talkmagic.co.uk

Just wondering how people who do magic (for entertainment value or for a living) deal with people's reaction to macic. IE: You perform one trick and get a great reaction. People clap,ask how it's done,eyes pop and mouths drop....you have gotten the reaction you were looking for and walk away with a with sort of a sense of accompishment,you know that person(s) with be thinking of you and how you did the trick for possibly years to come .Mission accomplished!

And then there's the the debunkers... who after a trick will try to reach into your pockets, interogate, and sometimes try to frisk you knowing that magic isn't "real magic" and they want a (expletive deleted) explanation right now! (these kind of people really (expletive deleted) me off)

Then there's the "I don't care,I'm not interested, magic is boring,no attention span,leave me alone,get out of my face,I'm on the rag,who the (expletive deleted) are you?,are you a serial killer type of people" that are absolutely not interested in the wonderful world of magic and just want to be left alone.Hey I can relate with that,every one has their own interests, right?
With these peole I try to put myself in their shoes. If one of then came up to me and said "hey,can I show you the most efficient and sanitary way to remove dirt from under your finger nails?" I might not be all that interested too.

So,how do you feel about these kind of people,and how do they make you feel?

Everyone has their own personal view on magic.
Fact of life.

These days its around a lot, if it's not David Blaine, it's Criss Angel or some other such famous chappie.

I was doing magic in the pub on Monday, and one girl absolutely loved it, and actually screamed at 2 of my tricks, before holding her fingers out to me in a crucifix shape.... Hey, I took it as a compliment...

A couple of people clapped and cheered and asked to see more.
One person wanted to know how it was done, but not to be a pain, just out of curiosity, so in an ACR I let her put the card back in the deck, then put the deck on the table and let her take the top card.
If people want to do stuff that they think you're doing by trickery or sleight, let them do it if possible... that gets a good reaction...


And there was one person who refused to rise to it.
Although later one of his mates told me he had enjoyed the tricks, just wasn't willing to show it, in case his cool factor dropped.


The truth is, if you're doing it well, everyone's impressed, whether they show it or not is a different matter.



If they interrogate you then use one of the magic answers for how did you do that

A good one is:

Them: How did you do that??
You: Do what?
Them: That thing you just did... you know where *insert effect here*
You: Oh my god! That's impossible! How was that done?

Which gets a laugh...
If people try to frisk you or demand to see something, then they're trying to make you feel small because they don't like the fact you're getting attention and they're not. So theyt ry to debunk you, so attention reverts to them.
Best advice on that type of spectator... ignore them.
Carry on and do something else.

They normally get bored and go do something else lol.


All in all, make sure you know the stuff before you start breaking out the tricks. That way people are impressed. And remember, not everyone who wants to do something is trying to throw you off. Just testing your skill.
And if they are trying to throw you off... ignore them.
Or stop doing tricks.
Everyone else then gets the idea that you wont carry on whilst people are being jackasses and they turn on the heckler


[edit] Apologies for this absolutely mammoth post! [/iedit]

Respect people's wishes. If they don't want to see and have a negative reaction then move onto someone else.

Someone who doesn't want to watch is different than somone who watches and then tries to catch you out.

As Ecko says, everyone has their own view on magic. It's up to you to figure out waht that view is but if they tell you to p**s off then I'd suggest that this is a bit of a clue

Yes,very true. I ran into a few A-holes last night and felt compelled to let of a little rant. Things were going well until a guy stalks my IT and breaks it while perfoming a trick.

I feel better today.

callmecg wrote:Yes,very true. I ran into a few A-holes last night and felt compelled to let of a little rant. Things were going well until a guy stalks my IT and breaks it while perfoming a trick.

I feel better today.

If they show the slighest inclination to ask me how I do stuff I do a quick trick where the spec predicts 3 cards and turns out to be right. I then start asking them how on earth they did that, jokingly. "I'd make a fortune if I could do that!" etc. By that point they've generally forgotten about asking you.

I do not do magic for living, but the entertaiment aspect of magic is the most important for me. I try my best to entertain when I do magic, I want people to be surprised by and enjoy what I have to show them, therefore I really love the first category as their reaction is what I am trying to achieve (isn't it a given?). As for the rest, I respect people's interests (or sometimes the lack thereof). If they see what I do as a challenge and try to figure out the secrets, it's ok too. If they succeed, it's most of the time my own fault. The only type of people I really don't like is those who try to ruin my performance on purpose (for whatever reason).

I've found that when I'm been paud to perfomr I get much better reactions and more respect than I do than just showing off for the lads down the pub.

EckoZero wrote:If people try to frisk you or demand to see something, then they're trying to make you feel small because they don't like the fact you're getting attention and they're not. So theyt ry to debunk you, so attention reverts to them.

This, by magician Helga Thun, is interesting (and relevant):
http://www.diefertigenfinger.com/english/status.html

A gentle put down and move away works for me.

Is that ok Evemeister. sorry about post mods deleted...

Sorry about the boring post,lol

I did a corporate show earlier this week at the Madejski Stadium hotel in Reading to a group of about 25.

It went extremely well and everyone was talkinga bout it the following morning during the event that people were attending.

Anyway, the point I'll make that is related to the first question is that there were people that were simly astounded at some of the tricks and it was noticeable that different people were affected by different tricks. When one or a number of people had a 'jaw dropped' expression I found it beneficial to pause for a moment and to try and get others to concentrate on 'that' reaction.

It was also noticeable that there was one person that didn't appear to be entertained as the others due to the fact that he was solely interested in watching closely to 'spot' methods. To his credit he had theories on only two tricks (short rope in Fibre Optics and the queen arrangement in Twisted Sisters) but didn't reveal his thoughts to anyone else and I didn't confirm his suspicions as they were only theories!

I used his presence quite a bit when pausing between moves as everyone else knew what he was up to so I regularly asked him if he was 'keeping up' or asked 'did you see that'. He took it is good spirit and I asked for a round of applause for him a the end.

Anway, hope that sheds some light on the original post and, I'm booked again for next year!

Not to criticize or be a wiseass, but how did callmecg get away with posting "f*ck" uncensored? I thought there was a built in thing to censor this. On one thread, someone who was talking about fanning got "c**k" censored.
Back to the original topic though, I either give a BS explanation (without patronizing) or just say "yea.. how about that?" and walk away.

Yeah... I too felt so offended that the urge to create an account and bring back that old thread popped up!

It is not the spectator's job to react how the magician wants him to. Rather it is the magician's job to get the spectator to react in the appropriate way.
In other words it is not up to them it is up to YOU.

Any fool can learn to manipulate cards, coins etc;. The path to being a good magician is to learn how to manipulate the PEOPLE.

Once you have the knack of this you have mastered the art of magic. Almost.

Things like this happen to us each week when we do shows, the best way we [magician and I] do this is to have a stage presence and a off stage presence. which is our regular personalities. once the show is over I am myself. I stay away from crouds as much as possible when possible.
We do this because we don't want Children to think that just because we made them smile they can trust strangers. And to avoid people that need be avoiding. This probably isnt much help but it works wonders for me.