To start, the bands are not made of rubber but of silicon which makes them thicker and with a different look and feel from regular rubber bands. Depending on the shape of the band, you can perform most standard magic tricks such as the well known "jumping rubber band." And if you want to perform the well known penetration effect, “CMH,” the bands do allow you to create the necessary visual ambiguity to execute the moves.
That said, the bands, depending on their shapes, do tend to kink up - some shapes more than others. For this reason, you’ll find that some shapes will work better for particular effects.
Revelations
The fact that the bands form different shapes presents lots of possibilities for revelations. For example, if a spectator “freely” names an animal or selects a card with a picture of a particular animal, say, an elephant, you can then show that the band around your wrist is in the shape of an elephant. This was the basis for a magic kit, Liam Montier's "Animal Bands,” (you can read my review here) which I was generally not all that impressed with.
Miracle Magic Bandz
More impressive is a kit from Fun Incorporated, “Miracle Magic Bandz,” which provides bands in magic-related shapes that include: bunny, top hat, plus sign (ESP symbol), Heart, Star and
“3 of Clubs.” It’s the “3 of Clubs” band that I found most intriguing and tried out at my restaurants.
The band in the shape of “3 of Clubs” allows you to make a simple card revelation. After some experimentation, I discovered that I got the strongest reactions by wearing the band around my wrist and after the “freely” selected card was cleanly returned to the middle of the deck, I wrapped the band around the cards. Here, I explained to spectators that I was banding the cards to make sure that I could not somehow influence the placement of the card or locate it.
After naming wrong cards, I asked the spectator to tell me the card and then said that I had somehow made a mistake. I removed the band from the deck and placed it onto the table and claimed that I would now find the card. I simply rolled the bunched-up band a bit to get it into its correct orientation and would allow the spectators to eventually identify the shape in the band.
I was surprised at some of the strong reactions I got with this revelation. I attribute this to the fact that the revelation was completely unexpected.
Transformations?
One last thought, I haven’t yet seen a routine where a band is shown as one shape and then in the course of the trick, seemingly changes shapes to match a revelation - freely chosen card, etc...
I don’t have any bands of matching colors to try this out, but I think that with a couple of simple sleights, this could be strong, particularly if the spectator holds the band in his or hand and the change seems to occur there. Just a thought, and I don’t really think it’s much of a stretch (pun intended).
