talkmagic.co.uk

hey guys,

quick question, trying to brainstorm a new routine and come across an obstacle.

how do you deal with the volunteer that refuses to acknowledge that you have found his card.

simple card lost in deck " i will now find your card"
"nope that wasn't it"

or even worse they decide to change their card to deliberatly mess you up.

what ways are there of dealing with this

cheers

The simple solution: let them keep hold of the card
The difficult solution: audience management

Make sure they show it to plenty of other people.

Get them to sign the card

excuse my bluntness, but you're a "working-pro", with a website, and you're asking this?!

just a little shocked i suppose...

get them to bite the card, it'll act like a kind of breather's crimp too...

You're always going to get people like that. As has been said either have them sign the card or show it someone else. And if they're really all that worried about ballsing up your routine then walk away and go to someone else.

thanks for the replies, the problem is that there are several volunteers in the one trick, 7 in fact and getting each one to mark their card is time consuming and takes the edge off the trick not to mention increaseing the amount of extra packs i need to buy, plus i don't want to do something different for the 1st volunteer and not the others as that looks a bit suspect.

any other ideas would be gratefully recieved and iain as marvin minsky said "you don't understand anything until you learn it from anothers point of view"

Could you just hand them the ace through seven of a suit rather than have them pick at random?

im going to be forceing the card on them but i need a way of challenging that volunteer who thinks he is being funny by saying that i got it wrong

Or have multiple pens, so in essence, it wont take much longer than the amount of time it takes to sign one card. I carry 5 markers with me when im working, so hand them all out and the time delay issue is solved.

Figo wrote:hey guys,

quick question, trying to brainstorm a new routine and come across an obstacle.

how do you deal with the volunteer that refuses to acknowledge that you have found his card.

simple card lost in deck " i will now find your card"
"nope that wasn't it"

or even worse they decide to change their card to deliberatly mess you up.

what ways are there of dealing with this

cheers

Use independent verification. And always carry an ID.

How often does this happen to you?

to be honest not very often but wanna have it in my arsenal when and if. never like to go into a situation unprepaired

Then make sure you see the card. I use the line "it doesnt matter if I see the card, its not that sort of trick". That way, you have seen the card, and the spectator sees that you have seen the card. They cant dispute that and cant lie.

Also, if the whole group sees the card and the spectator decides to lie about the identity of the card, you will still get the reaction you want from your other spectators.

You really dont need to worry about it.

You could have a pocket index set up (with an entire deck of cards?!) so when your spec says that you didn't find his card you can ask him what card he thinks he selected and then reply:

'no, you couldn't have selected that card as I took that card out of the pack earlier and put it in my pocket'

You then pull the card from your pocket and with any luck he'll either admit his was lying or it'll look like an impromptu thought of card to pocket style effect. If the rest of the audience never saw his original card, they'll just assume it was part of the act and the way that the trick was supposed to end anyway.

I think the important thing is to not let the spec or anyone else see that you are thrown by his shenannigans. As soon as the sort of person who does that sort of thing sees a weakness in you, they'll push harder and try everything to mess you about.