
If you have scripted your routines and have them flowing there should be no time for that fatal question to be asked. Scripted because it gives you 'thinking time'if there's an awkward situation as nosey questions or something goes awry Scripting also gives you good pace, rhythm confidence & clear cut timing.
Did you pause that little bit too long to allow the questioner to pop in his question.
Or is this that situation that magicians are so prone to, "Show Us A Trick". So You perform one then don't follow it up straight way with another.
In other words you allow your audience, be it one or one thousand, to take charge. That you must
never allow.
Remember what Noel Coward once said: "
I am in charge of my audience.
I tell them when to laugh, when to cry, when to keep quiet and when to applaud".
If you are prone to this frightening question:
1. Don't answer it and get drawn into his/her power.
2. Go straight on with the next trick.
3. Have an alternative method to confuse the asker

with.
4. Give him the apparatus and from what you say this must be in a Close
Up situation, and tell him to show us. Then use the alternative method
and finish. Walk away. Go to the bar. The toilet or home.
Allen Tipton
Began magic at 9 in 1942. Joined Staffs M.S at 13. Nottm.Guild of M. (8 times President. Prog Director 20years)IBM. Awarded Magician of Month 1980 By Intern. Pres. IBM for reproducing Dante's Sim Sala Bim. Writes Dear Magician column for Abra. Mag.