??? What? TOD not being able to be a stage effect? What's the point? I was not at all impressed by the living room video. If this is meant for close up I wish it would have been clearly stated.

Why? Did you buy it?

Here is the advantage.

It can be done close up or stage.

The revelations are specific to each person.

The participants can go for tea and talk all they want with eachother.

Drawbacks... Apparently it must be performed with a British accent. (I wish THAT was clearly stated). Also required is a hip up to date hair cut and possibly only blondes can do this, but I'm checking on that last part.

No what I meant is that if you already own a Tod then this may not benefit you if you don't do close up , this would work perfect as a stage effect but can also be used as a close up too , unlike the original TOD

Sorry for the confusion

As the FAQ on the page says:


"Q.: What’s the smallest number of people you could perform this for?
Ken has performed Passed Out Deck for three friends over dinner and audiences up to 2,000 people at a large global conference and 3,000 in a theatre. The effect is identical and nothing is compromised."

I was replying to Bill also as he stated what makes this different from the original

I agree, which is why the statement seems odd to me. I only think of TOD as a stage effect. Ken should really provide a performance video of himself as that home party video does nothing. Any footage form MV last year?

The "Drawbacks"...Tom, that's hilarious!

If you are doing it for a large stage audience than the performer needs to retrieve the deck from each audience member's peek before handing out to the next? So basically the performer needs to go out into the audience for each peek correct? This really is meant to be performed more for a close up audience. Having the performer retrieve the deck from a large audience would be an inconvenience, in my opinion bringing the performer away from center stage. Just my 2 cents.

Good grief.

Bring the participants on stage with you if the layout of your performance space requires it. This is very much a stage effect.

This is the best version of this effect I've ever seen, all of the advantages, none of the drawbacks.

Best,

Atlas

So it's not really a tossed out deck, it's a handed out deck. You must contact the deck before handing it out to each spectator. In my opinion, the beauty of the standard TOD is to be able to throw out the deck into the audience, have it circulate around the stage size room and never touch it at all and know what cards are chosen. Proper audience management is the key and dual reality can be a great thing. I agree, you can not perform the traditional TOD for a small close up venue, but for a big crowd, the standard is still a killer.

That isn't an accurate characterisation of the effect, as one participant can pass the deck to another.

Best,

Atlas

Whilst I agree with Mindpro that the demo video is rather poor (not sure why the demo of a stage effect would be in someone's kitchen?) I'm assuming it's simply selling the nature of the reveals. Removing the DR nature of the effect is obviously a major advance, as Michael says. If it does this while retaining the rest of Hoy's seminal routine -deck is tossed into the audience, tossed to two other audience members and then tossed back on stage with the performer never touching it- then this would obviously be the ultimate version of this effect.
Very excited to see if that is the case.

1. For stage, as Atlas suggests, if I call the participants on stage, what is the justification for having the bands?

2. If I do not want to call the participants onto stage, in a theater of 3000, do I need to be an athlete?

3. Are the 3-4 cards revealed the same for each performance? If so, if I want a different set of 3-4 cards, can I just buy a second deck?

4. In a close up situation, if the specs want to shuffle the deck (I am aware of audience management but) is it covered in the dvd?

5. With this deck can I reveal more than 4 cards, which is quite possible in the standard TOD?

Personally I feel this may be better for close up work which the regular TOD is not. But still I may consider employing a deck s****h to enable specs to handle and shuffle the deck before getting into the routine.

The strongest point going for this imho is to be able to reveal individual cards without dr. I think I will consider having it for close up work. My personal opinion.

Hi everyone - thanks for your interest.

First of all I think a little respect and courtesy could be shown for Steven and his video. He specialises in videos of him performing magic for YouTube and has MILLIONS of views of him doing so on his channel (to which he has more than 100,000 subscribers). He produces a new video every week and only received PoD 3 days before performing it.

The way he shot the video was in keeping with the style his audience responds to and like - the performance had to fit is niche and audience and it does so perfectly.

Basically it is not a hypey demo for a new trick - that's not really my style. Instead I wanted to show you what it looked like when someone was really using it for a real world purpose - in this case Steven for his YouTube channel.

The reason I shared the video was to show how direct the reveals of the cards are and that, unlike almost every other TOD you can perform this for a small group just as easily as for a large group.

The way I perform Passed Out Deck I don’t like the idea of carelessly throwing the deck around as he feels that is undisciplined, untidy and could injure someone. Hence before creating PoD I never considered performing the TOD.

I had visions of the deck ending up under someone's chair, them having to crawl around and find it, or it hitting someone in the head etc etc...which would spoil the flow of your show.

Since it is my opener, I want to use people close to me to make sure the whole room’s attention is at the front of the room. So I hand the deck to the first person sitting in the front row or at a close by table, then hand it to the second and sometimes (depending on the situation and how I feel in the moment) I have the second person hand the deck to a third person.

However most often I like the interaction of handing the deck to each person myself as it allows for comedic interaction and again keeps the structure of the routining I have scripted.

The issue with throwing anything in to a group is that is causes chaos and the performer can lose control. I am nervous that this could be detrimental to the whole performance if this is your opening routine.

To me at least, your opener should bring attention to you, and allow you to establish control and credibility.

Remember that this all happens after the same deck has been shown to contain all different cards (the cards can be fanned and/or riffled to show this), and you reveal all three cards without any questions at all.

I mainly performs for groups of 50 - 2,000 in theatres or at corporate conferences/after dinner etc, but I have performed it close up for just 3 friends over dinner.

I only invented it for himself due to the fact that I didn’t care for the limitations of the other methods which he found available. So I set about making one up.

My original one cost me £150 to be printed and then I had to make the whole thing too.

Due to having to get the cards custom printed by USPCC the costs of production were pretty high (printing along was more than £6,000), and I wanted to keep the price I could sell it for under £100 per deck to make it as accessible as possible - so each deck is identical.

If anyone has any questions at all please do drop me a message. I literally have performed this in every show for the past 5 years, mainly for regular corporate and cruise ship audiences, but at a small number of magic conventions including Northern Magic Circle Convention, Mindvention and Mindsummit and South Tyneside Magic Festival so I know the effect inside out and would rather you asked so you could make an informed decision as to whether PoD is right for you.

Thanks again for your interest and support!

- K

This looks very good, but for me the only question still unanswered that might be interesting is this one that IMAGINACIAN posted: Are the 3-4 cards revealed the same for each performance? If so, if I want a different set of 3-4 cards, can I just buy a second deck?

Hi Recoplon,

Apologies, I thought that I had intended on answering that very question above when I said:

"Due to having to get the cards custom printed by USPCC the costs of production were pretty high (printing along was more than £6,000), and I wanted to keep the price I could sell it for under £100 per deck to make it as accessible as possible - so each deck is identical. "

One thing that might be of interest is that when performing on a Cruise ship I have almost always performed 2 shows each night and use the same deck.

The reason it's never been an issue for me even when people come to both shows (which some do) is that its my opener and lots of other things happen afterwards so they don't tend to remember the exact cards.

I hope that helps, sorry if I wasn't clear.

Why should we show respect and courtesy for Steven's video? If he posted it on here as an example of his work it would be one thing, but you are using it to help sell your effect. In those circumstances I don't see any problem with people making an artistic judgement on its merits. I think it is amateurishly filmed and rather poorly performed, but other people seem to like it. No harm in differing opinions when discussing products that are for sale.

As for your comments about "carelessly throwing the deck around" and the effect being "undisciplined and untidy", some people might say you are being disrespectful to David Hoy, a genius of our art, whose effect has been used by professional performers for decades.

The true brilliance of Hoy's effect is in how the mechanics of the effect are in total harmony with the presentation. It makes sense to wrap a deck in rubber bands if you are throwing it. It makes sense to have the audience throw it to one another and it makes sense to throw it back on-stage at the end with the performer never touching it. It really is the most beautifully constructed routine. The compromise is the DR. You appear to have chosen another compromise to allow you to have three different cards named, and clearly in one respect that is a brilliant advance, but if it involves walking into the audience and handing out a deck of cards wrapped in rubber bands I would say it actually weakens the effect in the moment of presentation-although it may, potentially, strengthen after the show if the audience know one another and are minded to gossip.

As for performing this close-up: wrapping a deck in rubber bands in order to ask people to peak at a card seems, to me, to be not only somewhat odd, but far less impressive than spreading or fanning a deck and asking them to think of one -which I'm sure we can all do. All in my personal opinion.

...not got this, however - isn't it the case that having the deck bound up means the moment of choosing, its entirely out of the performer's hands? handling the deck and spreading it etc seems to me (so to make sure I am explaining myself clearly - this is just my opinion) - as if there's some element of control or seeing what has been selected...

if we invoke the chan canasta rule, it was different for him, as he was very open about "making you choose it" (which was always a great dual-sentence)...it was part of his overall remit I'd say...

anyway - that's how I see it, band a deck up, people stay seated if its that kind of gig and set-up, people take the deck and take a peek...i guess Kennedy uses it almost like a microphone in a sense, as he's taking the deck back, moving onto the next person, have some interaction with them, rinse and repeat...its bound up because people can be a bit nervy with cards can't they...

that's how it seems to me anyway - could well be wrong...

Is there a difference between "Passed Out Deck" and Bruce Bernsteins "PSI-Deck"?



dj

I nearly 'passed out' when I saw the price.

That is absolutely it Iain. Thank you for that clarification.