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Take into account that a lot of hecklers often don't realise the damaging effect their interference has. It doesn't occur to them that, what they see as, lighthearted banter could ruin a trick. Some even think their helping. More importantly, they can help. There's no easier way, for me at least, to execute a move than when addressing a heckler.

For all intents and purposes the trick is paused. You put you hands down, maybe even return the deck to your pocket. No-one suspects that you haven't paused at all. The heckler gets the message and the effect resumes.

that's a very good point, I'll have to remember that. I guess you could use all sorts of external distractions to your advantage when performing.

That's something to think about on my drive home tonight.

Family's and friends will always heckle you as they know you.
Strangers generally do not dare not following your instructions, as they are being entertained for free.
Family will grab stuff, put their hands in your pockets, just faff around.
It takes great crowd management to "tame" friends and family.

You wouldn't put your hand in someone else's pocket to see if there are some cards, would you?
Ok, unless you are a pickpocket.

Kids & teenagers tend to be tougher as they have attitude problems... Again, it is when performing for them that you learn how to manage them.

Hello

As had been pointed out, friends and family are your worst audience. Either they will say you are good just to avoid hurting your feelings or they will not suspend their diebelief and will be a right pain. I NEVER try out new routines or effects on f&f.

You see to perform to people (sepecially the genre of magic that I am involved in) you need to present a character. This applies to any sort of public performance. You would find that even Ruby Wax is a very different person in her own home.

Your f&f know exactly who you are so it is difficult for them to accept the performing character that you adopt.

The character that I assume, The Black Hart, is not the real me. When performing I am the character for the whole evening. I am that character when I'm chatting to people in the bar or wherever. When I'm in the car travelling home then I'm me again.

This is what makes it so difficult with f&f. You will find that strangers are a MUCH easier audience.

Don't give up - go public.

Keith Hart

i have the same problems they keep stealing my deck of cards and say lets go play poker or 5 card stud nd im like let me show u somethin first nd there like f u so none the less i have to go break some skulls.

I Test loads of stuff out on my family but my mother and she picks holes massive holes, i saw this that .... I take the same routines to the public and i get the shocked reactions and all that , that we as magicians want.

Jerome the French wrote:Family's and friends will always heckle you as they know you.
Strangers generally do not dare not following your instructions, as they are being entertained for free.
Family will grab stuff, put their hands in your pockets, just faff around.
It takes great crowd management to "tame" friends and family.

You wouldn't put your hand in someone else's pocket to see if there are some cards, would you?
Ok, unless you are a pickpocket.

Kids & teenagers tend to be tougher as they have attitude problems... Again, it is when performing for them that you learn how to manage them.

Quoted for truth. I'm just starting out in magic and the first people I performed for were my friends today at church. I did Sinful (Put a coin into a new, sealed soda can) at church just about 3 hours ago, and I had people tripping out.

First I did it for one person, who is a good friend of mine, so I could see if I had my presentation and everything down. He went insane. I thought I had it down pact, so I grabbed a slightly bigger audience of 3 friends. After I shook the can and they could hear it inside, my friend I've known since I was about a year old said "Oh my god... If thats the same quater dude then you're a freak!". So I opened it and he went and told almost the whole youth group what I did and they started to get skeptical.

I had atleast 12 or 13 people bugging me to do it again. Since my friend was freaking out so bad, everyone was being very suspicious and was watching my every move. One girl tried to stand at the worst angle possible. I told her she had to move and she goes "OH MY GOD I KNEW IT YOU'RE HIDING SOMETHING!". This made me really nervous and I did screw up one part of the trick, but I covered it perfectly. The same girl figured out how I got the coin inside the can, but she couldn't figure out how I got the coin from the point where the coin looks like it goes in to the can to the point where it actually did go in. Some people belived her, but they had no idea how I just made the coin dissapear, so they still surrounded me bugging me for awhile about it.

Everyone was telling me to do it again, but stop midway to let them inspect the can, let them open the can, and stuff like that but I told them no. How do you deal with an audience that wants you to do the same thing over and over? I can't just tell them no because you'll ruin the whole 'magic' feeling of the trick. Does anyone have a saying they use? I just started out, so I can't just say "Oh, I'll show you a different trick."

Welcome to the forum Bryant. You should really stop by the Introductions forum and let us know a little bit about yourself.

As for your question, here are some suggestions from a fellow beginner.

Depending upon your character or how you present your tricks you can play it off as now being too 'tired' or 'drained' to perform that one again.

This trick has it's own 'out' built in - you've just opened a beverage, why would you want to open another, you're not thirsty again just yet.

You could say you've already done that one and don't want to get bored so you do another.

Performing the same trick again for the same audience is very rarely advisable - unless you've planned for it ahead of time by altering the method or the end.

I disagree that not repeating a trick again it ruins the magic of it; in fact, I would say the inverse is true. Repeating a trick makes it less spontaneous, less magical, it becomes a puzzle for the spectator to figure out.

Additionally, as you'll find noted in other areas in this forum, doing a trick just once can lead the spectator to remember it as more impressive than it actually was. Minutes afterward they may swear that someone else opened the can, that you never had the coin, or so on. It helps if they've had a drink or two first, but being as you said it was at church youth group, I doubt that's the case .