MagicShow.Tips – A daily blog about magic by Louie Foxx

Film Cans for the Film Can Dice Force

I have a knack for creating magic tricks with a prop that is an everyday object, but the specific version of that everyday object that I need is the least common version of it!

My Film Can Dice Force is a good example of this. It uses a normal film can, it’s the one with a black can and a grey lid. This one is the minority of film cans that are out there right now.

I needed more of them, and it took a lot of work to find enough of them locally to fill orders! I do have a bunch coming from eBay, but that shipment got delayed, and I didn’t want people to wait for their orders.

All orders for this trick have shipped thanks to a couple of vintage camera repair shops that also still develop film in-house!

One thing I really believe in is developing relationships with the places that I source the components for my tricks. When they know me and know what I’m using the stuff for, it makes them much more willing to help me with weird requests than a website where I’m just a number.

-Louie

Out of Town Shipping Notice

**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**

I will be out of town performing at the San Mateo County Fair in San Mateo, CA from June 5 -15, 2026. That means no orders of physical items will ship until I return on June 16th, 2026.

Digital items will still be emailed during this time!

You can also get many of my magic products from TrickSupply.com in Las Vegas. You can order my magic from them at:
https://tricksupply.com/product-category/louie-foxx/

**The daily blog will continue to be updated below this notice**

No Surprises

A while ago, I was booked to perform at a festival, doing short spots after bands. The booker wanted the variety acts to be a surprise, and we were… to everyone, including the MC, backstage crew, and sound techs!

This is never good.

The booker had us send in intros, and tech needs, but none of that made it to the people who would need that stuff. That made it a struggle to get basic things like a microphone that wasn’t in use.

It also made show flow really rough, as the MC didn’t know what to do.

If you know in advance that your act will be a surprise, in my experience 95% of the time that surprise will end up making your job as a performer harder and not raise the audience’s enjoyment.

-Louie

Magic Lecture in Canada!

hidden wonders magic speakeasy — Screenshot

Yesterday and today I was performing up near the USA/Canadian border and I saw that Nathan Coe Marsh was doing a lecture at Hidden Wonders (Shawn Farquhar‘s magic theater) in New Westminster, BC. That was only about 40 minutes from my hotel, so I dusted off my NEXUS card and drove across the border to see the lecture.

The first surprise came when I was doing some work at a coffee shop before the lecture and I happened to look up right as Paul Romhany walked by!

That turned my working a little bit on my laptop into chatting with Paul, who is also the editor of Vanish Magazine, where I publish a monthly magic trick.

It was great to briefly say “hi” to all the Vancouver BC area magicians!

Nathan’s lecture is great and I highly recommend it!

In the lecture Nathan did a great job of showing all the work that goes into creating a routine, not just how to do the routines. He talked about his vision for the pieces he shared and how many of his routines are collaborations with other performers. This is something that I think is important and most magicians don’t do, that’s work with other people.

If Nathan is doing a lecture in your area, go see it!

-Louie

The Moisture Festival Podcast – AmyLynn Aerialist

On this episode, we welcome AmyLynn! We learn about her journey from a gymnast, to a springboard diver, to being an aerialist!

AmyLynn also talks about “circus values” and becoming an expert ant farmer!

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

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Nest of Envelopes – Single Spot

A few days ago was a meeting for the Portland SAM magic club. I remembered it was a meeting day, so I wrote a new script for it, made the cards for a new method and tried doing it as a solo spot instead of as a running gag.

The script had the flow that I wanted, and the spots for the jokes that I wanted were there. The jokes were just meh for the most part, but for me, the important thing was to get it in front of people to see how it felt.

The trick played well, but the ending is going to take time to figure out the best way to reveal the card at the end. I have a lot of options and variables on those options, like is the person from the audience onstage, does the whole thing happen in the crowd, do they hand me the final envelope from the audience, but I open it onstage, etc.

This is work!

-Louie
PS Click here to read more about how I develop magic tricks!

Ditching the Invisible Deck!

The idea of using a Nest of Envelopes as a running gag with a magical payoff is taking shape. In the first version of the trick, the magic trick was going to be card prediction. Playing cards are uniquely grouped to allow several choices of groups to get to a single card that nothing else I could think of can. Ideally, this trick wouldn’t be a card trick, but it’s looking like it will.

When I first came up with the idea, as a placeholder for the trick, I used an invisible deck. The goal is to have something more original or less common than an invisible deck. Also, the invisible deck is less punchy of a reveal. It takes time and steps to get to the reveal.

What I want is a single card in the envelope. That’s it, the card is chosen (in 3-4 steps), the last envelope is opened, and that’s the card in the envelope! I didn’t have a method, but with the re-release of Phil Goldstein’s trick Shinkansen, that jogged my memory.

A few years ago I made a vintage magic trick video of that trick:

@louiefoxx Is a magic trick from 2002 vintage? #vintage #magictrick #cardtrick #shinkansen #magic #packettrick #cardsacross #maxmaven #wow #louiefoxx #philgoldstein ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

I also made a jumbo version of the trick and did it onstage as a filler piece. Part of the method of the Shinkansen led me to the method I’m going to start to use to do the prediction in Nest of Envelopes!

If you’re a magic creator, this is why having a broad knowledge of magic tricks and methods is a huge help! Part of the method for cards across got me closer to my vision for a playing card prediction!

-Louie

The Nest of Envelopes – Update

In playing with different ideas with the Nest of Envelopes, I’m trying to decide if it works better as a bit that’s split up as a running gag sort of thing, or if it’s better and a single trick.

The advantage of it being part of a single trick is that the effect and the selection process are much clearer. That’s because it all just happened.

I’m still doing it as a card trick, and I’ve also learned it needs to be done with jumbo cards! I’m personally not a fan of using poker-sized cards where people in the audience need to see that a card is a specific card. Having the reveal of the card bigger will make it hit harder.

This routine has a way to go, but I think it’s a great idea!

-Louie

Magic Show or Wrestling Match?

Last week I was performing at a fair, and a couple days into the run, I walked to my stage like I do everyday and this was my view from the stage!

The previous days I had rows of chairs, but this day I had a wrestling ring!

If I asked this on a social media magician’s group, people would say “put it in your contract that people are seated in rows” or something like that. That’s easy to say, but in reality, it’s not that simple. I’ve already got a couple of days of work into this gig and a couple more to go. That wrestling ring isn’t going to move for me. All the people who say it violates the contract (if written), what are they doing to do, walk away from the gig. If you do that, they’re not going to just hand you a check; you’re going to have to fight to get paid if you walk away.

What would you do in this situation?

I simply converted my stage show into a hybrid street/close up magic show.

This worked great, and this is why I always think that if you do stage magic, you should be able to do close up magic as well. Sometimes it just works better to do some card tricks!

I’ve done many shows with stages and situations that varied a lot, I can adapt to pretty much any situation.

-Louie

Here’s how I handled another difficult stage.

Sound System for Magic Show

Nothing drives me crazier than people who run sound that don’t know how to run sound. Let me start by saying that I don’t know how to run sound. I do know how to run it for my show, but that’s my limited scope. I couldn’t be a sound tech for a band, or your magic show, just mine.

A few weeks ago, I was at a drag brunch, and the person running the sound had a soundboard that ran off some strange cord that wasn’t compatible with the venue’s sound system. They had to set up their speakers in from of the venue’s speakers!

That’s kinda ridiculous and a lot of extra work that’s not necessary. The industry standard is XLR cords for live sound. You can use headphone style 1/8 inch cords, but you’ll usually need additional adapters to get the sound into a professional soundboard. Just carry the correct thing, which is an XLR, and you’re good to go!

Another thing was the microphone receiver placement, which wasn’t the best place, which led to it repeatedly dropping out. Oh, and the microphone was USB-charged, which sounds like a good idea, except if you’re in a situation where the power on the mic is low, you really don’t have any options for instantly giving it power. At the drag brunch, they kept having to plug the mic to charge it for a few minutes at a time. If you’re using a battery powered microphone, you just swap out the batteries.

I currently have two microphone set ups that I use:
1: My good mic which is a Sennheiser
2: My beat it up mic which is a Saramonic

Both have battery powered receivers as well, so I don’t need to find a plug to use them. Having good audio that works is just one less problem you need to deal with.

-Louie