iPad magician · Digital close-up · Branded magic
A card merely thought of appears inside the iPad. A drawing made with a finger drops out of it, real, into a guest's palm. Your product comes out of the iPad at your launch. Strolling digital magic by a mentalist, branded to your company, with no technical set-up. In English and French, based in France, performing worldwide.
What an iPad magician does
An iPad magician performs close-up magic with a touchscreen as the prop: things seem to leave the screen and become real, images change under a guest's eyes, a prediction appears at the exact second a spectator decides. Most digital magicians stop there, at the visual effect. Hugo Marceau is a mentalist first, so with him the iPad does not do the trick; the guest does. It is their thought, their choice, their photograph that triggers the impossible, and the display is simply where it becomes visible. The technology disappears behind the reaction, which is the point of hiring a tech magician rather than installing a video wall.
What your guests will see
01 · The thought inside the screen
A guest merely thinks of a card. Nothing is touched, nothing is said. The iPad is turned around and the card is there, then slides out of the glass and into the guest's fingers. The first thirty seconds of every group start here, because it settles the question of whether this is a gadget.
02 · The photograph that changes
A photo is taken of a guest with their phone or with the iPad. While they hold it, the picture changes: an object appears in the image, in their fingers, then the real object is there, in their real fingers. Nobody has given them anything. This is the moment people film.
03 · The drawing that falls
A guest draws something on the iPad with a finger. Hugo tilts the device and the drawing falls out of it as a real object. At a product launch, the object is yours.
04 · The prediction to the second
A choice is made freely by the group: a number, a word, a name. The iPad has been showing a locked prediction since the start. It is unlocked. It matches, to the second, to the letter, and the tagline that appears underneath is your company's. The group applauds and Hugo moves to the next one.
Where iPad close-up works best
The format the act was built for. Guests stand with a glass, groups form and dissolve, and the iPad magician is the ice-breaker that gives strangers something to talk about. Ninety minutes to two hours covers a reception of two hundred and fifty. Also the natural opening of a gala dinner.
Table to table while the kitchen works: a routine of five to seven minutes per table, timed to the service, for up to a hundred and twenty guests. The iPad is visible from every seat at a round table, which borrowed coins never are.
The job of a trade show magician is to stop people walking past, hold them for four minutes with your product inside the magic, and hand them to your sales team warm. Half-day or full-day slots, with the routine written around the message of the stand. See conference entertainment for the plenary and networking versions.
The new product is first seen on the iPad, then leaves it and lands with a journalist or a client. For launches, the iPad routine is combined with the stage version, in which a working artificial intelligence takes over: see the AI magician act.
Branded, not merely digital
Classic close-up magic is wonderful and entirely anonymous: the ace of spades does not carry your logo. The iPad does. Everything a guest sees on it, the object that leaves it and the line that appears at the end of the routine can be dressed in your identity. A logo that surges out of the glass, a flagship product that materialises, a tagline that turns out to be the punchline of a prediction. The illusion stops being entertainment that happens next to your message and becomes the vehicle for it, attached to the strongest emotion of the evening.
Hugo asks for the brand assets, the product, the message and the confidential bits a fortnight ahead, builds the visuals, and rehearses the routine with them. Launches under embargo are prepared under NDA. One rule he keeps: the magic never shows a feature the product does not have. The impossible part is the magic, not the claim.
iPad or classic close-up?
For technology companies and tech audiences
Engineers, developers and founders make the toughest audience for magic and the best one for this act. They look for the app, the camera, the trick in the code, and they are right to, because that is where the first layer is. The second layer is the one they cannot explain: the moment the digital object is in their fingers and the prediction was locked before they spoke. Hugo spends his days building with the same tools his audiences use, which is why the iPad routine has grown into a stage act in which an artificial intelligence reads the room out loud, and into an AI keynote for conventions and leadership days. The close-up version is the entry point: same performer, same honesty about what is technique and what is theatre, in a format that fits between two glasses of champagne.
Where it is played: the French Riviera, Geneva and Switzerland, Paris, Lyon and the Alps, and anywhere in Europe or beyond on request, with the iPad in cabin luggage and nothing to ship.
Tailor-made for your event
Fees on request. Every proposal is tailored to the duration, the audience, the branding and the travel involved.
Prefer to talk first? +33 6 88 61 29 00, WhatsApp welcome, English and French. Agencies: see the page for event planners.
Before you enquire
An iPad magician uses a touchscreen as the central prop of close-up magic: objects appear to leave the screen and become real, a guest's photograph changes under their eyes, a prediction is displayed at the exact moment a spectator chooses. In Hugo Marceau's version the iPad is a mentalism tool: the effect is triggered by what the guest thinks or chooses, not by what the app does. The technology serves the illusion; it does not replace it.
None. No stage, no sound system, no lighting and no stand to build. Hugo arrives with the iPad and moves from group to group. It is the easiest format to add to a drinks reception, a seated dinner or a trade show stand, and it works outdoors, in a hotel lobby or on a boat.
Yes, and that is the main reason companies choose it. The visuals on the iPad, the object that comes out of it and the final reveal can carry your logo, your new product or your tagline, so the illusion becomes a piece of communication guests retell. Confidential launches are prepared under NDA.
About two hundred and fifty standing guests in ninety minutes to two hours, or a hundred and twenty seated guests between courses. Groups of six to twelve see a short routine each, so by the third group the next one is already waiting. For larger receptions a second slot or a second performer is proposed.
Classic close-up with cards, coins and borrowed objects is warm, timeless and suits an intimate dinner. iPad close-up has a stronger visual punch in a noisy reception and can carry your brand, which makes it the better choice for a product launch, a trade show or a client evening. Hugo performs both and often mixes them in the same evening.
No. An iPad alone fools nobody; what fools people is the combination of the display, sleight of hand, timing and mentalism, built and rehearsed for a live room. The effects Hugo performs are routines he wrote, adapted to each client, and the moment that guests remember is the one where the digital object becomes real in their fingers.
Fees are quoted on request and depend on the duration, the number of guests, the level of customisation and the travel involved. One all-inclusive proposal, travel included, within one business day.
Hugo Marceau, mentalist and AI magician · AI magician · AI keynote speaker · Mentalism show · Corporate event entertainment · Performing worldwide · For event planners · Tech and digital magician · Trade show magician