Doug,

First off, huge fan. If I'd had known you were so famous as to be featured on the Café, I'd have been a lot nicer to you during your introductions at the Red Spade. Still friends?

On a more serious note, as a younger coin guy I've started to notice a familiar pitfall with performing coin magic. It seems that some coin magicians fall into this confusing blur of silver and teeth as they perform. The audience is stunned only because the coin magician moves so quickly. I was wondering if you had any advice as to avoid the pitfall, or to self-monitor yourself from becoming the Tasmanian walking liberty devil? Especially in the hustle and bustle of restaurant work.

Also, any other pitfalls you recognize and can warn against when performing coin magic in general? Coin magic has the potential to be so visual, but it can easily cross into very confusing. How do you balance the art with the venue? Are some restaurants too fast for magic?

(Wasn't kidding about the big fan part, loving these DVDs man.)

Thanks, Austin!

The easiest answer would be to "pick your routines wisely". Definitely if you have coins going this way and that, disappearing reappearing changing colors, etc, it can get confusing. Consistency in "effect" is important: so if the coins are going to translocate, then stick to that and leave out the multiplication or color changes for the kicker ending(!).

However, one of the problems I sometimes have at some venues (e.g. the beach bar I work on Friday nights) is focusing the audiences attention. There's a TV in one corner, bar noise, familiar faces, drink and food ordering. You've got to really make sure you've "got 'em" for that brief moment then crack on. I know we've all had that moment where you've done your multi-phase card routine, just about to reveal the card in the envelope (literally it's about to fall out of the envelope) and some friend of theirs walks up and the entire table explodes in hello's and hugs and your moment is lost. As you said, coin magic is mostly visual (this is its primary strength) so you can't have people looking away even for a moment or the effect is lost. If I'm doing something where I sense I might lose them, I'll actually say, "Okay, don't look away for the next 10 seconds - you're going to be blown away!" Well, who doesn't want to be blown away by something like this, so they'll focus. I've found cocktail parties to be tough for some in-the-hands effects (like coins across to spectators hand) as their hands are usually full. Better to stick to it happening in your hands, then move on to card effects.

Glad you're enjoying the DVDs