Birthday party magician · For adults · Milestone birthdays and private parties
A 40th in a rented villa, a 50th in a private dining room, a surprise party the guest of honour knows nothing about. Hugo Marceau, magician and mentalist, works the drinks, the tables and, if you want it, one short show in which the person you are celebrating is the finale. Not children's magic. In English and French.
In one paragraph
An adult birthday is organised like a small wedding: the caterer, the music, the house for the weekend. And it has the same quiet problem. The guests come from different parts of one life, school friends, colleagues, family, the new partner's circle, and they do not know each other. A birthday party magician works on that directly. Strolling close-up breaks the ice between the groups during the drinks; table magic fills the waits of a long dinner; and a short mentalism performance, written around the person you are celebrating, gives the whole party one moment it will retell for years. The magic is sophisticated, the tone is light, and nobody is made to feel foolish.
Three ways into the evening
01 · Drinks and buffet
Guests standing, glass in hand. Hugo moves from circle to circle with cards, coins, borrowed phones and thoughts read a few centimetres from their hands. Ninety minutes reach everyone, and by the end the school crowd and the colleagues are in the same conversation.
02 · Seated dinner
For a dinner of twelve to eighty in a restaurant's private room or at home. Hugo takes each table in turn during the waits, with effects built for seated guests: a prediction with the birthday in it, an object that travels from one end of the table to the other. The caterer never waits for the magician.
03 · After dinner
Twenty to forty minutes of mentalism, a magic show for the whole party at once, in the living room, on the terrace or in the dining room. Mind reading on the guests, a prediction sealed before the evening began, and a last effect written around the person you are celebrating. The piece everyone photographs. For the full version, see the mentalism show.
Why it works on adults
Children accept magic kindly. Adults do not: the engineer at your table, the surgeon, the friend who has seen every television special, are all looking for the method. That is exactly the audience mentalism is for. A word thought of and found, the passcode of a phone that was never out of its owner's hand, a decision predicted before it was made: these do not look like tricks, and the people who try hardest to explain them are the ones who talk about them longest.
The magic is also built for the room. A birthday has people of twenty-five and seventy-five in it, and a family gathering has children at the edges. Hugo's effects hold both without a change of tone: the younger ones see the impossible, the older ones look for the mechanism, and everyone applauds the same finale. What he does not do is the children's party with a magic show on the carpet; that is another craft, and other performers do it well.
Written around the guest of honour
Occasions
A 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th or 70th with forty to two hundred people, in a rented house, a hotel or the garden. Close-up during the drinks, a show after dinner.
Twelve to thirty people at home or in a restaurant's private room. Table magic between the courses and a short performance with the coffee. Nothing to set up in someone's dining room.
Organised by a partner or friends. Hugo is briefed by them, kept out of sight, and works the reveal into the evening.
A villa on the Riviera, a chalet, a château for three days. One evening with a magician in the middle of it, when the house party has settled and wants a reason to be in the same room.
Where
Hugo is based in Lyon, France, and performs at private parties across the country and in French-speaking Switzerland: the French Riviera and Monaco, Geneva, Lausanne and Montreux, Lyon and its region, Paris. A birthday elsewhere in Europe is covered on request; everything he needs fits in cabin luggage, which is also why nothing has to be delivered to the house. For a company celebration rather than a private one, see corporate event entertainment; for a wedding, the wedding magician page.
Tailor-made for your party
Fees on request. Every proposal is tailored to the format, the length of the evening, the number of guests and the travel involved.
Prefer to talk first? +33 6 88 61 29 00, WhatsApp welcome, English and French.
Before you enquire
No. Hugo's birthday work is for adults: milestone birthdays, dinner parties, surprise parties, a weekend at a villa. Children are welcome in a family gathering and he has effects that hold a nine-year-old and a sixty-year-old at the same table, but a party of eight-year-olds with a magic show on the carpet is a different job and he does not do it. For a children's party, ask a children's entertainer.
It depends on the evening. Drinks and a buffet: strolling close-up from group to group. A seated dinner: table magic between the courses. A room you can gather: a twenty to forty minute mentalism performance with the guest of honour in the finale. Most birthdays combine close-up during the drinks with a short show after dinner.
Yes, and it is the best part of the job. A date, a first name, an old joke, a photograph, the gift itself: with a little preparation, the finale can reveal something only the guests of honour and their closest friends would know. Hugo asks for a few details in advance and keeps them to himself.
From a dinner for twelve to a party of two hundred in the grounds of a château. Below forty, one performer covers everything. Above that, Hugo plans the evening so that every group is reached, and for very large parties can bring in a second close-up performer he knows and trusts.
Hugo is based in Lyon and performs at private parties across France and French-speaking Switzerland: the French Riviera, Lake Geneva, Lyon, Paris and the villas and châteaux rented for a birthday weekend. Elsewhere in Europe on request, with everything in cabin luggage. Travel is included in the proposal.
Fees are quoted on request and depend on the format (close-up, table magic, show or a combination), the length of the evening, the number of guests and the travel involved. One tailored proposal, travel included, within one business day.
Hugo Marceau, mentalist and AI magician · Wedding magician · Mentalism show · iPad close-up · Christmas party entertainment · About Hugo · Wedding reception entertainment