This is LAX Instant Transport.
The effect is, you appear to suddenly transport yourself from LAX to Las Vegas along with several convincers.
Grand entrances for magicians
It is really hard to do a humble “grand entrance.” Grand entrances are great because if you’re starting a party or a weekend away, it gets momentum and excitement going. Grand entrances suck though because they can draw attention to the person entering and nobody likes a cocky asshole. In fact, a MAGIC grand entrance really has the potential to suck. I think if most magicians had to think of a grand entrance it would have to do with appearing inside a human-sized box wrapped in chains… like a very dark and disappointing stripper cake.
This is the first of three effects I planned for a friends’ bachelor party because he’s such a big magic fan and I didn’t know any of the other people going. I’ll tell you everything about what happened and how it worked.
How the teleportation appears
First, here’s what happened from their perspective…
On the first day of the bachelor party as Sean was settling into his hotel room at Wynn and getting ready with a few buddies. I called him, no answer. Then I texted him: “911, call me back.”
15 minutes later when Sean called me back, I picked up, out of breath and explained: I missed my flight. But it’s OK. Because there’s a new teleportation technology at LAX and I can be there in 10 minutes.
“What?”
“I’m trying a new teleportation service at LAX. I’ll be there in 5 minutes.”
He was still confused. I’m also talking over all sorts of airplane noise and PA announcements in the terminal.
“It’s OK, it’s OK, it only cost about $1000, way cheaper than flying private plus it gets me directly to the hotel so I don’t need an Uber. What’s your room number?”
At this point, I’m acting a little impatient, like he’s the crazy one for asking all these questions. And I’m in a hurry because my slot is in 2 minutes. But he caught me while I’m at the CNBC Smartshop (one of those little airport convenience stores) and is there anything he’d like? He was still struggling to understand but I pried it out of him:
“I’m in front of the sodas — what do you want? A water, a soft drink?”
He chose a Redbull. I said great, regular or sugar free? He chose regular.
Then, I asked him if he needed anything else, anything at all. I told him there’s a newsstand here too: any magazine or newspaper? He chose the Wall Street Journal. Great. I told him I’d be there in about 5 minutes and hung up.
Moments later when Sean was in his hotel room getting ready with his soon-to-be-brother-in-law and two other guys, they heard a loud knock on the door. When they opened the door, I excitedly walked in, carry-on over my shoulder, sweat on my brow and a CNBC Smartshop bag in my hand. I plunked everything down on the floor and grabbed a chair.
“It was AWESOME. It’s a giant circular doorway. And when you look into it, you can actually see, where you’re going. Like, I could see a blurry, swirly version of this hallway that wasn’t there. And you just step in and the weirdest feeling, it feels like you’re stepping down. Like you’re stepping down one single stair and you’re weightless for a millisecond, then you just land at level ground.”
The other guys are confused while Sean is still scratching his head. We catch them up. Magic teleportation. LAX. Sean explains the phone call he got and what he heard. I’m still marveling at the technology and how they deal with not just latitude and longitude but changes in elevation too.
Sean is the first to go for the bag. Obviously, it’s really a plastic bag from the CNBC store at LAX but that’s pretty easy. Inside, is today’s Wall Street Journal — the exact newspaper he picked out. And there’s also a Redbull. Regular. Just like he ordered. Sean is chuckling with joy at this perfect match and what really clinches him — the Redbull is still ice cold, coated in condensation.
I’m still playing this like it’s the normal part. Of course, I was just at LAX, I walked basically straight from the store and through the magic teleporter.
Now the other guys are getting this. They are seeing that it’s a prank or a trick… one of them is kinda playing along and surprisingly optimistic about it and the other one is skeptical but enjoying it. And I’m just catching up with them about other things, letting the conversation change topics… and waiting for the kicker ending.
The skeptical guy starts checking everything out, examining it. He gets to the bag, feels it, opens it and declares, “There’s a receipt!”
Of course! Yes! He reads it to himself and shares it around the room: CNBC Smartshop logo across the top. LAX, 1 World Way and the total address and phone number. One Redbull, one Wall Street Journal. And of course today’s date and 5:26pm — one minute after the phone call with Sean.
How it works
I’ve been reading everything The Jerx puts out for probably 3 years now. If you haven’t checked it out, he shares a variety of philosophies and inspiration for magicians. I’ve been totally changing most of the non-professional magic I perform now to be slightly more compatible with his style. This is an effect I put together that follows some of his general ideas like avoiding a “magician-centric” presentation, but more than anything, it’s inspired by the idea that you can develop many common concepts magicians steal from each other (like “a card appears inside a shoe”) into something much more imaginative, memorable and special.
Really, this trick is just a micro version of a lottery ticket, license plate or dogtag prediction combined with a bunch of social engineering. It won’t work for everyone, for sure. But, I hope some of the details are fun to read about and inspire someone to customize it for their own humble grand entrance.
Easy convincers
If you’re hoping to piece together your own version of this, I would just start by brainstorming as many “convincers” as possible — without thinking about magic methods yet. Most of the secrets here weren’t real magic effects. Just to rattle through some easy ones:
- Missing my flight — I truly “missed” my flight. As the trip approached, we all shared our flight information. I shared the info for a real flight around noon. Instead, I flew in at sunrise. Then, when I made the phone call after the flight time, there was something genuinely wrong in their perception (from their POV, we’ve made plans for today and this wasn’t part of it). It was actually pretty spectacular to arrive early for a group trip and be invisible for a few hours. I hung out at the pool solo and even accidentally walked right past one of the other bachelors — he had no clue, like in his intuition, I couldn’t be there yet.
- CNBC Store — Easy, I looked up a genuine LAX store in my terminal and just asked for an empty plastic bag.
- Airport sounds — I used this video to generate Airport sounds on my iPad. I experimented with how to position this near my phones so that it was extremely obvious. You want the sound of an “announcement” to blare in the background while you’re on the phone — Sean specifically mentioned this.
- Tickets — This was all in the pre-AI era, but one easy thing I would have done was create some simple tickets (and maybe even an informational brochure!) to lend more legitimacy. Do NOT call attention to this stuff. I would just dump it on the table along with my stuff and let them discover it if they do.
- Showing up at the right place — Surprisingly hard element here is showing up at the right place and right time. I really want the phone call to end and in minutes, BANG, BANG, BANG, I’m at the door. I triangulated most of this by looking at our agenda for when he’d be settling into his room and a diagram of the hotel. But I wanted enough people to be over there for it to be fun and didn’t want to let the timing go to chance. So I chose to develop an accomplice in the group. He was also new to the group so I trusted that he wouldn’t leak the information and I didn’t tell him anything about what was going to happen, just that he was helping me with a “prank.”
But of course you’re probably wondering about the two biggest pieces 1) free choice of anything in an airport store and 2) the matching receipt with time and date. Both of these things locked together reinforce each other.
Free choice of anything in an airport store
What if I told you that I invented a method to instantly produce anything in an airport store? Seriously. You can customize it to anything you can imagine in a standard store: books, magazines, gifts, snacks, candy, drinks. There is no force, no equivoque, no multiple outs, no memorization, no anagrams. They can even mess with you: ask for specific brands, options, sizes. Sodas will be ice cold, newspapers will be genuinely readable and dated today (another convincer).
All of this is true. But get ready to be disappointed!
There is a convenience store next to the elevator bank at nearly any hotel (especially in Las Vegas). I stood in there and bought whatever Sean asked for.
Don’t underestimate this!
Here is a good thought experiment for you: what around you can serve as a life-sized index? A bar can create any drink. A restaurant can make any food.
Next, you just have to hide that fact with another method, like a switching box. Here, I used a receipt (and the speed of my appearance at his door).
As I referenced before, I think it’s a good idea to buy a newspaper because it’ll have today’s date on it and a drink because it’ll be cold and the options are endless.
Producing a genuine receipt matching random selections
As with many similar effects, I simply printed a phony receipt while I was in the elevator.
For some reason, people over estimate the complexity of printing a receipt. In their minds, it must come from a giant cash register and it must be expensive to buy a receipt printer. Nowadays, you can buy a pocket-sized bluetooth receipt printer. Here’s the rechargeable thermal printer I have. (and don’t forget the paper)
It took a lot of experimentation to get the receipt to look right. On this printer, I used the image printing function to first print the CNBC logo across the top (without tearing off the result), then switched modes to plain text to print the information.
Below is the template I saved in the Notes section of my phone. When Sean named his items, I tweaked the items, costs, totals and time of day. Then I pasted the result into the app and printed.
There you have it! It’s a pocket-sized cross-country teleportation. A disorienting grand entrance to start any long weekend visit with friends.
Here’s the receipt copy if you use my printer:
CNBC Store #234
LAX Terminal 02
200 World Way
Los Angeles, CA
Cashier 034
06/03/21 5:58pm
1 Pepsi 12oz $2.98
1 Wallstreet J $2.98
SUBTOTAL $2.98
TAX $0.58
TOTAL $3.56
CHARGE $3.56
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VISA card 4248
App# auto
Refr# 28789843672
Entry method contactless