You may be on a stage, in front of a classroom, in the center of a party, at a restaurant table or in a conference room or office cubicle. The tricks you perform have to work in your chosen venue and within your performance conditions.
The key considerations here are angles and secrets, and audience visibility and interaction.
The Magic Angle
Magicians live by angles - the effectiveness of a trick that depends on how audiences are seeing the trick. Some tricks only work with your audience sitting or standing in front of you. A great example of this is the rising card, which can only be viewed from the very front. Other tricks can be performed with people around you. A good example of this is the necklace. If a magic secret has to be hidden by an angle, make sure that a trick's angle fits your performance venue.
In most strolling and restaurant situations, there are additional angle considerations. After performing for one party, it's not uncommon for a group that you have already performed for to watch you again as you entertain another party. These spectators may view your tricks from the back and see magic secrets.
One solution for this, of course, is to perform a different set for the next table or group. However, it's sometimes difficult to remember what tricks that you've performed for who.
As a result, I think that with strolling magic, it's always best to keep the angles tight. This way, when others watch you perform the same tricks from the back, they won't see any secrets. It's a personal rule of mine that I strive to follow.
Seeing is Believing
In order to enjoy magic, your audience has to see and understand what you are doing. In this regard, your tricks can be more intimate if you're performing for only a few people, but the tricks and props have to, in general, be bigger to play for larger crowds.
Close-up tricks can be adapted to work on stage for a large number of people. But I think it's best to select tricks for the size of the venue so that audience members in the most distant seats can see and understand everything that’s going on.
I think it's important that you have tricks in your sets, whether standup or close-up, which allow spectators to interact with props: pick a card, do as you do and more.
As with visibility, a spectator's interaction with props will depend on the venue where you're working. If you're on a stage, you'll have to invite a spectator to join you. If you're performing tricks in your office cubicle, you'll have a different interaction.
In the Round
One last thing, I think it's important to have some tricks in your act that you can perform in the most difficult situations - surrounded by your audience. I can perform about twenty-minutes of magic if I'm surrounded and the routines have served me well (they're a subset of my regular stand-up material). This will ensure that you still have a show even under the worst conditions, which sometimes can’t be avoided.
So, after thinking about your audience, be sure to think about your venues and performing conditions.
