audience management

[John B.]

So when performing magic, any time we hand the deck to a spectator you have to worry what they will do. How do you control your audience? for me I personally don't hand it out if I believe they won't follow my directions. I always have people take the deck and look away to put the card in the middle or whatever and I feel you have to let them or your truly being magical.

[AceGambit]

So, guiding your audience into doing what you want can be a challenging task, but when you get it right, it's ever so satisfying cause then they will just do the tricks for you.

So for me it starts with the approach.  When you walk up to someone to do a trick, they have no idea what to expect and are usually complacent to begin with.

I start off by changing their perceptions of how traditional magic works, that way they don't think they can trick me cause they don't know what's going to happen next.  If someone thinks you are going to take their card, put it in the middle, and then bring it to the top.  They are going to take special care to make sure that their card finds its way into the middle of the deck and you can't get it out.  However, if they don't know what to expect, they really aren't sure how to fool you. 

Example:  My opening trick always starts with letting them take a card.  Then i ask them to hand it back to me, and I very obviously "peek" at what it is then proudly announce "You card is the King of Diamonds!"  most people chuckle or get annoyed and say something like "yeah you looked at it!" 

At this point, you can set yourself up for a double lift or a top change and hand them both "their card" and the deck.  Ask them to put it in the middle.  Many people are already thrown off guard, they will just comply.  Then you can really WOW them by asking them to turn over the top card of the deck.  You didn't even have to touch the deck for the magic to happen.

I guess what I'm trying to say is "always be one step ahead of your audience, and have a backup plan."  Everyone screws up tricks all the time, and traditionally, the audience who is trying to mess with the magician isn't really the  type of audience you're looking to perform for.  You don't want to 'fool' your audience, you want to wow and amaze them.

If you're in a situation where your audience is trying to "get the better of you" then your performance -- even if you pull it off, is going to come off a little pretentious.

[MrMollusk]

A few eye candy flourishes and blind shuffles before the spectator's shuffle can distract the audience, making the cards less shuffled. This makes it easier to spot and control cards after the initial shuffles, and makes the spectator feel the have more control over the deck. As for obnoxious spectators, learn the boomerang shot so you can flick cards at them.

[Don Boyer]

I'm willing to give a spectator a shot most of the time, and most of the time you'll do just fine.  For the few times you don't - so what?  You congratulate them on figuring it out, then pull off a card miracle they don't see coming that DOESN'T require them to handle the deck, or at the least their handling won't affect it.


A sharp eye and a calm mind can help a lot as well.  I was doing a two-deck does-as-I-do trick where I used the bottom card of her deck as a key card.  The spectator fiddled around with the deck a bit and in the process placed another card under the deck, then the deck was cut and she placed the card she cut to on top of the bottom half of the new stack.  I panicked for just a split-second when she put the other card in there, but remembered that the trick involved nothing but cuts and that the key card would now simply be TWO cards back instead of one card back in the deck from her card when face up.


If you want the trick to be foolproof, make it a trick where it doesn't matter what the spectator does to the deck if they're handling it.  TBC's Backstage videos has Magick Balay doing a trick where he hands the spectator all but one card of the deck, the card they chose - and the 51-card deck is made up of nothing but blank-faced cards! How can a spectator screw that one up, right?    All he did was pull off some clever sleights involving controlling the card's position in the deck, plus an interesting force (or more likely, a deck switch after the spectator's card is chosen from a legit deck).  Clever, clever trick, really.  Check it out on their YouTube channel.

[Lara Krystle "Lane"]

When I used to do magic a few years ago. I really get nervous when the spectators are involved. But what I found effective in my case is to give them the proper instructions at the same time giving ludicrous reasons as to why.

ie. I want you to take a card and place on hand over the card to make sure that the magical effect of my invisible pixie dust doesn't go to waste.

they usually give me a WTF-look and comply. its worked so far back then. But since I don't do magic anymore I dunn ohow effective it can still be in making sure the spectator doesn't flip over the card (that is not theirs anymore).

[Don Boyer]

When I used to do magic a few years ago. I really get nervous when the spectators are involved. But what I found effective in my case is to give them the proper instructions at the same time giving ludicrous reasons as to why.

ie. I want you to take a card and place on hand over the card to make sure that the magical effect of my invisible pixie dust doesn't go to waste.

they usually give me a WTF-look and comply. its worked so far back then. But since I don't do magic anymore I dunn ohow effective it can still be in making sure the spectator doesn't flip over the card (that is not theirs anymore).

You have to be careful with that.  Sometimes it will clue in your spectator that you're about to pull a fast one on them and it can make them extra cautious.

A good (and hysterically fun) method I use to pull that off is with a massive, gut-busting distraction.  I do a trick as part of my regular routine at the hospital where I have to perform an Erdnase exchange.  Now, I could simply do the exchange without saying a word and be done with it, but unfortunately, those Chinese-made Streamlines I bought make sliding just one card smoothly off the deck with your palm heel nearly impossible without some effort.  (The deck isn't all bad - it has two jokers that, while not identical, are close enough that my audience hasn't clued into it yet after all this time.)  So instead, I tell the patient that I have to rub the card in a certain way, in order to get the magic off my fingers and on to the card.  If there are other spectators, I'll say "In order for this to work, you have to stay absolutely quiet - they can laugh all they want, but you have to be quiet, OK?"  At that point, I go into a wild, flailing mess of a dance while concealing the exchange, and the audience is laughing so hard they barely remember it's a card trick!  Then I bring it in, settle down and get to the real business of the trick, with them absolutely none the wiser - they just think I'm trying to get a laugh out of my patient to take his or her mind off of where they are.  (Which it does as a pleasant side effect!)  Hmm...maybe I could also rub the deck all over my body like a bar of soap...