There is a moment at the start of every close-up set that determines everything that follows. It happens before the first card is turned, before the first coin appears, before the first word is spoken. It is the moment you arrive at the table or the group, and the audience either knows you are coming or does not.
That distinction — warm start versus cold start — is the single most important variable in close-up performance. And it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize they require entirely different approaches.
The Night I Learned the Difference
I was performing walk-around magic at a corporate event in Vienna. A tech company’s annual holiday party, about a hundred and fifty people spread across a venue with cocktail tables and a bar. The event organizer had booked me for ninety minutes of table-to-table magic, and she had done something I did not fully appreciate at the time: she introduced me to the room from a small stage at the beginning of the evening.
“We have a special guest tonight,” she said. “Felix is going to be moving through the room performing some incredible close-up magic and mentalism. If he comes to your table, you are in for a treat.”
That was my warm start. For the first hour, I moved from group to group, and people were delighted to see me. They shifted their chairs, cleared space on the table, nudged their friends. “He’s here,” someone would whisper as I approached. The energy was already there before I arrived. My job was simply to channel it.
Then the organizer asked if I could extend for another thirty minutes. A second wave of guests had arrived late — people who had not heard the introduction. I said yes, because of course I said yes. More performing time, more practice, more experience.
Walking up to those late-arrival tables was a completely different experience. Nobody knew who I was. Nobody expected me. I was a stranger approaching their conversation with a deck of cards, and I could feel the resistance before I even opened my mouth. One group looked at me like I was trying to sell them insurance. Another politely endured fifteen seconds of my opening before the alpha of the group said, “We’re kind of in the middle of something, mate.”
Same venue, same night, same performer, same material. Radically different results. The only variable was whether the audience knew I was coming.
What a Warm Start Gives You
A warm start is when the audience has been primed. They know a performer is in the room. They may have been told by the host, by the event organizer, by a friend at another table, or by witnessing your performance from across the room. The critical element is that when you arrive, you are expected and welcomed.
The advantages of a warm start are enormous. First, you skip the entire trust-building phase. The audience has already decided you are legitimate — someone in authority told them you are here, and that implicit endorsement carries weight. You do not need to prove you belong. You belong because the host said you do.
Second, the audience’s attention is immediately available. They are not mid-conversation wondering why a stranger is hovering near their table. They are ready. They have been waiting, maybe even competing quietly with other tables over who gets visited next. That competitive energy is a gift.
Third, and this is subtle but powerful, a warm start creates positive framing. The audience arrives at your performance having been told it will be enjoyable. That expectation becomes self-fulfilling. They are looking for reasons to be impressed, not reasons to be skeptical. Darwin Ortiz writes in Strong Magic about how the frame through which an audience views an effect determines its impact. The warm start is the most favorable frame you can possibly have.
I perform close-up primarily at corporate events and private functions, and I have learned to make the warm start my default whenever possible. If the event has a host, I ask them to introduce me. If there is no formal introduction, I ask the organizer to mention me to the first two or three tables they walk past. Those early tables become my broadcasters — they tell the next tables, who tell the next tables, and within twenty minutes the room has primed itself.
What a Cold Start Demands
A cold start is when nobody expects you. You are approaching strangers who are engaged in their own conversations, their own drinks, their own evening. You are an interruption until proven otherwise.
The cold start is fundamentally harder. Not because the magic is different — the effects are the same. But because the psychological territory you need to cross is much wider. You need to establish who you are, why you are there, why they should care, and why this will be enjoyable — all in about ten seconds, before the social pressure to dismiss you becomes unbearable.
Most of what I have learned about cold starts came from getting them wrong. The first mistake I made was starting with the magic. I would walk up to a group, say something like “Would you like to see something amazing?” and produce a card. The problem with this approach is that the question “Would you like to see something amazing?” from a stranger is deeply unsettling. It is the opening line of a con artist, a street vendor, or someone about to show you a multi-level marketing opportunity. Nobody says yes to that question from someone they do not know.
The second mistake was being too tentative. I would approach a group with my body language radiating uncertainty — half-turned away, ready to retreat, apologetic before I had even spoken. That tentativeness communicated that even I was not sure I should be there, which gave the audience permission to agree.
What eventually worked was something I think of as the confident non-interruption. Instead of approaching a group and asking permission to perform, I approach with a specific, conversation-adjacent observation. “I noticed you’re having a great time over here. I’m Felix — I’m the entertainment for the evening. The organizer asked me to make sure everyone has at least one impossible experience tonight. Do you have thirty seconds?”
That framing does several things simultaneously. It explains who I am. It invokes the organizer’s authority. It sets a time expectation. And “impossible experience” creates curiosity without the sleazy overtones of “something amazing.” It is not perfect — nothing is — but it converts a cold start into a lukewarm start within a single sentence.
The Hybrid Approach
The most reliable approach I have found is to engineer my own warm starts, even in cold-start environments.
Here is how it works. At any event, I identify the most social, high-energy table in the room. These people are easy to spot — they are loud, laughing, animated. I approach them with a cold-start opening, perform my strongest, most visual piece, and deliberately do something that creates a visible reaction. A gasp, a burst of laughter, someone standing up and pointing at the table.
That reaction is my advertisement. Other tables see it, and now they are curious. When I approach the next table, I am no longer a complete stranger — I am the person who just made that group lose their minds. By the third or fourth table, the room has warmed itself. People are looking my way, wondering when their turn will come. The cold start has transformed into a series of warm starts through the simple mechanics of social proof.
This requires that your opening piece at that first table be genuinely strong. Not just technically clean, but visually impressive from a distance. Something that produces a reaction visible from across the room. I learned this the hard way after performing a subtle mentalism piece at my first table — beautiful effect, deeply personal moment, absolutely invisible to anyone more than five feet away. Nobody across the room noticed. I had wasted my best cold-start opportunity on an effect that required proximity to appreciate.
The Emotional Difference
The warm start and the cold start feel completely different from the performer’s side. A warm start feels like stepping into a hug. The audience is open, receptive, generous. Mistakes are forgiven. Average effects land well because the goodwill is already flowing.
A cold start feels like walking into a job interview. There is scrutiny. There is skepticism. Every beat needs to earn the next one. The first fifteen seconds are fragile — one wrong move, one awkward pause, one hint of desperation, and the audience will find a polite way to dismiss you.
I am not going to pretend I enjoy cold starts. I do not. They are stressful, and every time I approach a table of strangers who do not know I am coming, there is a small voice in my head reminding me of all the times it went poorly. But they have made me a better performer. The skills you develop doing cold starts — reading body language, adjusting your energy to match the group, finding the right opening line for the right crowd — are skills that improve every other aspect of your performing.
Planning for Both
Here is what I do now for every close-up engagement. Before the event, I ask the organizer one question: “Will there be a moment where you can introduce me, or will I be approaching tables cold?”
If there is an introduction, I help them with the wording. Not a long speech — just three sentences. My name, that I will be performing close-up magic and mentalism, and that the guests are welcome to wave me over if I have not gotten to them yet. That last part is important because it creates active demand instead of passive reception.
If there is no introduction opportunity, I plan my room strategy. First table: the loudest, most social group. Effect: my most visual, reaction-generating piece. Goal: not to create the best close-up experience, but to create the best advertisement for the rest of the evening. Every subsequent table gets easier.
The difference between a good walk-around performer and a mediocre one is not always about the magic. Often, it is about understanding that the same effect, performed with identical technical skill, will land completely differently depending on whether the audience was expecting you or not. Plan for it. Prepare for both starts. And when you have the choice, always — always — choose the warm one.
The Broader Lesson
This warm-versus-cold dynamic is not unique to magic. Every salesperson knows the difference between a warm lead and a cold call. Every public speaker knows the difference between an audience that was told they would enjoy the talk and an audience that was dragged to a mandatory session. Every entrepreneur knows the difference between pitching to a referral and pitching to a stranger.
The mechanism is the same: prior positive framing reduces the work you need to do in the moment and increases the likelihood of a positive outcome. It does not replace quality — a bad product, a bad talk, or a bad trick will fail regardless of framing. But given equal quality, the warm context wins every time.
For those of us who came to performing from the business world, this should feel intuitive. We understand warm introductions. We understand referral networks. We understand that context shapes perception. The surprise is discovering how directly those principles apply when you are standing at a cocktail table with a deck of cards, trying to create a moment of wonder for people who may or may not know you are coming.
Plan the start. The rest takes care of itself.