Hi
I'm looking for a bit of advice on my short routine as I'm thinking of some changes. To date I've been closing with cups and balls using four large coloured hacky sacks as my final loads. This has gotten good reactions. I have been working on a bill to lime and I'm thinking of building this into my cups and balls by using limes and other small fruits as my final loads (I'm using limes as my cups aren't big enough for lemons or oranges). After I reveal the fruits at the end, I would then have a spec select one of the limes and do the bill reveal (I would have done the bill vanish earlier in my routine).

My questions are:
1- Should I do this? The cups and balls is a pretty good closer as it is, would doing a bill reveal out of one of the limes at the end be a bit anti-climatic?
2 - If I do do this, should I leave the cups and balls as a closer, or should I move it to my opener? I would reveal the fruits then set them aside in view of the audience for a while then do the bill vanish and a few other effects then close by going back to the fruits and having a spec select one then doing the bill reveal.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

I think No. 2 might work. I've always used the cups and balls as a closer, but have lately been toying with the idea of placing it at different points in my show. With No. 1, the bill in lemon becomes only a second climax to the cups and balls, and loses its impact.

Michael Ammar has the answer for you...

Interesting. Brand new, I see. A solution made to order! The Café and its contributors strike again!

Not familiar with Michael Ammar's book/ DVD above, but jJohn Carney's Fruit Cup (in one of his books) is a one-cup bill to lemon routine you may like.

Hudson

Fruit Cup is in Carneycopia.

That's the one! Pretty amazing how John can do such a great trick 'impromptu'.

Hudson

Excellent Carney.

I've used the cups and balls as an opener before, and it plays well. In busking situations it's particularly effective at getting people to stop and watch, and I sometimes explain that they "caught me practicing", and would they like to see my actual show, and it creates a lot of interest, as I promise to show them the "cup trick" at the end.

As a closer it's one of the best close-up effects in the world, and my friends Bobby Maverick and Dante have both used it as a prelude to effects using a vanished bill in a piece of fruit.

The cups are a strong way to close an act, but they also sometimes leave people wanting to see more, and a bill in fruit type of effect is an excellent kicker to finish off such a set, in my opinion, especially since it involves money.

Long story short, yes, you can open with it. Yes, you can close with it. Yes, money in fruit goes well with it. Yes to all of the above.

Thanks for the tips, guys. Very helpful.

I will try both approaches, although I'm inclined to think that the opener might be better. I will definitely check out Ammar's book.

I recently bought a chop cup and am practicing with that as well. It's bigger so can try a lemon with that.

Thanks again!

I forget who produced the video, and I hope I'm remembering the person correctly, but I believe I had a video for a while by Mike Scott (gee, I hope I'm right, the guy who made the little baseballs), in which he explained that he used the cups as his opener. Four regulation baseballs as loads, ring a bell for anyone?

I think it was either him or Michael Skinner, but Mike Scott is the name that keeps coming to mind.

Anyway, the rationale was that once you've done such a majorly-impressive effect, everything else you do is accepted more readily as impressive. You've qualified yourself as a skilled performer (hopefully), and they'll like the rest of what you do based on it.

That's the important information; forgive me for being really bad with names. For all I know neither of these people were called by these names at all, and it's just my years of doing funky things to my brain as a teenager coming back to haunt me. I might be imagining the whole thing, but I swear the videotape existed, whether the name is correct or not.

I believe you are speaking of Mike Rogers, not Mike Scott.

Hudson

You're thinking of Mike Rogers:
https://www.stevensmagic.com/shop/mike-rogers-volume-32-dvd/

Thank you guys, I've always misremembered his name.

*facepalm*

I swear, I was born with Old-timer's!

I think you should do you normal routine with the hacky sack final load as an opener, but then stack up the cups and put them to the side of the table. When you do this load the lime under the stack of cups. Then put everything else away, and the spectator thinks the trick is over. Next, Make someone's barrowed bill vanish, and then take out a lime and make it vanish. This will take good routining to make it look natural, but it should not be to hard. Then do your magical gesture to bring attention to the cups then reveal the lime under the cups.

Zach
That is a really cool idea! I do like my hacky sacks and this would be a good way of keeping them in.
Thanks

Your Welcome.

Well I've done it three times so far and it has worked out wonderfully each time.

I start by asking for a bill, then I write the serial number down (actually pretend to) then seal the paper in an envelop and ask the spec to hang on to it. I then vanish the bill. I then proceed with my cups and balls routine revealing two limes, a small orange and a potato as my final loads. This gets great reactions. I set the fruits aside saying we'll come back to them later. I go into a few other tricks and close out by saying that's all but before I go lets take another look at the fruit. Using PATEO I get the desired lime picked, cut it open to reveal the bill. I ask the spec holding the envelope to open it and read off the numbers written down, they match!

I've done this three times so far and people really seem to like it. Some of the questions afterwards have been interesting, one spec asked what would I have done if the potato had been selected instead.

I will continue to refine this. My main concern is that opening with the bill part is not a strong as it could be so I'll need to think about this a bit.

PS - as a Canadian, I've been using the new polymer bills for this effect. They work great as they are easier to prepare and they don't get soggy. Just rinse water and they're good to go. If you have access to these bills I highly recommend using them for this type of effect.

Thanks for all your suggestions.

Good to hear you're having success with it. There are simpler methods for the bill bit, though they require more nerve than most people seem to have, but your methods will grow along with your personal style and skill level.

Good job on putting it to work for you! You've taken your stuff a step up, it seems.