I was in a hotel lobby in Linz, waiting to check in before an event that evening, when I saw something that permanently changed how I think about the business of performing.
A magician — not me, someone else booked for a different event in the same hotel — was in the loading area around the back. I had walked past on my way in from the parking area. He had a van. Not a car. A van. He was unloading crates. Actual shipping crates, the kind you see at freight terminals. Two assistants were helping him carry what appeared to be large, awkward, heavy boxes into a service elevator. There was a lighting rig on a dolly. A sound system in a padded case. What looked like sections of a backdrop, wrapped in moving blankets.
I stood there with my carry-on roller bag — the same bag I take on every flight, the same bag that holds my laptop, my props, a change of clothes, and a toiletry kit — and I watched this production unfold for about ten minutes.
That evening, I did my thirty-minute set in a conference room for about eighty people. Everything I needed was in my pockets and on a small table I had borrowed from the hotel. Setup took four minutes. Teardown took two.
I do not know how the other performer’s show went. It might have been spectacular. Large-scale illusion shows can be breathtaking. But I know this: the event planner who booked me had a substantially easier day than the one who booked the van and the crates and the assistants and the lighting rig. And I know that when the question of rebooking comes up, “easy to work with” carries more weight than most performers realize.
The Principle
Scott Alexander articulates something in his lecture notes that resonated with me the moment I read it: the best professional acts pack flat and play big. Alexander himself evolved over a decade from traveling with three full-scale illusions — requiring shipping, loading, assistants, and freight costs — to earning the same fees working out of a single briefcase. He peeled away the big props gradually, year by year, and his income went up, not down.
The key distinction Alexander makes is crucial: the show must pack flat AND play big. If it packs flat but plays flat, you will not get repeat bookings. The constraint of minimal props is not permission to deliver a minimal experience. It is a creative challenge — how do you create maximum impact with minimum stuff?
This distinction has been one of the most productive frameworks in my development as a performer. Because I came to magic as a traveling professional — a strategy consultant who spent roughly two hundred nights a year in hotels — I never had the option of building a prop-heavy show. I did not have a van. I did not have assistants. I did not have storage space for crates of equipment. What I had was a carry-on bag and whatever I could fit in it.
For a long time, I saw this as a limitation. Something I needed to work around. A constraint that forced me to settle for less impressive effects because I could not bring the big toys.
I was wrong. The constraint forced me to become better. Better at presentation. Better at audience connection. Better at making simple things feel extraordinary. Better at the things that actually matter.
What Is in the Bag
I am not going to list my specific props or effects — that would cross into territory I do not discuss on this blog. But I can describe the general parameters.
Everything I use in performance fits in a standard carry-on roller bag alongside my personal items. No checked luggage. No oversized bags. No cargo shipments to arrange in advance. I walk through the airport like any other business traveler, and nothing about my appearance or luggage suggests I am about to perform a show.
The total weight of my performance materials is roughly three kilograms. Some items are small enough to fit in a jacket pocket. Others require the case, but none is larger than a book. I can set up on any flat surface — a table, a desk, a chair, or nothing at all. Several of my strongest pieces require no table and no props visible to the audience.
This inventory is the result of two years of deliberate curation. I have tried pieces that required larger props and rejected them — not because they were bad, but because they did not earn their space. Every item in the bag has to justify its presence not just on performance merits but on practical grounds. Does it travel well? Is it fragile? Does it require special handling or storage? Can it be replaced quickly if it breaks? If the answer to any of these questions is wrong, the piece does not make the cut.
The Creative Advantage of Constraints
Here is the thing nobody tells you about performing with minimal props: it forces you to rely on the things that audiences actually remember.
Audiences do not remember props. They remember moments. They remember the feeling of astonishment. They remember the connection they felt with the performer. They remember laughing, or gasping, or that moment of silence before a reveal when the entire room held its breath.
None of those things require a van full of equipment.
When you strip away the production apparatus — the crates, the backdrops, the lighting rigs, the assistants — what is left? You. Your words. Your presence. Your ability to command attention, build anticipation, create emotional shifts, and deliver a climax that justifies the journey. These are the skills that survive any venue, any audience, any technical limitation.
I have performed in conference rooms with fluorescent lighting and no stage. I have performed in elegant ballrooms with chandeliers and a proper platform. I have performed in a restaurant with tables pushed aside and diners still holding their wine glasses. I have performed in an outdoor garden at a summer party where the only lighting was string lights and candles.
The same material worked in all of these environments because the material does not depend on production infrastructure. It depends on me — on my ability to create a relationship with the audience and deliver an experience within that relationship. The props support that experience, but they do not create it.
This is the creative advantage of constraints. When you cannot rely on spectacle, you must develop substance. When you cannot hide behind production, you must be genuinely compelling as a human being. When the only thing between you and the audience is your voice, your eyes, your hands, and your story, every one of those elements gets stronger because they have to.
The Business Advantage
Now let me talk about the practical, dollars-and-euros side of packing flat, because this is something performers often overlook.
Event planners are not looking for the most impressive magic show. They are looking for the best entertainment option that fits their constraints. And their constraints are always the same: budget, logistics, and risk.
Budget: a performer who travels with a van, two assistants, and a lighting rig has higher costs, which get passed to the client. The van rental, the assistant fees, the fuel, the insurance on the equipment, the freight shipping if the event is in a different country — these add up fast. A solo performer with a carry-on bag has almost zero additional costs. The fee is the fee. There are no surprise invoices for extra equipment or personnel.
Logistics: the event planner who books the van-and-crates show has to coordinate loading dock access, freight elevator availability, setup time, strike time, storage for empty crates during the show, power requirements for the lighting rig, dressing room space for the assistants, and a dozen other details. The event planner who books me has to coordinate… a table. Maybe a microphone, if the room is large. That is it. I arrive two hours early, introduce myself, scope the room, set up in minutes, and I am ready.
Risk: large-scale shows have more points of failure. Equipment can be damaged in transit. Crates can be delayed. Assistants can get sick. Technical requirements might not be met by the venue. Every additional element in the production is another thing that can go wrong. A suitcase show has almost no points of failure. If the table they provide is the wrong size, I can adapt. If there is no sound system, I can project. If the room layout is different from what was described, I can adjust in real time.
Event planners know this. They may not articulate it in these terms, but they feel it. The performer who is easy to book, easy to accommodate, and low-risk is the performer who gets called again. And in the corporate market — which is where most of my performing happens — repeat bookings and referrals are the engine of a sustainable career.
The Difference Between Production Value and Production Stuff
This is a distinction I think about a lot, and it is one of the most misunderstood concepts in performance.
Production value is the audience’s perception of quality, professionalism, and polish. It is the feeling that what they are watching is a real show, performed by a real professional, with care and intentionality behind every moment.
Production stuff is the physical equipment you bring to the venue. Lights. Sound. Backdrops. Set pieces. Custom tables. Fog machines.
These two things are related, but they are not the same thing. You can have enormous production stuff and low production value — a cluttered stage, mismatched props, awkward transitions between elaborate set pieces. And you can have minimal production stuff and high production value — a clean stage, a well-dressed performer, seamless flow, precise timing, and an experience that feels polished from beginning to end.
Production value comes from preparation, not from equipment. It comes from knowing your material so well that nothing feels hesitant or uncertain. It comes from scripted transitions that keep the energy flowing. It comes from your appearance — pressed clothes, polished shoes, confident posture. It comes from your voice — clear, projected, varied, alive. It comes from the thousand small details that communicate “This person takes their craft seriously” without a single lighting rig or fog machine.
I once had an audience member approach me after a show and say, “That felt like a big production.” I was standing in a conference room with nothing but a borrowed table and the props in my jacket. But the pacing was tight. The transitions were smooth. The energy was controlled. The closer built to a crescendo. And from the audience’s perspective, that was production value. The fact that it all came out of a carry-on bag was invisible — and irrelevant.
The Traveling Consultant’s Secret Weapon
There is a specific advantage to packing flat that applies particularly to people like me — people who are not full-time performers but who use magic as part of a broader professional practice.
I am a strategy and innovation consultant. I travel for work constantly. I carry a laptop bag and a roller case. This is the standard equipment of my professional life, and it has been for years.
When I added magic to my keynote presentations, the physical footprint of my life did not change. I did not suddenly need a second suitcase, a prop case, a cargo arrangement. The performance materials integrated seamlessly into my existing travel infrastructure. They occupy a corner of the same bag I was already bringing.
This means I can say yes to opportunities that arise unexpectedly. A dinner with a client leads to “Could you show us something?” and everything I need is upstairs in my hotel room. A conference organizer hears about what I do and asks if I could add a short segment to tomorrow’s panel. No problem — the materials are in my bag. A friend calls and says there is a private party this weekend, could I come and do twenty minutes? I can be there with everything I need and no advance preparation beyond confirming the time.
This availability, this readiness, this ability to perform without logistics — it has generated more opportunities than any marketing I have ever done. Because in the corporate and private-event world, the most powerful referral is not “He was amazing” but “He was amazing and he showed up with a carry-on bag and did the whole thing with no fuss.”
The Caveat
I want to be clear about something. I am not arguing that large-scale illusion shows are inferior. They are not. A well-produced illusion show can create moments of spectacle and wonder that no suitcase act can match. There is a reason large-scale magic has been a part of entertainment for centuries — from the elaborate stage shows of the nineteenth century to the grand productions of Las Vegas.
What I am arguing is that for a specific kind of performer — the working professional who travels, who performs in varied venues, who operates in the corporate and private-event market, who does not have a fixed theater or a permanent production team — packing flat is not a compromise. It is an optimization.
The constraint forces you to develop skills that are more durable than props. The portability makes you more bookable. The simplicity makes you more reliable. And the absence of production stuff forces you to generate production value from the only source that never breaks, never gets lost in transit, and never needs a loading dock: yourself.
Where This Leaves Me
My carry-on bag sits by the door of my hotel room right now as I write this. It is packed for tomorrow’s flight. Inside it, alongside my laptop and a change of clothes, is everything I need to perform a thirty-minute show that will astonish a room full of people.
There is no van. There are no crates. There are no assistants to coordinate, no freight to ship, no technical rider to negotiate.
There is just me, a bag, and a couple of decades of life experience that I bring to every performance — the perspective of someone who came to this craft as an adult, who learned it in hotel rooms with a deck of cards and a screen, who discovered that the most powerful magic is not the kind that requires a truckload of equipment.
It is the kind that fits in your pocket and plays as big as you make it play.
Pack flat. Play big. The rest is noise.