chop cup – MagicShow.Tips

Stage Show Props

These are the props that are in my hands or pockets when I walk onstage. This is for a 90 minute theater show.

The paper will have a person’s name under “congrats”, but that will be filled in right before showtime. The paper goes in the envelope, and that, along with the mic, goes in my hands. Everything else is in a pocket or under my coat.

I will say that switching from putting the ball in my back pocket to a ball dropper to steal the tennis ball is a game changer for me! I use it in my Stand Up Chop Cup routine (from my 2025 lecture notes). The steal is cleaner, with less motion and I don’t have a lumpy butt for half my show!

-Louie

Magic Show Opener

The opening magic trick in my magic show has been a quick trick where juice turns into confetti, then the cup turns into a streamer. It’s a great flash trick, but right now I’m playing with a different opener. I’m starting to use my stand up chop cup routine as the opening trick for my outdoor magic show.

The pros of this chop cup style routine as an opener are that it has a lot of magic that happens without a lot of preamble. It gets into the magic quickly. Then the trick has a great payoff with the production of a tennis ball.

The downside is that while the ball in the routine is a yellow ball, it’s small. Ideally, I’d like something visually larger as the first trick in the show, but for now this is working…

-Louie

Dice Cup Chop Cups!

It’s been a while since I’ve made any chop cups, and yesterday I made a batch of dice cup chop cups. I made these to take to the Portland Magic Jam this weekend.

Internally, there’s not much to it, it’s a magnet in a cup. I 3D print a magnet puck, and cover it with the same material that lines the cup.

Then I make a set of chopped dice, so one is regular, and the other has a magnet load.

I’m going to package these with an 8 Ball for the final load and sell them as a set. If I have any left after the Portland Magic Jam, I’ll offer them for sale here.

-Louie

Five Minute Magic Spot

While I was on the cruise ship I was asked to do a 5-7 minute spot in the farewell shows. I don’t do short spots as often as I used to do them a couple decades ago. They stress me out because you don’t really have time to establish a character or vibe and you don’t have time to win back the audience if you lose them.

Here’s my props for the 5-7 min spot:

Here’s what I did: My stand up chop cup routine (see my lecture notes) which ends with the production of a tennis ball. Then I did a card to pocket routine with a signed card. The routine ends with the signed card coming out of the tennis ball.

One thing to note is that aside from these props, where everything happens in my hands, the only other thing I used (but not necessary) is a stool to set the tennis ball on after it’s produced, so that it’s visible the whole set. The stool was already on stage from the act before me and the one after me, so there was zero moving of props for my spot.

Oh, the black string thing is one of Nick Lewin’s Ultimate Microphone Holders. That allows me to use a handheld mic, so I don’t need to get mic’d up with a head set.

It’s an action packed 5ish mins, with a nice little surprise at the end.

-Louie

Custom Chop Cup!

One thing I don’t like about the chop cup is the metal cup that most people use. It looks classy, but that doesn’t fit the aesthetic of my show. When I did the PCAM convention, I was chatting with James Cielen, and he mentioned the metal cup doesn’t fit. He was 100% right, and I didn’t like using a metal chop cup.

I finally found some time to make my own chop cup out of a coffee cup. I started with two matching coffee cups. The reason I started with two was in case I messed one up, I wouldn’t have to start over. If both turned out, I would have a backup.

I glued the magnets into the bottom of the cups and for what I wanted, I glued them off center. Then I poured some resin inside the cups to make a new bottom and to hide the magnet.

In the picture below on the right, you can see the resin about halfway cured.

One of the chop cups I poured too much resin into and the magnet wasn’t quite strong enough to hold the ball like I wanted it to. The other cup turned out perfect!

Now I need to figure out what I’m going to do with the ball. Is it going to stay a ball or something else? At the very least I think I’m going to switch to a rubber ball. For my Stand Up Chop Cup routine from my 2025 lecture notes I need a ball that doesn’t bounce as the ball gets dropped. I just bought a set of yellow Bounce No Bounce Balls and I’m going to try to put a magnet inside of it.

-Louie

The Stand Up Chop Cup

In the October issue of Vanish Magazine I’m teaching the Stand Up Chop Cup routine that I’ve been doing this summer. I wrote about this routine a little bit ago, it was created with rules.

Those rules were pretty simple:

1: No table: I don’t work behind a table, and didn’t want to add one just for a chop cup. Also, when on a raised stage, it can created a visibility issue for people seated on the floor below you.

2: No openly going to the pockets (or case): I think that if you constantly go to your pockets or prop case, it’s not hard for the audience to backtrack where the large production item came from. Sure they may not know how you got it there, but they know where it came from.

3: No one from the audience onstage: The chop cup really doesn’t need a spectator onstage…especially if their only job is to let you use their hands as a table. It’s a lot of dead time to bring someone on and off stage, and most chop cup routines don’t justify that.

Oh, I guess I should mention that this is a platform/stage routine and not a close up routine. I wanted to be able to do this as a solo piece onstage and the reason that I created it was there wasn’t anything that fit all three of those rules.

If this is something that appeals to you, check out the October 2025 issue of Vanish Magazine!

-Louie

Stand Up Chop Cup

I like the idea of doing a chop cup on stage, but it presents some challenges. The main one is on a raised stage, if you work on a table, and the audience is seated below you it can make it hard for them to see things on the table. My first rule of the routine was that there had to be no table. The next rule was that I wanted this to be a solo trick, so no one from the audience onstage. The final rule was that I didn’t want to (openly) to go my pockets or case during the routine.

The first thing I did was go see what was already out there, however most of the existing routines at some point use a table or pockets. When I mention this to other magicians they always mention Axel Hecklau’s routine, but that uses a table, pockets and a spectator onstage. In the past I had one a Ball and Cone routine for a show, so a phase of the trick was definitely inspired by that.

The routine that I’m currently doing now is my second version of the chop cup that follows the three rules above.

I’ve been doing this a bunch this summer and it’s going well!

-Louie

Chop Cup Routine

One magic trick that I’m fascinated by is the Cup and Ball trick. Most of these are “Chop Cup” routines as that reduces a lot of sleight of hand. Unfortunately many of these routines are very similar and use the gimmick in the exact same way. My Cee Lo routine uses the gimmick as a holdout, and not to replace sleight of hand and it’s a great, working cup and ball(s)/chop cup routine.

I’ve had an idea in a notebook for while and finally got around to figuring it out and posted it on Tik Tok. Also if you’re on Tik Tok, give me a follow @LouieFoxx

Here’s the routine:

@louiefoxx Magic trick from my hotel room! #magic #dollarbill #twentydollars #magictrick #dollarbillchallenge #closeupmagic #surpriseending #chopcup #magician ♬ original sound – Louie Foxx

What’s interesting about it is that it doesn’t have the traditional chop cup move where you shake the ball in the cup. It also has a final load not being a physically larger version of the ball, but the bill changing to a larger denomination bill. I don’t know if that ending is better than producing a bigger item…

It was fun to get another idea out of a notebook!

-Louie

Keep It Up (higher)

Over the summer I worked with a balloon show, and his show is a great illustration of why it’s important to use the stage. If you are standing in front of the stage, it does help you mentally with the energy exchange with you and the audience, however you sacrifice visibility.

Here’s how the show looked from the 4th row at the audience’s eye level:

You can’t see much, and the way the audience in the back filtered out, that confirmed that they couldn’t see. Here’s what the show looked like from the extreme side:

There’s a lot more going on in the show that the audience a couple rows back can’t see. If you are on the same level as your audience and they aren’t sitting directly on the floor, everything needs to be at your armpits or higher. Any lower and it just disappears when you’re in the 3rd row or further back.

This post should be a reminder to audit your show and look for places where things aren’t visible to the audience when you’re performing on the floor. Visibility is why Axel Hecklau’s Just a Cup is superior to most chop cup routines, the action isn’t stuck on the table…and you aren’t stuck behind a table!!

-Louie

More Work on the Cup and Ball

Sometimes I have ideas and they are works in progress that make slow steps. The Stand Up Cup and Ball routine that I’m working on is still making baby steps towards what will hopefully be a cool routine.

Here’s an early version of the Stand Up Cup and Ball Routine:

What I don’t like about is that I go to the pocket, so that needed to be eliminated. There are also some rules for this routine. It needs to be done solo onstage, done without a table, and my hands don’t openly go into my pockets. I can do steals, use sleeving or things like a topit or holdout.

Here’s the current routine idea I’m playing with:

I’ve eliminated the ball going to the pocket, but I also had to eliminate a phase that I really liked. Where I toss the ball out of the cup, the ball is put in the pocket and it’s immediately reproduced by tossing it out of the cup. If I could come up with a way to vanish the ball without going to the pocket, I could add that phase back in. I haven’t given up on that phase, but it’s not looking good to keep it in.

This trick is a good example of a trick that will probably never be finished. The first version was alright and passible, but not what my vision for the trick is. There’s always things to discover and improve.

-Louie