talkmagic.co.uk

Right... in the streets and friends of friends, adults and children.
no matter the age or who they are, you always get people like this.
what does your head in the most, when performing tricks? card tricks, stage, party, whatever it is? what recks your head?

i hate it when i start to perform a card trick to someone in the street, and they say, oh i know this one?
i just stand there and think to myself, know you don't. i've just only started. you don't know what I'm going to do. just shut up and be amazed. lol. it does my head in.

I think in that case you may need to do some work on techniques for leading their expectation so that they'll give up trying to think ahead and rationalise and expect to see somethng unique.

and sometimes, if it's something they've seen before, even by someone else, and if it's been done well previously, they'll want the opportunity of seeing it performed again.

People that interrupt.

People that grab.

People that don't take much notice of what's going on and therefore miss the fact that you've just done something wonderful.

People that don't react enough

Unfortunately for your own pride, all of the above can be overcome by being good enough at what you're performing to take it in your stride or be prepared for it, ie. spectator control. It can be very personally galling to get a trick to the point where you think it's great (and it probably is mechanically) then receive any/all of the above, but you have to take a step back and look at what you're doing and think about why it's happening. Sorry for that I think this was supposed to be a light-hearted thread but someone was gonna say it

Good points Bronz!

The one that tears me apart, and I mean really does my head in, is when I'm simply socializing and somebody just has to see a trick...I mean they just have to see a trick. So, they push a deck of cards in my hand, looking at me with expectant puppy-dog eyes.

I begin to shuffle the deck and immediately, right there, before anything has happened other than an overhand shuffle or two, somebody makes the statement:

"Oh, I've seen this one before!"

You have? I've only given the deck a bit of a mix, and you've seen it before?

I just want to slap the s*** out of those people.

Mike.

thx guys. but. that has never happened to me in the actual trick itself.
it's just a number of times, three infact, when i asked the person to pick a card, they say "i know this one" or "i know what your going to do".
it's when they're picking a card. a mean, if i asked you to pick a card, you wouldn't know what i was going to do next would ya? out of all the hundreds of card tricks, you wouldn't know, just by asking you to pick a card. lol.

but, something like that hasn't happened to me during a performance or at the end (yet) and i hope it wont. lol.

Another thing is when someone asks me to show a second person something and I can see by their body language that they're simply not into this. I tend to spend a moment giving them the opportunity to say so, so that the person insisting can get the message.

Michael Jay wrote:I begin to shuffle the deck and immediately, right there, before anything has happened other than an overhand shuffle or two, somebody makes the statement:

"Oh, I've seen this one before!"

You have? I've only given the deck a bit of a mix, and you've seen it before?

I just want to slap the s*** out of those people.

Mike.

hahahahahahahahahaha. slap away. someone did a similar thing to me. i gave the cards back and went home. lol.

for michael give them the deck and say if youv'e seen it then my work here is done that'l bee £50 please then c**k your head sideways and say if you want your moneys worth i can do it again if you like and wink.

for mikey if they take a card and say iv'e seen this one tell them to turn it face up and put it in the shirt pocket or someware visible as you get a climpse, force the next card to someone else then take theres back and in true sooty fashion have the card tell you the forced one.... bet you'd didn't see that one comeing did you.

magicdiscoman wrote:for michael give them the deck and say if youv'e seen it then my work here is done that'l bee £50 please then c**k your head sideways and say if you want your moneys worth i can do it again if you like and wink.

I'll use that! Thanks!

What does my head in totally is when there's always one smartar$e who insists you're no good... and even worse, when someone seems intent on spoiling the performance not just for the rest of the audience, but for you as well.

This comes in many forms, for example: they either sit there whispering to a friend, and giving you wry glances—or, even more annoying, they actually start to explain to someone 'what happens next'.

There really isn't a defence against this. I don't really perform as much these days, but in 'those days' it usually was the drunkest bloke in the crowd who'd be the pain in the neck.

I imagine these days there's a lot more to contend with—such as know-it-all kids, and people who 'know a mate who has a mate who downloaded some cool trick videos off the net'.

Basically, I had quite a few defence mechanisms—most of which were diplomatically humiliating to the offender. This usually worked.

But as with most of these situations, what you really want to do is perform the 'five knuckle nasal crunch' flourish off the Devoid 'Xtreme Harm Magic' DVD.

seige wrote:But as with most of these situations, what you really want to do is perform the 'five knuckle nasal crunch' flourish off the Devoid 'Xtreme Harm Magic' DVD.

I was actually just about to google that.. I re-read and realised that would not be a smart idea

Rather like the "oh I know this one", I hate it when I'm doing a trick for someone (who might be pretty enthusiastic about it) then their friend sitting behind them will say "oh I saw that!". Saw what! I haven't done anything yet! And if I did do something I would know if you saw it, I'm just thinking "errrm no you didn't". It's like they just shout out "I saw that" at random points hoping that they might 'get me'. I usually let them have their little smug moment and I nod or wink at them as if they are now in on the secret (which they are not). This usually keeps them quiet for the rest of the trick. But after that trick, avoid them!

People who seem really pleasant and interested. You do a trick for them and then suddenly they decide they cant just enjoy being amazed an go 'oh that was cool', they want to examine everything because they cant stand not knowing how it happened, its like they think theyre missing out on something really major (which i suppose it is lol )

In school, I try and avoid performing tricks around 2 certain people as they think they know how its done and it just annoys me

Whenever I hear 'Oh I know this one' I always have to laugh. There are god knows how many card magic books, DVDs, packet tricks and gimmicked decks and they know this exact trick when I've only fanned the cards

I can usually handle those who try to spoil or say I know that one. What often annoys me is when you get someone who says, in front of everyone else that he (it's always a he) has a friend whose dad is in the magic circle and he's showed you how just about how every trick in the world is done, and then they want to show you the old 21 card trick or the cigarette ash in the palm of your hand trick.