There is a moment in every performance — the good ones, the ones that actually land — where the audience crosses a line. It is not a visible line. Nobody signs a consent form or walks through a physical doorway. But something shifts. The room changes. The people in it stop being conference attendees or wedding guests or corporate executives and become something else: an audience willing to accept that the impossible might happen.
I did not understand this for a long time. In my early performances, I would walk up to a group of people at a corporate event in Vienna or Graz, introduce myself, and start doing a card trick. Technically, the trick worked. The method was clean. The reveal was strong. But the reactions were muted. Polite. People would nod and say “That’s cool” and go back to their wine. I could not figure out what I was doing wrong. I was doing the trick correctly. Why were people treating it like a card puzzle instead of a magical experience?
The answer, I eventually learned, has to do with thresholds.
The Door That Language Opens
In Cara Hamilton’s guide on storytelling for magicians, I encountered a concept that reframed my entire approach to performance. She discusses what storytelling traditions call the “liminal threshold” — the moment when opening formulas like “Once upon a time” or “There once was and once was not” signal to the listener that they have crossed into a different kind of space. A space where the rules are different. Where belief is suspended, experience becomes surreal, and yet great truths can be told.
This is not a children’s convention. It is an ancient technology. Storytelling cultures across the world developed these opening formulas independently, and they all serve the same function: they tell the listener’s brain to switch modes. Stop analyzing. Start experiencing. What follows is not a report — it is a journey.
When I read that, I thought about my flat, transactional openings at corporate events. “Hi, I’m Felix, I’m going to show you something with these cards.” What threshold was I offering? None. I was handing people a puzzle and expecting them to feel wonder. The problem was not the trick. The problem was the door — or rather, the absence of one.
Why Magic Needs Permission
Here is something I have come to believe through trial and significant error: magic does not work unless the audience gives themselves permission to experience it. And they will not give themselves that permission unless you create the conditions for it.
This is especially true with the audiences I work with. Corporate professionals, consultants, executives — people who spend their entire working lives in analytical mode. They solve problems. They evaluate claims. They ask “How did you do that?” not because they are rude but because their default setting is forensic. Asking them to suddenly experience wonder without first shifting them out of analytical mode is like asking someone to fall asleep by shouting “SLEEP NOW” at them. It does not work. If anything, it makes them more alert.
The threshold is the transition from one mode to another. It is the moment where you give the audience permission to stop analyzing and start experiencing. And it has to be deliberate. It will not happen by accident.
What a Threshold Looks Like in Practice
I do not perform in theatrical venues with dimmed lights and atmospheric music — at least not usually. My performances happen in conference rooms, at gala dinners, during keynote talks, in hotel lobbies. The environments are not designed for magical experience. So I have to create the threshold with what I have, which is mostly language, tone, and presence.
Here is what I have learned works.
First, the pause. Before I begin any effect, I take a moment. Not a dramatic, look-at-me-being-mysterious pause. Just a beat. A breath. A moment where I stop being the chatty, approachable consultant and become something slightly more focused. The shift is subtle but the audience picks up on it. Energy changes in a room when someone becomes still.
Second, the reframe. I say something that moves the audience out of their current context. Not “Once upon a time” — that would be absurd at a corporate event in Linz. But something that serves the same function. A question that has no obvious answer. A brief story that sets up a situation where normal rules might not apply. A statement that acknowledges the oddness of what is about to happen and invites the audience to lean into it rather than resist it.
One framing I use before a mentalism piece in keynote talks goes something like: “Everything we’ve discussed today has been about strategy, about decisions, about how we process information. But here is something I want you to consider — what if the way we process information is less reliable than we think?” That is not a magic trick. That is a doorway. The audience walks through it because it connects to what they have already been engaged with, but it tilts the floor slightly. Now they are in a space where something unexpected might happen. And they have given themselves permission to be there.
Third, the environmental shift. Even small changes to the physical space signal that something different is happening. I might step away from the podium. I might lower my voice. At a close-up performance, I might clear the table, creating a blank canvas. These are tiny acts of staging, but they communicate a transition. You were in a conference. Now you are somewhere else.
The Cost of Skipping the Threshold
I can tell you exactly what happens when you skip the threshold, because I skipped it for years.
The audience stays in their default mode. Analytical, evaluative, detached. They watch the trick like they watch a demonstration — with the part of their brain that wants to figure things out. And when the climax arrives, they process it as a puzzle rather than an experience. “How did he do that?” instead of “That’s impossible.” The first response is intellectual. The second is emotional. The first leads to polite applause. The second leads to the kind of reaction that makes performing worthwhile.
I remember a specific performance at a company retreat outside Salzburg. I was doing a piece with a prediction — something that should have been genuinely astonishing. The prediction was accurate in a way that seemed impossible. But I had launched into the effect immediately after being introduced, with no transition, no threshold, no shift. The audience’s reaction when I revealed the prediction was a collective “Huh. That’s weird.” Not wonder. Not astonishment. Intellectual curiosity. They were still in conference mode, and I had given them no reason to leave it.
Compare that to a similar effect I performed months later at an event in Vienna, where I spent ninety seconds before the trick talking about how our brains construct reality from incomplete information. I referenced a study. I asked the audience a question that made them realize their own perceptions were unreliable. I created a context — a liminal space — where the impossible was not just possible but somehow relevant to what we had been discussing. When the prediction was revealed, the reaction was visceral. Gasps. Laughter. People turning to each other. Same trick. Different threshold. Entirely different experience.
The Liminal Space Is Not Deception
I want to be clear about something, because I think it matters: creating a liminal space is not the same as deceiving the audience. You are not tricking them into believing in real magic. You are creating a context where they can choose to experience wonder. There is a difference.
Think about what happens when you walk into a cinema. The lights dim. The screen illuminates. You know you are about to watch a fiction. Nobody is lying to you. But the environmental cues — the darkness, the sound, the scale of the image — shift you into a mode where you are willing to feel things about fictional events. You cry at movies you know are scripted. You feel fear in scenes you know are staged. The liminal space of the cinema gives you permission to respond emotionally to things your rational mind knows are constructed.
Magic works the same way. The threshold does not make people gullible. It makes them available. Available to experience something that operates on an emotional level rather than a purely intellectual one. And that availability is what transforms a card trick into a moment of genuine wonder.
Building Your Own Doorways
Every performer needs to find their own version of the threshold. It will depend on your character, your audience, your context, and your material. What works for a bizarre magic show in a candlelit basement will not work for a five-minute set at a sales conference. But the principle is universal: you must create a transition between the audience’s everyday reality and the reality of your performance.
For me, this process starts during the scripting phase. Before I write the first line of any effect, I ask myself: what is the audience thinking about right now, and where do I need them to be? The gap between those two points is the threshold I need to build. Sometimes the gap is small — the audience is already primed for entertainment, the lights are down, the energy is high. Sometimes the gap is enormous — the audience has just sat through three hours of financial presentations and their brains are in spreadsheet mode.
The size of the gap determines the size of the threshold. A short, focused reframe might be enough for an audience that is already engaged. A longer, more elaborate setup might be necessary for an audience that is deeply embedded in their analytical default.
The key insight is that the threshold is not a decoration. It is not the verbal equivalent of a drumroll. It is a functional element of the performance that does real psychological work. Without it, you are performing for people who are not ready to experience what you are offering. With it, you are performing for people who have crossed a line, left their everyday reality at the door, and entered a space where the impossible makes sense.
Every story tradition in the world figured this out thousands of years ago. “Once upon a time” is not a quaint convention. It is an invitation. It is a hand extended toward the listener, saying: come with me. What follows is different from what came before. And it is worth the journey.
The best magic performances begin before the first trick. They begin at the threshold.