🎤 Stage fright: performing your first magic trick

Pick a trick that can't go wrong

Your first show should be self-working tricks, the ones where the secret does the work and your hands only have to follow the steps. Mind-reading tricks are best of all, because the arithmetic always lands in the same place. The easy tricks all work the first try.

Start tiny

Practise until the trick feels boring to you. Then perform it to a teddy, then to a pet, then to one person in your family. Each one is a real show. By the time you get to a room, you will have done it many times already.

Have an out ready

Have a joke ready and a spare trick in your pocket. If something goes wrong, smile and say Flick's line, "Presto… ish!", and carry on. The audience only knows something went wrong if you tell them. The guide to tricks that go wrong has more.

On the day

• Take a slow breath before you start.
• Speak slowly; nerves make everybody talk fast.
• Look at the audience, not your hands, when you say your patter.
• Hold still for one second at the magic moment, then bow.

Then rehearse once more with Flick as your audience, and you're ready.

What the nerves are for

Butterflies before a show mean your body is getting ready to do something that matters. Magicians who have done thousands of shows still feel them. The difference is that they have a plan: the first trick chosen so it can't go wrong, the words learned so they come out by themselves, and an out ready in case. With those three things, the butterflies turn into excitement.

After your first show, write down one thing that went well and one thing to change. Next time, change just that one thing. That is how every magician gets better, one show at a time, and why the Magic School path asks you to show somebody at every step rather than waiting for one big show at the end.