Dan Harlan & Nicholas Lawrence have taken a good effect & made it great with some modern upgrades.
It is with the utmost respect that I add my two cents to the reviews herein.
The demo video
tells you just about everything you need to know about how the effect looks when performed for a
cameraman: stunning. Hover Card Plus appears to be an excellent trick, and is likely to be even
better for those moments when a potential audiencemember says, "Oh no, not another card trick."
So, why three stars? Three words: no performance video.
Yeah, go ahead & re-read that, then
let it sink in. AT NO POINT during the instructional video do we see an actual start-to-finish
performance (live or in studio) of Hover Card Plus. Not by Nick Locapo, not by Dan Harlan, & not by
Nicholas Lawrence. We don't even get to see the instructors perform it for one another!
Oh,
sure: they TALK about it. They perform PARTS of it. They even tell you how to manage your
audience, & how to manage your angles. They also give you lots of tips & other great information.
BUT, they never walk you through the performance start-to-finish.
Almost every single set of
magic trick instructions begins with a preamble describing what the audience sees prior to revealing
the secret. After telling the secret, the instructions will descibe the moves, step by step. And
then the better instructions will take you through the performance from the magician's POV with
emphasis on what to say, when to say it, & why, what to do, where to stand, best environment to
perform, etc.
Sadly, it is entirely up to the viewer to figure out this very important stuff for
themselves.
This being the case, I do NOT recommend Hover Card Plus for beginners! Again, with
all due respect to the creators & Penguin Magic, I'm actually very surprised that all of you
overlooked this. Dan Harlan is ordinarily VERY thorough in his videos about annotating the
performance, as is Penguin. I'm simply floored that this went to market without so much as a
heavily edited performance for a bunch of Penguin employees. Heck, even performing for an L&L
audience would be preferable to none at all!
If Penguin ever decides to add a performance video
"bonus" later on, I'll cheerfully update my review to 5 stars. For now, 3 stars.
62 of 65 magicians found this helpful.
A bit disappointed by the product. Dont get me wrong, this is really well made, and the upgrade
version is definitively an upgrade compare to the original one. Therefore, pretty much the same
limitation remain. Some will say that in this version you can give the card to the spectator (this
would have been a great addition to the trick, but seriously with a bit of skill this was also
possible with the original version)
Angle sensitivity remain the same as the original one
so I dont think I will use it that much.
28 of 32 magicians found this helpful.
Let me start by saying that until now I have only given 1 or 5 star reviews. This effect lands
perfectly in the middle for a couple reasons.
1. It looks great!
2. The gimmick is
stiff.
3. It fools anyone standing in front of you
4. It is very angle heavy despite what
the video says
5. The gimmick broke once already
6. The gimmick is easy to repair
This list continues on and on in this fashion. In short I love this trick for a planned
performance,but the video leads you to believe you can do this walk around. That simply isn't the
case, and the gimmick is too delicate to use for walk around in my opinion, especially when it comes
to ditching.
Great effect, not perfect.
22 of 22 magicians found this helpful.
Disappointed that the trick is only for those almost in front of you.
23 of 27 magicians found this helpful.
The main gimmick came misaligned, and the gimmicked card that holds the magnet popped apart after
just a few minutes. Fairly easy to repair both of these issues but for $40 I don't expect to have to
repair it literally out of the box. (Overpriced at $40 even if gimmicks were functional)
On
top of all of that it is really not all that practical. Not easy to get into and out of in real
world performance. Which is probably why they do not show a single live uncut performance in the
entire video instructions. Angles are 'narrow', but I knew that going in and they are manageable
under the right conditions.
Surprised by all of the 5 star reviews, and realize that my
review is the 'minority report'. Hope it helps someone in making a more informed decision on
purchasing this.
18 of 18 magicians found this helpful.
Nice enough effect..not worth 40 bucks though
20 of 25 magicians found this helpful.
What a beautifully made gimmick this baby is. I was doing it 1 minute after watching the instruction
video. Be careful you will fool yourself. This surely will go into your WORKER pile!
15 of 21 magicians found this helpful.
So, I've had Hover Card Plus for about two months now since Magi-Fest in January and all I can say
is that I love it! Laypeople are absolutely stunned by the "gravity-defying levitation" and the
improvements that were made upon the gimmick (as explained in each of the trailers) make the
original Hover Card so much more amazing. I highly recommend that you go ahead and purchase this
before it sells out. Congratulations on the fantastic release Nick and Dan.
13 of 17 magicians found this helpful.
Mine already broke.
And even when working properly, the movements of the float were too
choppy or bouncy to look like something magical. They say you have to work it out through time...but
I say "Meh".
And the angle is front only. Double meh!
10 of 11 magicians found this helpful.
Got this at the Newark , NJ PM Expo! I have not owned other versions of hover card however, this is
the best gimmick that you can incorporate into many routines of card magic. This is completely
customizable. Will work on any deck of cards but I prefer using a standard red Rider back. You can
even use this on a dollar bill and make the dollar bill levitate. This is a really easy gimmick to
make except for the part that enables it to go forward and backwards. This is definitely a five
star product. If you do card magic you will not be disappointed. Nick is great, demoing and helping
at the expo. If you like this, and do some card magic with mentalism get B-Wave, use these two
routines together making it like your taking it all out of a normal deck of cards. Hope you all
enjoy and hope this review will help you on your purchase.
13 of 19 magicians found this helpful.