It seems to me that all the focus of a routine is the final load( I am talking about cups and balls more than anything)...People give more thought to what to produce at the end than the routine up to it. So I want to know if anyone has anythoughts on performing this effect without final loads.

I do want to be clear about this I do not want routine ideas I want thoughts why you think it is important to do a final load. I also want to see if anyone would be willing to forego the final loads and find a new way to end this great effect.

For 27 years I have been doing this effect and most of the time I do not do a final load sequence. When I do I use only a production of nine balls at the end, these are all just the normal balls that I used for the rest of the routine.

Your ending is fine. Basicly, you need to end the show with a BANG! THe whole trick (until the end) is fairly simple, balls travel from one cup to another....But at the end once you amke the final load appear the audiences possibilities for how the tricks are done is shattered. Their entire mind goes blank with astonishment. So you need to end it somehow. If 9 normal balls appear that is also a bang, so IMO that is fine, however I don't like letting the audience know that there is more then 3 balls on the table so I personally would not end it that way.

Ben Winter

I do not know what other people think, but I feel that the cups and balls have to have an ending to it. If you were to only stop after making the balls disappear and reappear. You leave the crowd hanging.

Now, your nine ball ending makes a different ending. I have never seen an ending like that. I like the idea, but I would think if the ball were all different colors, or a lot of different colors. That in my mind would and a twist to the ending.

That is what is needed at the end of any cups and balls routine. A twist is what the crowd needs to interact with you. Something that puts your routine over the top. Makes it the one they remember.

This is my two cents. Thanks for reading it.

Thank you,
SeanD13

By definition, the last thing you produce from your cups is the final load.

Think about it.

I changed my mind after reading Sean's post. If all 9 balls were different colors then that would cover my original problem with the audience knowing that there were extras.

Ben Winter

I hate to disagree, especially on an opinion issue, but one of my favorite cups & balls routine is done by Alexander DeCova which I think is a variation of Dia Vernon’s and there is no final load. It is clean, elegant, simple to follow and magical. To me the final load always seemed out of place. The final load may be shocking because no one anticipated it but shocking isn’t always magical! Sometimes its just shocking. In the DeCova routine the final surprise is that all three balls vanish and end up under the same cup. It is consistent with the rest of the routine as a whole and yet has a final kicker.

This makes me think of a problem I see all the time with magic routines. “Just because you can doesn’t mean you should”. Often times magicians will add one more shocking surprise to a routine just because they can. Sometimes this sacrifices the overall mood created in the first place.

Just my opinion.

David Tower

The three balls are, by definition, Alex's final load.

Whether you do large loads, fruit loads or whatever, your routine must be specifically geared toward whatever your ending is. Gazzo's performance of his routine is a perfect example of this. The melon out of the hat is an excellent ending for the routine.

A chop cup routine without the production of a large or unusual object at the end is not nearly as strong as one with it.

There is a reason Gazzo's final loads are 6 oranges and 1 melon. I do exclusive corporate and cruise ship work and recently have been so interested in street magic. Not the kind where I walk up to 2 people with a camera crew and do a cool card trick, but really standing on the street, building a crowd, and working for a hat (I even learned the lingo).

After getting into it and being absolutely amazed at how these guys can take 3 or 4 effects and turn it into 45 minutes of excellent magic got me thinking to re-work my show.

I've recently added Ammar's Cups and Balls to my show, which I've nver done a c & b routine before for fear that I'd be laughed off stage. I've perfromed it for the last month or so at about 20 shows and have received a tremendous response.

That response is only the way it is, because (I believe) of the final loads. It totally catches them off guard and they never see it coming and that's why I receive such an ovation.

Josh London

Like all routines the audience should be lead to a 'punch' (the impossible magical moment) and this is where and when the 'wow factor' is created.

I have tried using bigger balls for my final loads but when I produce (collectively) about 50 - 80 different colors mini balls from all the cups as my finale, my audience also gave me the 'wow' response. I believe this is because the table is now full of different color balls and color affect the psychological response of people. In addition the numbers also shows some element of impossibility.

The final load, I believe, should be the 'bang' or 'mental punch' the audience get from us and the intensity of that emotional moment can mean a very lasting effect that is linked to our name as the performer. We, as performers, are not only selling the effect during the performance but also our name, as a person, by the impossible things we create in the minds of the audience.

Just my 2 cents

That is a very effective final load. Martin Lewis does a thing with a dice cup that ends with the production of a couple of hundred 1/4 inch dice.

Liquid loads were also very popular at one time, but make the handling much more difficult.

So you do what works for you.

It would be interesting to see what Alexander De Cova actually does when he performs on the street.

Any thoughts on having your watch (or someone else's) under the cups as a finale?

To my way of thinking, the cups and balls (and the chop cup, for that matter) seems to be a demonstration of skill...until the final load. That's where the magic happens.

In theory, I agree with everyone except for David Tower. But my recent experience proves to me that not only is he right, it works with no load at the end whatsoever.

I do a fairly standard Micro Chop Cup routine and Sponge Balls for walk around, and Cups and Balls for platform. So when I developed a Benson Bowl type of routine for festivals, I wanted it to be different. I left out using the spectator's hands and a the appearance of a final load. Two elements that I consider to be strong about the original. For the ending, just one ball vanishes from the bowl. I realize in print that it sounds weak, so I've been reluctant to mention it at the Café for months. But this routine has been getting me an incredible response. I've given the ending a great deal of thought. There is no method reason why I couldn't do a final load, but if I added it, it would be solely because I could.


[EDIT] Written before Slappy's comment, which I disagree with. The C&B intro and body should be magical.

I often say "there are not rules" -- HOWEVER... if something works for your way of working that's fine.

Indeed "there are no rules", however I belive RAGMAN wants to know our personal thoughts.
For my own taste you have to end up with a big final load, but never more than 3 (again my own taste)

That's almost as overdone as large balls.

A fourth load of M&Ms gets a great response too.

If doing a 3 cup routine, or any number of cups, I find it to be an extra kicker to have and extra final load which adds to the impossibility of the effect. I just think if you are gonna do it, go all the way. Even 1 large load gets a great reaction. I find, and this is only me, that any more gets to be too much and distracting. I like to end my routines with the final loads and the routine is done.. I do however display the 3 final loads, and just as the reaction just starts to die down I pull out the 4th which I feel gets better reactions then just producing them all at once.... however, I don't remember where I heard or saw this, but a flash production of 4 different final loads that seem to appear all at once is quite striking, looks incredible with fuits and vegetables... there are sooo many possibilities...

Stevie D

The main thing to remember when you are doing the cups and balls is that you must have some way of punching up the ending. If you can "sell" three balls assembling under one cup, then, by all means, do it. If you find that it's hard to sell the end of the routine without final loads, then do them.

Do whatever you need to do to make the audience love your routine.

What about a routine in which the cups disappear as a final sequence?