A couple of years ago, at the Genii and 31 Faces North conventions, I was showing some in-the-hands packet effects that used a new technique and getting amazed reactions quite out of proportion with what I expected. Though I reckoned I had little chance of fooling the cognoscenti with what I was doing (because the new technique was so simple), I noticed a lot of jaws dropping and exclamations of “Whoa!” as I demoed the effects, so I knew I’d hit on something really deceptive.