with a ring (Although most women wear rings). Once you have the women up on stage, take you pick and make use of the other women in some way and you should be good to go.

Another option is to have the ring routine "float in your act." Meaning it would not have a definite position in your show lineup. Throw something out into the audience and bring the woman who catches it on stage. If she isn't wearing a ring go on with a different effect. At the end of the effect have her throw the thing into the audience. Hopefully the second woman will have a ring. If not, have another volunteer trick planned.

Nick Fox

Do what every major working magician working does right now...

send someone into the audience before the show.. find a (pretty) woman with a ring on.. and hand her an envelope wiht a picture of a rose...

have them hand out otehr envelopes with blank pages...

then make the announcemnt that several envelopes were handed out before the show.. would the lady with the rose please step foward..

Do something earlier in the show that would involve women raising their hand -- scope out for rings then? may not work if you're playing under stage lights, but if you're in the audience when you do it, it could work.

Yep EVERY MAJOR WORKING MAGICIAN DOES THAT!!! I do it ALL the time and I see DC LANCE and every other WOrking Pro do it that way because Every major working pro needs a ring to borrow during the show and that is the way all of us pros handle it exactly.

Hi Bryan,

Why does the woman have to be random as opposed to just asking for a woman volunteer with a ring?

Lou

Lou,

The reason I'd like to do this at random is because I have run into this with an effect similar to using a Himber ring... I fear that the audience will feel that the routine has been pre-arranged... I may be wrong or just going through the classic "magician trying to fool the magician's" approach... What are your thoughts?

Bryan
p.s.- Makeupguy- I like the idea... this seems to be a more "random" way of pulling this off... In a sense, doesn't it seem as though it would still be pre-arranged, or would your stage hands or whom ever is passing out the envelopes just do a bottom deal with the envelope as they are "randomly" handing them out?

Generally one is looking for a specific type of ring. I've been presented with rings that were unsuitable due to their size or because they weren't solid bands. Also some women are wont to remove their rings or simply can't. Thus I think it would be a bad idea to randomly select someone from the audience as they might fallinto one of the catagories above or might not have a ring on to begin with.
I like to wander amoungst the audience looking for the proper ring on the proper person. It is their reaction that will tell the audience that all is on the up and up and not "randomness" of the selection process.
I think your running when no one is chasing you.

My first thought.. .what the audience doesn't see or know.. won't hurt it.

When I was touring with David Copperfield back in the late 80's... we used to call the "pre-selected" audience members "shrubs".. . because they weren't exactly "plants".. they didn't know the secret.. but they knew they were being invited onto the stage.. The reason we did that was to weed out people with awful stage fright.. and to be honest.. to pick pretty girls becaue they looked better on stage.

GO LIKE THIS: "I need to borrow a lady, who wears a ring, from the audience, and to randomly select a lady with a ring I am going to throw a rose into audience." Now you have two options (if the rose is caught by lady without a ring): you may ask closest woman, with ring on her finger, to step on stage or simply ask this woman without a ring to throw the rose one more time randomly and if necessary do it again, eventually you`ll find a lady with a ring.

Or, even more randomly, inflate a balloon and let it fly into the audience. Who ever catches it can choose the woman with the ring who will assist.

Thanks,
Richard

I think it would be very cool, to as NFox suggested, have it "float in your act" You could get a woman on stage, for a few effects, and when you see one who has a ring, you could almost interrupt your act to do the effect. "Actually I see you have a ring on, would you mind if I try something with it, etc.
It would make the magic seem more impromptu, and less staged.
Nick