How to Do a Basic Location Magic Trick

As a magician, you probably include card tricks in your act. You can use these card tricks to build excitement and include audience members in the show. Most magicians decide to do a basic location trick as part of their routine.

Instructions

Difficulty: Easy

1. Choose your force card. A force card is a card that you force an audience member to choose. You pre-select this card before the trick and strategically place it in the deck of cards.
2. Select an audience member. Ask the audience member to cut the cards and then place the cut cards crosswise on top of the other cards in the deck.
3. Ask the volunteer to show the rest of the audience the top card from the cut deck. You can look away during this process. After looking at the card, the volunteer should put the card back anywhere that they wish in the deck.
4. Mix the cards up before you start looking through them. You can take your time since you already know the card that you forced upon them.
5. Look at the cards in the deck. Pull out the chosen card and show the audience the card that you picked. Wait for the volunteer to also give their assent that it was the card they chose.

Tips & Warnings

• As a way to build excitement, you can pretend to fumble for a minute while looking through the cards.
• You need to leave the cards face down during this trick, so that the audience member does not see that the deck is prearranged.