"Pre-show" is essentially anything that takes place before the show begins to enhance the show for the audience as a whole. In the world of television and social media, pre-show has become defined as something done before the main trick that was always intended to hit the cutting room floor.

Magicians rarely discuss pre-show. Perhaps because it feels like cheating or because pre-show is a great way to fool magicians. How can someone spot a method that took place before they even started watching?

Great pre-show is not a forcing tool—it’s a funnelling tool.

More often than not, magicians think of pre-show as a forcing tool. I’m here to tell them that they’re thinking about it wrong. When used correctly, in my opinion, you should think of pre-show as a funnelling tool. Good pre-show is a way to remove variables, reduce risk, and enhance the final outcome.

I think perhaps my simplest example of pre-show was getting a specific coin into a spectators pocket. To do this, we simply pretended to be part of the crew, told the contributor they’d need spare change just before the magician arrived, and after seeing their panicked look, we offered some change from our pockets.

While pre-show can be carried out by the magician, and sometimes should be. More often than not, the more steps removed from the magician, the better. This is why consultants often appear to be members of the crew, sound assistants, and even simply people who work at the location the shoot occurs at—like hairdressers, receptionists, drivers and security.

There are two factors that determine the success of pre-show in real life and three factors for television and social media.

1. The reason for the pre-show given to the spectator—to not only disguise the method but actually get the spectator to forget, or even hide it too.

2. The Magician’s scripting during the performance, to not tip the fact there was a pre-show.

3. The edit; how well can an editor cut around the fact that perhaps a crucial segment of the routine to the spectator is now on the cutting room floor.

In this inssue, I’m only going to break down number one; the reason for the pre-show. It’s a good place for us to begin and a great way to introduce and demonstrate what exactly pre-show might be.

Save Embarrassment

Harry De Cruz, a British magic consultant, was the first person to really stress this reason to me. It’s rather wonderful because when done correctly, even if the spectator does not forget that pre-show occurred, they’ll actually actively try to hide it.

In this scenario, you might be a member of the crew, and you’re helping the spectator; you’re on their side. You don’t want them to look silly in front of everyone, and they don’t want to look silly either. So maybe you’ll offer to help them practice what they’re going to write down during the show, to make sure they spell it correctly.

Sometimes, when you’re in front of the cameras and everyone, your mind can go completely blank, and it can be reaaallllly embarrassing. We don’t want that to happen, so I spoke to the magician, and they said they’re going to ask you to name a type of soda in the store, so I’ve gone around the store and written down every type there is on this pad to help you out.

Now is maybe a good time to tell you that if pre-show is absolutely crucial to your trick, you’re doing it wrong. For example, I would never force a type of soda if the trick on screen is simply a soda prediction. Audiences see right through that, and they know something weird is occurring. However, if the trick on screen was a coin in soda, and we wanted the spectator to grab a specific can of soda from the store rather than the magician, a pre-show might be a brilliant option.

Blame The Channel/Venue

When you work on television in the U.K., you soon discover the joy of compliance. On television, you usually cannot be seen to favour one product over another. I think we’ve all at some point heard a panicked television presenter exclaim, “other soda brands are available.”

Compliance can be a pain, but it’s actually a wonderful full circle in magic. More often than not, you need to perform a trick with a branded item like a can of soda. At which point, the compliance officer will likely request two things; lots of soda brands must share an equal amount of screen time, and the hero soda cannot be chosen by the magician. To their mind, this makes it clear to the audience at home that the production company and the channel are not giving a brand preferential treatment. There were lots of cans in the show, and the main one was chosen by someone not affiliated to the channel or production company—the spectator.

And, of course, this then comes wonderfully full circle when I’m at the shoot location telling the opposite as a brilliantly crafted lie to the contributor.

Hi there, I’m Rory, and I’m an assistant producer on the show. I spoke to the magician, and they’ve said they’re going to be doing some kind of trick with soda cans. Here’s the thing, they didn’t tell me this till today, and I don’t really want to lose my job over this. We’re supposed to get permission to show certain brands on camera with the channel. I just called them up, and they managed to clear coca-cola and diet coke - do you mind just picking one of those if the magician asks you to? Brilliant.

So here’s how incredibly invisible a pre-show can be. When the magician asks the spectator to go and grab out a can of soda for the trick, they don’t think it’s a force because it sounds so casual and throw-away. This is why I stress that this is a funnelling technique designed to enhance the trick and not define it. You’re narrowing the selection of sodas they can choose from, but you’re also not making it feel like much of a choice in the first place.

The magician will not say, think of a soda can, any soda can. What they’ll do is say, grab a soda can off the self for me. Et, voila. They’ll choose one of the soda cans that’s prepped for the trick.

Blame The Production

I genuinely try to avoid this because, more often than not, it can sometimes require making the production crew look not too great at their jobs. But this reason feeds into that guilt and need to help others look good that spectators can sometimes dive into. We’ll take a look at more ways a production can aid magic shoots in a later newsletter.

Hey! I’m Rory; I’m one of the camera assistants. I just spoke to one of the producers, and they’ve told me the magician’s going to ask you to choose an item from the store for the trick. Andy, hey Andy, camera operator Andy, get over here. I was just telling the contributor that the magician’s gonna ask them to pick an object in the store. Yeh, mate, I know the camera lenses we got today aren’t really built for close-ups. Is there a particular range of movement that’ll work best from where you’ll be? What’s that, anything from the top shelf there you can get with that lens. OK, awesome.

As I said, pre-show is for funnelling. Production is a great excuse for reducing risk during a performance. Perhaps there are certain places a spectator needs to stand in order to best experience a trick. Rather than get the magician to awkwardly place them, a camera operator can let them know before you shoot where they need to stand so they can capture them in the frame.

I’ve literally worked on shows in which a camera operator has walked a spectator through signing a card and holding it up to the camera before the magician arrived… so we could find out how they sign playing cards.

Offer A Reward

Simple as it sounds. Getting certain spectators into certain seats in a theatre is the easiest and most unsuspecting thing so long as you’re upgrading people. Sure, moving people from row five to row ten is gonna cause some upset. But if you dress like you work at the theatre and upgrade someone from the worst seats to the best, they ain’t gonna question a thing.

You might give out gifts to all of the spectators, one of which is gimmicked or gaffed. You might upgrade someone to a better table in a restaurant. Oh, and don’t forget that meeting the magician or being featured on television is often rewarding enough. Let me merge this with the next good excuse.

Need Variety

Needing variety is a great excuse to give a contributor. It genuinely makes a lot of sense at that moment and even when retold later. But it’s missing that crucial psychological reason for a contributor to will it to be true. Perhaps merging it with offering a reward solves that:

Hey! How are you? I’m Rory, I’m the casting assistant - you spoke to Cristina, right? OK, awesome. I think they’ll be ready for you in about two minutes? Are you excited? I know, you’re maybe the fifth person today, I think. I really hope you make it onto the telly. It’s so much fun watching yourself with the family. Actually, you know what. I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but the magician’s gonna ask you to choose some soda today, and everyone so far keeps choosing coke. Obviously, when they edit this together, it’s gonna look strange if everyone chooses the same soda, so I’ve gone ahead and written down all the types of soda that haven’t been chosen yet on this pad…

Just a heads up. The soda example and also the SvenPad method are only repeatedly chosen here to help illustrate the “excuses” for pre-show. If you actually needed to pre-show a soda selection, you’d need to take time to consider the best excuse and method.

Conclusion: Make or Break

The truth is, it doesn’t matter how brilliant your reason and execution of the pre-show is if the final edit or the magician's scripting sucks. I’ve been a part of the most magnificent and unbelievable pre-show you simply couldn’t wrap your head around. I’m talking weeks of planning and careful execution. Only to be unraveled by poor scripting on the magician's part or a terrible, terrible edit.

I’ve seen incredibly cringe-worthy videos of spectators saying, “Do you want me to name the thing you made me pick before we came on air?”

The performers who usually get caught in those situations try to pass it off to other magicians as them being ballsy and a confident performer who goes for gold – what an odd way of thinking...

In my opinion, a great pre-show is a funnel. It’s built to mitigate risk. If your trick doesn’t work without a pre-show, you’re doing it wrong. If your trick is enhanced with a pre-show, good on you.