Magic tricks to liven up a birthday party: Recommended illusions for entertainment and performances
Scenes celebrating the birthdays of family, friends, or a significant other are packed with activities like enjoying a meal and giving gifts.
Some of you may be looking for ideas for entertainment or performances to delight your loved ones.
In this article, we’ve put together a collection of magic tricks that will liven up a birthday party.
Some of them allow for romantic staging, such as ending the magic with a surprise gift.
Use these magic ideas to help make that once-a-year special day feel even more festive.
- Magic tricks you can perform at a birthday party: classic crowd-pleasers and surprise effects
- [2026] Party-Perfect! A Roundup of Recommended Magic Tricks
- Hilarious magic! Crowd-pleasing tricks perfect for parties and performances
- Simple Magic! Fun Tricks Kids Can Do & Revealed Secrets!
- Simple magic tricks that delight kids: surprising to watch and make you want to try them yourself.
- Magic that excites crowds at cultural and school festivals
- Easy! Magic tricks that liven up a Christmas party. Simple tricks and their secrets revealed.
- Recommended magic tricks for women
- [Surprising] A collection of body-based magic tricks [for parties and performances]
- Magic tricks with hats: recommended illusions for parties and performances
- Magic using drawings and illustrations. Recommended tricks for parties and performances.
- Magic tricks with a handkerchief: crowd-pleasing tricks for parties and performances
- Ranking of Popular Magic Tricks
Magic tricks to liven up a birthday party: Recommended acts and performances (21–30)
Magic where banknotes come out of a smartphone screen
How about trying a modern magic trick using a smartphone? It’s a trick where the bill on your phone screen transforms into a real one! The secret is surprisingly simple.
First, take a photo of a 10,000-yen bill from a distance and enlarge it.
Then, set a real 10,000-yen bill behind your phone.
All you do is slide the on-screen image sideways while pulling out the real bill from behind at the same time.
The beauty of this trick is that it requires no elaborate setup and can be performed easily anywhere! At a birthday party, you could even transform the bill into a letter or something else for an extra-surprising twist.
Magic using a smartphone
A heart-pounding magic trick that lets you know someone’s smartphone passcode.
You can use it as a magic performance, but it’s also a handy technique if you secretly want to find out a family member’s or partner’s passcode.
It uses the iPhone’s calculator: first, have the person enter their passcode so the performer can’t see it, then have them add a random four-digit number.
After that, by pressing the minus button and then the equals button, you can immediately see the originally entered number—taking advantage of how the calculator works.
Money is going to increase!?
This is a magic trick where a 1,000-yen bill astonishingly transforms into a 10,000-yen bill.
It seems perfect for a birthday surprise: you tell the person you’re giving them some money, pretend to hand over 1,000 yen, cast a spell, and then give them 10,000 yen.
You might not actually give away the money, but as an attention grabber, it’s highly recommended.
A magic trick where a coin passes through the hand
It’s a penetration magic trick where a coin instantly teleports from inside a closed hand to the back of the hand.
It looks quite difficult, but in fact it’s a very simple trick: you leave a gap on the thumb side, and on the third shake you use centrifugal force to fling the coin out of your hand.
It won’t get caught even at close range, so I recommend it.
Magic that turns smartphone photos into reality
It’s a magic trick that makes a wish come true: turning a photo on your smartphone into a real, physical picture you can hold.
Even though a finger touching the screen should only make the image move, if you slide it briskly outward, the photo on the screen disappears and the real one pops out.
The key is preparing the image in advance: display an enlarged version of a photo taken from a distance, and leave blank margins around the outside.
Then, as you slide, you bring up the blank margin on the screen while producing the real photo hidden behind the phone.
That’s the flow of the trick.
Smartphone magic where candy pops out
These days, everyone has a smartphone.
Let me show you a magic trick using one.
First, take a small photo of a little snack with your phone, then enlarge it to life size.
Hide the real snack between your phone and your palm, and as you slide your thumb across the screen and pull sideways, it looks just like the snack pops out of the phone screen.
It’s easy, so give it a try! It’s simple, but it will amaze everyone.
Easy magic with just one smartphone
It’s a magic trick where, even though it looks like you’ve reached into empty air, a smartphone appears in your hand in an instant.
You can also make it appear using a handkerchief; in either version, where you hide the phone is crucial.
In fact, the phone is in your hand from the start, held between your thumb and palm, and kept out of sight by controlling the angle.
Being mindful of how you produce it and refining the angles to better conceal the gimmick are key points for making it look mysterious.