“THE KEY OF FATE”

Luca Volpe

Copyright Luca Volpe and Alan Wong 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this book, text or photo, may
be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic,
stored in a retrieval system, photocopying, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of the author.

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THE KEY OF FATE

Thanks for purchasing the Luca Volpe and Alan Wong's set of
my stage routine The Key of Fate.
This is an act that has received great feedback of audience from
all around the world and is always in my “show bag”
everywhere I go.

This routine will give you a solid 9 to 12 minutes act and is

perfect to use as a closer. The beauty of it, is that there are a lot
of moments of amazement, plus it build perfectly until the final
encore that will make you audience stand on their feet!

As you will see, this routine is very flexible, and once you
learn the basic handling you will be able to adapt the method to
your performance style. In this booklet you will find different
ideas on how to apply this routine to a different kind of stiles,
from commercial/funniest one, to emotional presentations.

With this set, other than this booklet, you got the main prop,
which is the high quality lock, the custom case, the special
keys, some envelopes, the fake banana, the change net bag and
the special marker. You only need to add some extra things that
will cost you few euros.

I hope you will enjoy this routine as much as I do and I am

sure, that once you will start to perform it, you will use in
every show!

Enjoy!
Luca Volpe

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The Act

The show starts with an offstage voice that asks the audience to
write a word on a piece of paper they received prior the show,
that can represent a prize to win. It can be anything from a
simple object to an expensive car, to an amount of money, to a
silly gift.

Towards the end of the show, the mentalist reminds the

audience that before the show started, he asked everyone to
write a prize on a colored piece of paper. Everyone with a
piece of paper is asked to raise their hands, keeping the piece
of paper in view. The mentalist will say that he is going to
collect all the pieces later in the experiment. A person from the
audience will be called onstage, who the mentalist says will be
the “controller”; in fact, this spectator will make all the choices
during the experiment. Three keys will be shown and also a
box closed with a lock. The mentalist will show three manila
envelopes and three keys, saying that only one of the three keys
will open the lock. He will ask the spectator to mix the keys
and to put each key in each envelope, all this while the
mentalist has his back turned so he doesn't see what is
happening.

Once the task is done, the mentalist will tell the spectator that
he will now number the envelopes, and taking the envelopes
one by one, the mentalist will ask the spectator which number
to write on it.

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At this point the spectator will be asked to go into the audience
and to choose three people that will come onstage. While the
spectator is through the audience, the mentalist will prepare
three chairs onstage, numbering them with the numbered
envelopes: 1, 2 and 3. The spectator (the controller!) will be
asked to decide on which chair each of the three spectators will
sit. Once they are in their chairs, the mentalist will now collect
the pieces of paper from the audience, and each one of the
person that are sitting on the chairs, will be asked to take one
piece of paper, each of different color, from the bag. Once this
task is completed, the mentalist will explain about the game
that is going to be played. The game will have the following
rule: The spectator that has the key that opens the lock will win
the prize written on the piece of paper!

It doesn't matter what happens or which prize will be chosen,

the mentalist will put his own money to it! The first spectator
will be called onstage to try to open the lock and sadly it will
not open. Once the piece of paper is read, it will show as a
prize, for example, a diamond ring! The next spectator will also
try his key, which doesn't work, and his prize would have been
100 Euros! The last spectator, obviously, will be the lucky one.
In fact, his key will open the lock, but the prize read will be a
Banana! This obviously will be very disappointing, but the
mentalist will point out the fact that he knew that he was going
to win this prize; in fact, before the show he put a prediction in
the box. The box will be opened and inside it is a real banana!

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Once the applause dies down, the mentalist will tell everyone
that he felt that that spectator was going to be the lucky one,
and so he made another prediction.

He now flips the chairs, showing the bottom of them, and only
underneath the lucky spectator's chair will be an envelope, that
once opened will reveal a piece of paper with the writing: “The
person that sits on this chair will be the lucky one. Ps. I am
sorry for the other two spectators if they didn't win the
Diamond Ring and the 100 euros!”

End of the act.

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Explanation

First, let me tell you what you need in order to perform this
routine other than the props you received:

• An envelope with a piece of paper where you write:

“The person that sits on this chair will be the lucky
one! Ps. I am sorry for the other two spectators if they
didn't win the Diamond Ring and the 100 euros! “
Attach this envelope with some tape under a chair.
• Some colored pieces of paper. I use this one from
Amazon and are great: https://amzn.to/2WcjL8A

• A real banana (we provided you a fake banana when

you don't have the chance to get a real one!)
• Some tape that you are going to use to attach the
envelope under the chair (make sure the tape will stick
on any surface)

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Everything you need to perform this routine fits in the box!
Here is what you get:
1. Special marker with the magnet attached on the cap
2. High Quality Lock, with one metal key (the other two
that will not open are made in copper)
3. Some manilla envelopes
4. Fake banana
5. Change Net Bag (make sure to keep the bag rolled and
NOT folded, or will cause some creases)
6. The custom case with ring where you can attach the
lock
7. Link to download video instructions

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Now that you have all the props, let's examine the description
again with the handling (description is in bold):

The mentalist reminds the audience that before the show

started, he asked them to write a prize on colored piece of
paper. Everyone with pieces of paper will be asked to raise
their hands, keeping the piece of paper in view. The
mentalist will say that he is going to collect all the pieces
later in the experiment. You need about fifteen pieces of
paper five with the word BANANA written on them, five with
the word DIAMOND RING and five with 100 EUROS written
on it (obviously you can change the prizes in anything you
want!) which you need to put in the secret compartment of the
prop you will use to switch them out.
Note: I normally use: five YELLOWS for the BANANA, five
GREEN for the money and five PINK for the RING. I use
those as sometimes the colored papers also can psychologically
influence people to write specific objects. In fact in the opening
script I always say: “I would like that you write some potential
prize to win, it can be a piece of jewellery, an amount of money
but also something funny, like a piece of fruit!” with this script
most of the time, I actually have people writing banana or ring!

The seam of the net bag has two compartments, one side has an
upside down pocket so you can hide the folded papers and need
to be hold with your fingers, when you are holding the bag
(this is an updated version from the bag you see in the
performance video). Let go of the fingers in the action of
shaking the bag and the papers will fall into the force side of
the bag.

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You also need another fifteen colored pieces of paper pieces
(same choice of colors of the forcing ones obviously!) and
fifteen pencils that you will need to give out to the audience
before the show.

A person from the audience will be called onstage, who the

mentalist says will be the “controller”; in fact, this
spectator will make all the choices during the experiment.
Three keys will be shown and also a box closed with a lock.
The mentalist will show three manila envelopes and three
keys, saying that only one of the three keys will open the
lock. He will ask the spectator to mix the keys and to put
each key in each envelope, all this while the mentalist has
his back turned so he doesn't see what is happening.
Once the task is done, the mentalist will tell the spectator
that he will now number the envelopes, and taking the
envelopes one by one, the mentalist will ask the spectator
which number to write on it. Here you will use your marker
which has the magnet attached to the cap. The actions are very
easy and fair, and nothing will be noticed. Before taking the
envelopes, use your left hand to remove (if you are right-
handed, otherwise invert the actions) the cap from the marker
and hold it in your left hand. Now with the right hand, take one
envelope from the table and pass it to the left hand.

During this action the envelope will be in contact with the top
of the marker, which contains the magnet inside, so it will be
very easy to feel if the metal key is inside by the attraction. The
envelope will be held in the left hand to show the audience the
number you are writing on top. You need to practice finding
your own position.

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For me it is very easy just to hold it with my left hand, showing
the back of the envelope to the audience while I write the
number on top. This gives me a perfect “reading” of the key
inside. Once you know where the metal key is, put the
envelope just slightly to the side on the table, just in case you
forget!
At this point you need to adjust all the revelations based on
where the key is. In this explanation, let's say the metal key is
in envelope number three.

At this point the spectator will be asked to go into the

audience and to choose three people to come onstage. While
the spectator is in the audience, the mentalist will prepare
three chairs onstage, numbering them with the numbered
envelopes 1, 2 and 3. Now you need to prepare the chairs
such that the chair on your far right will be the one with the
envelope underneath (you can also do it in the opposite way,
where the chair closest to you is number 3). Once the chairs are
in position, put the three numbered envelopes with the keys
inside on top of the chairs—obviously envelope number three,
with the metal key inside, will go on the third chair, which has
the envelope with the prediction underneath. Remember, these
three chairs will be on one side of the stage/platform and the
one in the middle will be the one with the prediction
underneath, so it will be easy to put it in position. If you work
with an assistant, you can also code them in which position to
put the chair with the prediction.
The spectator (the controller!) will be asked to decide on
which chair each spectator will sit. This doesn't really make
sense, as it doesn't matter who will sit on the chair, but this is
very important at the end of the act, where you will recap
everything and it will create another layer of impossibility.

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Once they are on their chairs, the mentalist will now ask
each participant to take one piece of paper from the box.
Here you will use the net bag. You need to make sure that only
spectator number three, in this example, gets the piece of paper
with the word BANANA on it. So go to the spectator number 1
and tell him to take a bunch of papers (obviously all the forcing
ones) and tell him to take any of the green (here on all the
green will be the 100 euros), then go to the spectator number
two, and ask him to take a bunch of papers and to chose one of
the PINK (all will for the ring) and then go to the spectator
number three (in this case our winner!) and ask him to get from
the bunch of papers any of the yellows (all banana!). At this
point you are done—the forcing piece of paper is chosen by the
spectator which has the key that opens the envelope and is also
seated on the chair with the prediction underneath!

Once this task is completed, the mentalist will explain the

game that is about to be played. The game will have the
following rule: The spectator that has the key that opens
the lock will win the prize written on the piece of paper! It
doesn't matter what will happen or which prize will be
chosen, the mentalist will put his own money to it! The first
spectator will be called onstage to try to open the lock and
sadly it will not open. Once the piece of paper is read it will
show a prize as, for example, a diamond ring! The next
spectator will also try his key, which won't work, and his
prize will be 100 Euros! As you can see, these moments are
really entertaining, so make sure to play with them!

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The last spectator, obviously, will be the lucky one. In fact,
his key will open the lock, but the prize read will be a
Banana! This obviously will be very disappointing, but the
mentalist will point out the fact that he knew that he was
going to win this prize; in fact, before the show he put a
prediction in the box. The box will be opened and inside it
is a real banana! Again, here there will be a lot of applause
cues and very entertaining and funny moments. But what if the
key is in envelope numbers two or one? Well, it is very simple.
If it is in envelope number one, I will start from number three,
saying something like: “Let's start randomly…with you
please…(pointing to spectator number three)” If the key is in
envelope number two, I will start with number one, and then
pointing to number three I will say: “I see that you are
impatient… Ok then, let's try your key!” Obviously you want to
make sure to leave as the last one the key that opens the lock.

Note: In the box, instead of a real banana, you can also put
several sponge bananas, so once the box is opened the sponge
bananas will explode from the box, making this moment also
very funny.
Once the applause dies down, the mentalist will tell
everyone that he felt that that spectator was going to be the
lucky one. He was so sure, he made another prediction.
Before you flip the chairs, it is very important that you recap
everything, and in doing so, you will make the audience
remember what you want. I normally say something like:
“Now before we continue, let me remind you of something:
You were the controller today, you decided everything! You
mixed the keys, you numbered the envelopes, you decided
where they were going to sit, right?”.

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As you can see from this sentence, you remind them that the
controller really did everything, thus making the routine even
more impossible.

He now flips the chairs, showing the bottom of them, and

only underneath the lucky spectator's chair will be an
envelope, that once opened will reveal a piece of paper with
the writing: “The person that sits on this chair will be the
lucky one. Ps. I am sorry for the other two spectators if
they didn't win the Diamond Ring and the 100 euros!”.
Make sure when you do this last revelation to use the right
timing. This is something that needs to be memorable and is
also the finale of your show. So at the end of the sentence I will
add something like: “Thank you very much! You have been a
wonderful audience and good night!” Your tone of voice will
rise and you will end the show energetically.

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For more information and latest releases:
http://mentalistworld.wordpress.com

Purchase Luca Volpe's books online at:

www.lulu.com/spotlight/lucavolpe

Luca Volpe Official Website

www.lucavolpe.com

Alan Wong Magic

awongmagic@gmail.com

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