Good performing experiences?

[The Dark Angel]

Everyone has their own horror stories of a time they were performing and their pants fell down, or their lover walked up at the most inopurtune moment, but what about the time you made someone scream and jump up and down, or something like that?
THOSE are the stories I want to hear, and I'll post a couple of my own:

So I did Liquid Metal for a pastor at the church that my dad works at, and he just stared at the forks in the end in disbelief, and was amazed, adn that was all cool. Well 3 weeks later, I saw him again and he says "Ya know I was at home, thinking about what you did, and I thought, 'Yeah, ok it could be possible that he was doing something that I just didn't see, but no matter what I tried I couldn't get the bendy one (He was talking about the corkscrew bend)"
I don't know, but to me that was such a great feeling, because I know that not only did I entertain him for those couple of minutes, but he went home thinking about the routine and the performance and it left an impact on him. For me, that's one of the best things I can hear from somebody that I've performed for.

 

[Aaron Shields]

Still for me the most memorable experience, probably because it happened early on, occurred years ago in high school. I used to ride the public train back and forth to school and would perform for people on the train to kill time.
One day someone (and I still remember that his name was Seth) wanted to challenge me. He wanted me to turn my back him to take the deck, select a card, lose it in the deck hand the deck to me and have me find it. I told him I would be let me do another trick first. He selected the 8 of Spades (I still remember that too), and I failed to find it. I told him to keep that card in mind and I would get to it later (as I palmed it out and stuck it in my back pocket). I handed him the deck and turned my back and told him to take out a card lose it in the deck like he wanted to and when he was done to let me know. I asked him to name the card he selected as he started to hand my the deck, he said "Eight of Spades." I stopped him from handing it to me, snapped my fingers and slowly turned around. With an empty hand I reached in my pocket and pulled out the Eight of Spades and handed it to him. He was silent for literally a minute.

The only explanation I came up with is that the card he pulled out was the 8 of Clubs and that since he was keeping the 8 of Spades in his mind, as I asked him to do, he mixed the two cards up. I doubt I'd ever be able to repeat that trick again.

 

[APassivePoke]

I haven't really done any public performing in my short magic career but the random little tricks I do for my friends sometimes get fantastic reactions. One of them particularly sticks out in my mind.

A friend of mine has seen me do pretty much every trick I know a million times (granted I don't know that many) but she's totally sick of the same ol same ol but still wanted to see a trick one night. So I decided to improvise and just did something simple like a few false shuffles and false cuts and then instead of normally saying hey look its on the top I forced her the same card and she FREAKED out like "omg how did you do that. I picked the card!! Wow" which is totally different from "oh cool" that I usually get from her.

It's really true about what they say, you learn more from performing for 5 minutes than you do practicing for hours.

 

[magic mysteries]

One night, I was at a dinner. My cousin asked me to do a trick...With everyday objects...So I take the wine glass (the one with a big foot!). Take the fork, and touch the glass's foot with the fork. Unfortunately, the foot broke and drop down on the table...I saw a part of horror on their face!!!!
I took my firelight and heat the foot.....Hey!!! The foot was completely restore!!!
It was 6 months ago....My cousin still want to know how I did that! What a great moment!!!!

 

[conjure_pitch]

Couple of stories.

My Highschool physics prof. Bob skoropad who is quite possibly the smartest man alive, asked me to show him one of my infamous tricks. I got into here then there with some spiel about defying his so called laws of physics and he looked at me and said, quite outwardly, that was amazing how the **** did you do that.

Other story, My mom, who watches all my tricks but never reacts because shes too busy trying to pay attention to the latest television craze, watched me do indecent, and seroiusly nearly hit the roof. She jumped out of her chair and grabbed the bag out of my hands. Luckily I turned it upside down as she came across the room "dumping it out" of the bag. She was going nuts.

 

[-Ty]

In a routine of mine, I open with a Hot Shot, asking them to name any card.

I've hit a few times. It feels fantastic, but unfortunately theres nothing I can do that's stronger. Which isn't such a bad thing...

Ty

 

[SHANE BLACK]

Honestly out of all of my effects the best response I got was working at the local pub and I did the lifesaver in the mouth effect using SAW and sawed out of my neck and the lifesaver came with it. The girl in front of the crowd , the loudest one too screamed I was the devil and ran out of the bar to get away from me and it was just flooring to everyone around me. I always loved that girl. hehe

One of my Favorites!

 

[magison83]

Heres a great story. About two years ago I was doing some bar work.

I do a stunt were I throw a card at a piece of newspaper, thus cutting it in two.

I start to build the stunt or gimmick out as its called. People start to get gather

around, so I ask for a helper. She picks a card and it is shuffled back in to the

deck. I have her pick the newspaper up and say don't try at home kids. Then

bam I split the newspaper in half. Well what I didn't know is that I clip her

right in the lip. I mine, I totally nailed her good. Her lip was bleeding. Her boy

friend whated to kill me but I did what I said I was going to do. But she was

cool enough to give me a huge after the stunt. I do the stunt with constuction

paper now.

 

[aaronkplacke]

I used to have a rather lengthy bus ride to and from school everyday, so I would pass the time by having regular performances on the bus. So one day, while riding public trasportation, the man sitting next to me told me to show him something. His attire gave me a feeling that he was a rather "spiritual" type, so I decided to ditch the pack and try the name version of the stigmata effect. I went through the regular patter, and about halfway through the trick, I realized that everyone on the bus was now watching, and rather intently. I told him to close his eyes and squeeze, to forget the world around him and do nothing but visualize the letters in his mind, to imagine just the letters floating in a world of nothingness (something to that effect). Upon my instruction, he opened his eyes, and stared down in disbelief at the blood red letters forming on my arm. The entire bus went into hysterics, but the main spectator, the man I initially performed for, didn't say a word. He stood up, pulled the stop cord on the ceiling of the bus, and got off at the very next stop, shaking his head and muttering to himself. I consider this one of my prize performances of my magic career, props to Wayne Houchin for delivering this effect to the magic community!

 

[MaxDeVill]

My best performance was at the shopping district in downtown Kansas City. It started with an ACR for two 14-16 year old girls, and ended up with about 40 people around me watching me do 2CM, then moving to Card to Window ended by Saw and Staked By Subterfuge. People were going crazy and before I knew it everyone was clapping and asking for my card. Nothing has ever compared to the feeling I had that day.