Hello members of the Magic Café!

Recently I have been thinking a lot about the future and development of todays life in general. So due to the fact that magic shows completely changed over the past 50/100 years, I want to know your opinion on the magic show of the future. What do you think: How will they differ from todays shows? Performance style? Probably some new genres? etc. etc.

I am looking forward to your opinions and visions on the future of magic.

Yours,
Alexander

I think in the high tech world we live in people are getting jaded. It will take a lot more to impres them. It could lead to some great creativity though. No matter what... it should be a fun ride.

I think the future of Magic will be Virtual Reality!
I remember doing a 200 page research project on this for Paul Harris 16-18 years ago.... Now where did I put that material?

Marco Tempest has all the answers.

Magic will be stronger than ever -- it is imagination that will die.

Demonstrations of arcane arts like adding numbers on a piece of paper or finding a person's name in a phone book will seem very magical.

A person find a location by using a folding map will be considered a Mentalist, and a person demonstrating a slide rule will risk being burned at the stake.

Magnets!

I wish I could remember where it was , but recently when I was reading through some old Genii magazines from the 30's or 40's I found a quote from someone pondering whether magic had any future in light of all these newfangled technological advances like radio , television , etc . ? How could people continue to be impressed by magic in light of all this amazing technology ?

In my view the biggest blow from technology seems to be the cheapening of magic by the proliferation of unskilled people exposing magic (or doing "tutorials" which is just another name for exposing) on YouTube . The venerable 'Magician's Code" is no more . The rule to practice, practice, practice until it's perfect before you perform it in public is no more. Some kid buys the latest wonder from an internet magic shop (or more likely illegally downloads it from a torrent site ,unless it requires a specially made prop or gimmick) , pops in the DVD , spends 15 minutes playing around with the trick , then sits in front of his webcam to make a "tutorial" (expose) of how it works ("Hi, guys, pretty cool , huh ? Add comments below and give me a "Like" ... and do you have any other tricks you want to share ?" ) . Of course under-rehearsed performances by amateurs is nothing new either ,but before YouTube they didn't have such a wide platform to foist their lousy performances on the rest of the world. It's not so much the crass exposures that hurt in the long run, but the general cheapening and lack of respect for the art form .