I once had a card effect that consistently produced gasps. A genuine showstopper. People would grab the arm of the person next to them, mouths open, the whole deal. It was one of the strongest reactions I had ever achieved with any single piece of magic.
So naturally, I put it first in my set.
And the show died.
Not immediately. Not catastrophically. But the energy pattern was wrong from the opening minute, and I spent the remaining twenty-five minutes trying to recover momentum I had accidentally burned in the first three. The rest of my material was solid. The audience was engaged enough. But there was a ceiling on the energy, and I had installed it myself by putting the wrong effect in the opening slot.
This happened at a corporate event in Innsbruck, maybe eighteen months into my performing life. A tech company’s annual retreat. Good room, good crowd, good sound system. Everything was set up for success except my set list. After the show, I sat in my car in the parking garage and tried to figure out what had gone wrong, because on paper, I had performed well. Every effect had worked. Every line had landed. The audience had been polite and responsive.
But polite and responsive is not what I am after. I want the room to build. I want the energy at the end to be higher than the energy at the beginning. I want the audience to feel like they went on a journey, not like they watched a list.
The Blueprint That Changed My Thinking
When I read Scott Alexander’s Standing Up On Stage, he lays out a structural blueprint for a stand-up magic show that I have returned to more than any other framework in my development. The blueprint is not about specific effects. It is about positions — slots in the show structure, each with a specific function, each demanding specific qualities from whatever effect fills it.
The opener. The personality piece. The participation section. The display of skill. The closer. Each position has a job to do, and not every effect is suited to every job.
This was the insight I had been missing. I had been thinking about my effects as a collection of strong moments, and my show as an arrangement of those moments. What I had not been thinking about was fit. Not just “is this effect good?” but “is this effect good for this position?”
The distinction sounds subtle. It is not. It is the difference between a playlist of great songs and a great album. A playlist can have ten perfect songs that create a terrible listening experience because the order, the pacing, the tonal flow is wrong. An album sequences the same songs so that each one amplifies the next.
The Opener Slot
The opener has one job: establish that something extraordinary is happening and that the audience should pay full attention. Alexander describes it as hitting them “right between the eyes” in the first three minutes.
What does that demand from an effect? Speed. Visual impact. Clarity. Minimal setup. The audience does not know you yet. They have not committed to paying attention. They are still settling, still forming their first impression, still deciding whether this is worth their full engagement. An opener needs to answer that question fast and decisively.
My showstopper card effect failed as an opener because it required context. It required the audience to understand a premise, to follow a chain of logic, to invest in a narrative before the payoff. It was a slow burn — and slow burns do not work when the audience has not yet decided to light the match.
The effect I eventually moved into the opener slot was simpler, faster, more visual. It did not produce the same depth of astonishment. But it produced immediate engagement. Within ninety seconds, the audience knew they were watching something they had not expected, and they were locked in. That lock-in was worth more than the deeper astonishment would have been, because it set the foundation for everything that followed.
Here is what I evaluate when considering an effect for the opener slot. Can it be understood without verbal explanation? Is the impossibility visible from the back of the room? Does it resolve quickly — under three minutes? Does it establish energy rather than mood? Does it work even if the audience is distracted, chatting, still finding their seats? If the answer to any of these is no, the effect does not belong in the opener, regardless of how strong it is in isolation.
The Personality Piece
The personality piece comes second, and its job is completely different. After the opener has grabbed attention, the personality piece establishes who you are. This is where the audience sizes you up as a person, not just a performer. Are you funny? Serious? Warm? Edgy? Intellectual? Down-to-earth?
I think of the personality piece as the handshake. The opener was the entrance. The personality piece is the first real conversation.
What this demands from an effect is space for talking. Space for character. The trick itself can be relatively simple, because the audience is not focused on the impossibility — they are focused on you. They are listening to your voice, watching your mannerisms, deciding whether they like you. A technically complex effect that requires intense focus actually works against you here, because your attention is split between executing the method and connecting with the audience.
The best personality pieces I have performed are the ones where the method is so thoroughly internalized that I can forget about it entirely and just be present with the people in the room. I can make eye contact. I can react to what they say. I can be spontaneous — or at least appear spontaneous — because the mechanics are running on autopilot.
This is also the slot where I scout. While I am talking and connecting and establishing my character, I am reading the room. Who is engaged? Who is laughing? Who looks like they would be a good volunteer later? Who looks like they absolutely do not want to be called on? The personality piece is doing double duty: entertaining the audience while giving me the intelligence I need for the participation section that comes next.
The Participation Slot
Audience participation is the heart of the show, and it is also the most logistically demanding. Getting someone on stage takes time. Interacting with a stranger introduces unpredictability. The pacing can collapse if the volunteer is shy, or talkative, or confused, or any of the hundred things that humans are when they are suddenly the center of attention.
What I evaluate for the participation slot is different from any other position. The question is not just “is this effect strong?” It is “does this effect give me room to manage a human being?” The best participation effects are ones where the volunteer has a clear, simple role. Choose a card. Hold this object. Think of a number. The clearer their role, the less time I spend explaining and the more time I spend entertaining.
I also evaluate resilience. A participation effect needs to work even when the volunteer does something unexpected. Because they will. They always do. The person who shouts out their card before you are ready. The person who picks up the wrong object. The person who decides to be a comedian. The effect needs to survive all of that and still produce a strong climax.
A fragile effect — one that only works when everything goes exactly right — is a liability in the participation slot, no matter how impressive its ideal outcome.
The Closer
The closer is the last thing the audience experiences, and it carries disproportionate weight. Research on memory consistently shows that people remember endings more vividly than middles. The closer is not just the last effect. It is the emotional note the audience takes home.
Alexander advocates for closing on what he calls a “warm fuzzy note” — something that reveals a different facet of the performer, something emotional and sincere after a show full of comedy and spectacle. I have taken this to heart.
What I evaluate for the closer is emotional weight. Does this effect make the audience feel something beyond surprise? Does it create a moment of genuine connection? Does it leave them thinking about something other than “how did he do that?”
My current closer is the piece I am proudest of in my entire show, and it is not my most technically impressive effect. It is not my most visually stunning. It is the one that creates a moment of real warmth between me and the room. Every time I perform it, someone comes up afterward and talks about that moment. Not the trick. The moment.
That is what a closer needs to do. It needs to transcend the mechanics and create something human.
The Decision Framework
After years of trial, error, and rebuilding set lists in hotel rooms across Austria, here is the framework I use to evaluate whether an effect earns its position.
For any given slot, I ask five questions. Does this effect serve the function of this position? Can it survive the conditions of this position — the energy level, the audience state, the logistical requirements? Does its tonal register match what the show needs at this point? Does it create the right transition to what comes next? And would the show be weaker without it in this specific spot?
That last question is the killer. Because sometimes an effect passes the first four tests but fails the fifth. It could work in the slot. But the show would not be weaker without it. That means something better exists, or the slot needs a different approach entirely.
I have cut effects I loved from positions they did not serve. The showstopper that failed as my opener eventually found its home as the penultimate piece, right before the closer, where the audience was already invested and the slow-burn structure finally had the context it needed to land. In that position, it was devastating. In the opener position, it had been merely impressive.
The lesson is one I should have learned from my consulting work years ago. In strategy, we say that a good idea in the wrong context is a bad idea. The same is true in show construction. A strong effect in the wrong slot is a weak effect. Position is not secondary to quality. Position is part of quality.
Every effect in your show is auditioning for a role. Your job is not just to find strong effects. It is to cast them correctly. And casting, as any director will tell you, is where the real art lives.