“Do you want to see some magic?” asked Ryan Johnson, co-founder of Smoke & Mirrors JAX, a community of magicians in Jacksonville.

The magic trick, which involved a Starbucks coffee stirrer and pastry bag, was an analogy for a magic show, like Smoke & Mirrors JAX’s upcoming Bold City Magic Show on Friday.

Here’s how the trick works: Johnson asks his volunteer to break a stirrer and, in plain sight, it breaks. Then he puts an unbroken stirrer in the bag and again asks the volunteer to break it. It feels like it breaks; it sounds like it breaks.

But when Johnson pulls the stirrer out of the bag, it is whole.

What happens inside the bag, Johnson said, is all illusion. That’s what magic shows are.

“Only at a magic show can you experience something that can’t possibly happen,” Johnson said.

Johnson and co-founder Chris Sharp met at a gathering for local magicians at Miller’s Ale House more than a year ago.

Johnson, who got into magic and learned his own tricks via “a solid YouTube binge,” was looking for places to see magic performed in Jacksonville.

He was shocked to find that there really weren’t any, even in a city of almost a million people. He did find an International Brotherhood of Magicians ring here, as well as the meetup at the Ale House.

As he continued to learn more about magic, Johnson said he “got bit by the magic bug hard.”

Though Johnson has only been into magic for a year and a half, Sharp has been fascinated by magic since he saw his first magic trick at 6 years old. Years later, when he visited Las Vegas at the age of 12 or 13, he began to learn for himself.

Soon after, he did his first paid magic gig, at his younger sister’s seventh birthday party.

At an Ale House meeting, Johnson overheard Sharp talking to another magician about a need for “something more” than just the occasional meetings. Johnson agreed, so they began talking about an open mic for magicians.

An open mic is a place for amateur magicians to deliver an act, or for professional magicians to try out something new in front of a non-paying audience.

The duo’s first open mic was at Aromas Cigar Bar, inspiring the “Smoke” in the group’s name.

As the monthly open mic nights continued, more magicians became interested, Johnson said. More audience members became interested, too, and asked the group to expand to a family friendly location.

That led to the group’s two shows in the Dave & Buster’s showroom, both of which nearly filled the 160-seat venue.

The upcoming show will be more produced than past shows, Johnson said. The headliners, Robert Sands and the Amazing Mr. G, will each perform for 25 minutes, while Johnson and Sharp will each give 10-minute opening acts.

Johnson and Sharp said they have cultivated, largely through social media, a wide variety of magicians, allowing each show to be unique so viewers can return for every show and see something new.

Johnson said an eventual goal of Smoke & Mirrors JAX is creating a “permanent home” for magic in Jacksonville. Other cities, like Los Angeles and Nashville, have places where anyone can go see magic. Johnson said Jacksonville is “too big of a city” to not have something similar.

“I think we’re capitalizing on kind of a need that Jacksonville has,” Johnson said.

People want a different kind of experience, some sort of escape, he said. Take the popularity of escape room games as an example.

Magic shows offer something similar, a kind of experience that no one can get while looking at a screen at home, Sharp said.

“Some people like to solve riddles and puzzles; some people just like to be wowed,” Sharp said. Their show caters to both.

Johnson said that most magicians love watching magic like they love performing magic.

“I love being fooled,” Johnson said. “I love that feeling of how is that possible. But once you learn the trick, the veil is lifted, you can see the man behind the curtain, you get to see behind Oz.”

But from the perspective of the stage, Johnson can see other people have that experience of being fooled, “that sense of wonder.” He loves seeing that, he said.

Sharp said when he sees a good trick, sometimes he wants to learn it and sometimes he is “flabbergasted” and wants to let it stand.

“As magicians, we don’t get to experience [that feeling] a lot, so when it does, it takes us back to the beginning, where we got bit by that bug,” Sharp said.

They promise that feeling for those who come to their show, which is at 7:30 p.m. on Friday at The Main Event.