The concept sounds almost too easy: A magician puts on a cannabis-themed magic show in which he performs tricks with a lighter, blows smoke in creative ways and makes a jar of weed disappear into thin air.
Or, as many Vermont stoners would call it, a typical Friday night.
All joking aside, magician Ben Zabin has spent the past four years blowing audience members’ minds — including those who weren’t high at the time. The Las Vegas magician is the founder of Smokus Pocus, a traditional magic act infused with less-than-traditional ingredients. Zabin, who has performed “the world’s dopest magic show” more than 300 times throughout North America, will appear on Friday, February 21, at Main Street Landing Performing Arts Center in Burlington. Attendees must be 21 or older.
“I never really know what I’m walking into each time I go onstage.” Ben Zabin
What exactly does a 420-themed magic act entail? As Zabin explained, he takes classic magic tricks and “turns them upside down” by creating illusions with paraphernalia, making weed randomly appear onstage, and reading audience members’ minds about when and where they first got baked.
“It’s all over the place, but there’s something in there for everybody,” he said. “And you don’t have to spark up to have a great time.”
The 26-year-old Zabin, who grew up outside of New York City, is a mostly self-taught magician. He got his first magic kit at age 5. After honing his skills, he started performing at bar and bat mitzvahs in New York and Boston, then moved on to regional and national magic competitions. By 2019, Zabin was getting hired to work corporate gigs, cruise ships and U.S. naval bases around the world — minus the cannabis, of course.
The idea of combining his love of magic and marijuana had been on the back burner for years, Zabin said. He would entertain friends with sleight of hand, often while partaking. Based on how much his friends enjoyed the tricks, he realized that a cannabis-centric act could have broader appeal.
After attending a year of college in Boston, Zabin dropped out, moved to Portland, Ore., and started developing the act that would become Smokus Pocus, which he launched in 2020. He still performs all of his shows solo, but in the past two years, he licensed the show to Canadian magician Eric Leclerc, who performs Smokus Pocus in cities north of the border, including Ottawa, Toronto, Montréal and Vancouver.
For obvious reasons, Zabin can only perform Smokus Pocus in states where cannabis is legal for adult and/or medical use. And, because it’s still illegal to cross state lines with ganja, Zabin always buys his, um, stage props from local dispensaries. “Gotta share the love,” he said.
Contrary to what many people might assume, Zabin said performing for a stoned audience doesn’t make it easier for magic tricks to work. In fact, he has found it can be a disadvantage if the crowd is too wasted, spaced-out or rowdy.
“Everyone can be on a different wavelength,” he said. “Some people are peaking on shrooms at the beginning of the show. Other times you have people who have just come from a pub crawl. So I never really know what I’m walking into each time I go onstage.” During a recent show in Reno, Nev., a guy proposed to his girlfriend onstage in the middle of a trick. Zabin only found out about it a minute or two beforehand. “She said yes, and it didn’t spoil the trick,” he said, “so their engagement is off to a great start.”
Zabin said he’s looking forward to the Burlington performance, his first in Vermont, in part because it will be held in a smaller and more intimate venue than most of his other shows. He also noted that some audience members will leave with “souvenirs.”
And, lest anyone is curious, Zabin does not spark up before taking the stage. “I don’t think it would be a very good show if I was significantly intoxicated,” he said.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Toke and Mirrors | Smokus Pocus, a cannabis-themed magic show, plays tricks on audience members’ minds”
This article appears in Feb 19-25, 2025.
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