How to deal with Hecklers?

Romeo

Romeo

May 24, 2008
10
0
Hi. sorry for the smart*** title, dunno if you call it besserweiser in english as well?

Anyways, my question is, how do you deal with people that are nousy and clingy?

For example, yesterday at work I was preforming cardmagic for some co-workers. When one of them started trying to take the deck from me "let me shuffle it first, let me do this, let me do that"..

Then when I wanted to preform the double lift he said let me turn it.. And at one point he even tried to cover the deck so I wont see anything. People like that REALLY piss me off. So I took the cards, gave them to him and told him OK; you preform instead.

He said No, you do it, but let me do this and that, because it isn't real.
So I told him, ofcourse this is not REAL, I am not a wizard and if you are stupid enough to think that there is something like that I am sorry for you, EVERYONE understands its not real, its sleight of hands or what its called in english and the point is, try to see HOW i am doing it instead of going around saying "let me shuffle, let me do".

How to deal with those people, it's not like i can say "ok, you are not allowed to watch, get out of here" and at some points I've really felt like hitting him.

So, suggestions?
 
Zapper

Zapper

Dec 10, 2007
126
0
Slovenia (Europe)
Stop performing.

Oh, and give the blame to him when you end as well. Then the audience will take care of him, and nothing goes wrong for you. You can perform the next time you see them and he isn't around. Seriously, it's not worth it. Just finish with something reliable and go away.

-seb
 
Romeo

Romeo

May 24, 2008
10
0
Lol when I read your post, I thougth you said

"Stop preforming.... ".. I thought it was followed by "people like you should not preform"..

And yeah, very smart way of dealing with it, blame it on him! =) Thanks for the tip. And thanks for admin that changed my title to a appropriate one.
 
S

Squ!rrel

Apr 28, 2008
596
0
Getting angry about this isn't going to help at all, so I suggest you calm down and don't let it get to you. Saying stuff like 'OK, you do a trick then' comes across as incredibly childish and immature and won't help your performance in any way.

It's possible that there's a problem in your presentation, if people feel like you are presenting the magic as a challenge or it comes across as 'look what I can do' then people will not like this and will try and disrupt your performance.

You should also make sure you are performing the sleights flawlessly, sometimes magicians will blame an audience for saying something when they performed a move poorly. If any of your sleights look unnatural then spectators have every right to call you on it.

However, some people will try and cause trouble regardlesss of what you do even when you perform perfectly.

When performing you are providing entertainment for an audience, in return you should expect a level of respect from them.

If you do not get this respect you should not perform for them. If anybody tries to grab cards then end the performance immediatley, these people are not interested in watching your magic and continuing the performance is pointless.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
C

Chris W

Aug 2, 2008
496
0
Cincinnati
Squ!rrel said:
Getting angry about this isn't going to help at all, so I suggest you calm down and don't let it get to you. Saying stuff like 'OK, you do a trick then' comes across as incredibly childish and immature and won't help your performance in any way.

It's possible that there's a problem in your presentation, if people feel like you are presenting the magic as a challenge or it comes across as 'look what I can do' then people will not like this and will try and disrupt your performance.

You should also make sure you are performing the sleights flawlessly, sometimes magicians will blame an audience for saying something when they performed a move poorly. If any of your sleights look unnatural then spectators have every right to call you on it.

However, some people will try and cause trouble regardlesss of what you do even when you perform perfectly.

When performing you are providing entertainment for my audience, in return you should expect a level of respect from them.

If you do not get this respect you should not perform for them. If anybody tries to grab cards then end the performance immediatley, these people are not interested in watching your magic and continuing the performance is pointless.
Click to expand...


I agree. There are some people who don't want to be amaze but rather want to figure out exactly how you are doing the trick (namely my bestfriend who loves to mess with me). But like he said, you gotta perform everything perfectly and there usually isn't a problem, which is something we are all obviously working on. But its hard to even do a trick if some dude is trying to take the cards from you.
 
FOO:L

FOO:L

May 3, 2008
864
3
33
Singapore
www.youtube.com
I think you handled the situation pretty well. with the whole "duh, its not magic" come back. I usually do that, then produce a couple of rabbits from my bare hands, levitate 20 storeys up and pull a giant silver dollar from the hecklers-but anyway.. haha. jk.

usually if theres an idiot hellbent of exposing me around i do a routine that baffles the crap out of em (The Hecklers always good) or i just table the deck and shrug.
 
VWind

VWind

Jul 15, 2008
167
1
This one usually works:

Freeze and stare at them with a curious look. Like with an eyebrow raised. You don't even need to say anything. Often, people around him will be like "what the hell dude?"

If the above doesn't work after a couple seconds, say: "Aaaaaand we're back" and continue as if he hadn't said anything.
 
Urbanus

Urbanus

Apr 29, 2008
4
6
35
The Hague
If some one wants to schuffle the deck and say it over and over again then just give him the deck and say: "You want to schuffle the cards?, Here you go". Ignore him take out an other deck and say to the people:''Let hem schuffle the cards, we gonne do magic. It gets a laugh and everyone is happy.

This is the hard way.
 
Bao Hoang

Bao Hoang

Oct 12, 2007
473
1
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Very interesting post.

I go to high school and most of the people are hecklers. Just don't perform to them. You have to "know" the audience. Like which ones that are better to handle the deck/card to or which ones that you cannot give the deck/card to because they will do bad stuff with it.

I like to perform to people that has never seen me do magic before. People that are more ... educated and polite. That enjoys "magic". If you perform to close friends, there will have more chances that they will try to bring you down.

Hope that helped,

Bao
 
Namie Ihara

Namie Ihara

Aug 5, 2008
86
0
You learn some real sleight oh hand.I get Heckled al ot because im a woman and that pisses me off.I used to ignore them but that wasnt working to I started to show them some real impossible tricks.That didnt work either, one of my guyfriends gave lend me one of his DVD called HEckler,Is by Brian Tudor.At first I thought that Tudor was a Heckler because of the way he acted but then I realized that the only way to beata Heckler is to play by their rules.I perform the Heckler routine and that trows them off.XD
 
Steerpike

Steerpike

Sep 1, 2007
3,786
15
Namie Ihara said:
At first I thought that Tudor was a Heckler because of the way he acted but then I realized that the only way to beata Heckler is to play by their rules.
Click to expand...

Which works fine until you're getting paid to do this in which case your boss will think you're an unprofessional twit and fire you.

Or when you encounter someone whose solution to being humiliated is violence.

Heckler is an utterly ridiculous routine, created by an arrogant man-child to buoy his own absurd ego. Any professional who uses it doesn't deserve to work.
 
R

Raito

Oct 6, 2007
10
0
I learn to never bother blaming the people who were heckling about my magic. (unless is other magicians) I don't even bring it up. The most common thing is that new magicians don't have good misdirection, or is assertive. That's all it boils down too.
If they try to take the deck you don't let them. Simple. If they saw something your misdirection wasn't good enough. If there very extreme hecklers why are you performing for them. Rarely the hecklers are to extreme to handle. Very rare.
 
T

Tomas Simkus

Jan 3, 2008
58
0
My opinion

Here is how I deal with hecklers (learn the hard way):

* in restaurant I do not bother to entertain a person, who tries to mess me up. Just show them a quick trick and move on.

* in private shows I do a trick that fools them in front of an audience and usually thats enough. But if this does not help, I say: "Leave the comments for later, now let everyone enjoy the rest of the show. I will show some close-up after the performance". After such words someone will keep heckler silence for you.

* this case if you want to impress heckler: either in restaurant or after your show in private. Before starting everything I say that this is just for fun and it is sleight of hand and no god-type-thing. Also I tell him that we MUST follow 2 rules:
1. We must be polite to each other;
2. You must listen to me and do what I say.
Then show them THE magic :)

If heckler does not want to follow these rules I do not see a point showing them magic - they just do not want to be entertained. So why should you force them to eat chocolate if they want a broccoli?

I did today that 2 rules and it worked perfectly. The woman, who I worked for was impressed, how I was able to deal with and leave in awe such a person (heckler).

A few points.....

Some say that hecklers are made, but man, there are some type of people, who just don't like magic. So magician for them is like an object of laugh and show off of their "knowledge" in a bad way. Why they do not like magic? Well, it is their choice. I do not care.

To sum up things, I would like to say:

Concentrate more on people, who wants to be entertained, feel the moment of wonder and astonishment; and not on those, who just want to make everything worse.

Think about this.

Feel free to hate me,

Tomas Simkus
 
M

M_dalgashon

May 16, 2008
106
1
In my pocket, next to the card you thought of
I find there are two kinds of hecklers - the first sort doesn't really want to ruin your magic, but think they ought to give you some kind of a challenge.The second kind is really determined to discover your moves in any way possible.
So for the first kind, just give them what they want... I usually use a nice control taught by Daryl in the Encyclopedia of Card Sleights where you can let the spectator suffle the cards and still be in control. Sometimes I even glimpse the card before giving the deck to them, so I can bring it to the top after, or "read" it from their minds. Then they will be happy and enjoy your magic like everybody else.
The second kind, well, the best suggestion I can give you is to let the other audience members deal with them... Just ignore them, give them a cold look when they say something, and tease them gently and sarcasticly. Don't turn it into a personal fight, because it's immature, just treat the heckler like some sort of an annoying child, and eventually someone will say something like "come on, Bill, stop pestering the guy, just shut up and let us enjoy the magic".
Good luck!
 
The Prestidigitator

The Prestidigitator

Aug 9, 2008
24
0
Well you Obviously humiliate them and make them wished that they never

messed with you on the first place.You usually trow some insults in there too.If

she has a Girl Friend flirt with her.

"were is the card"
in the middle
"no ****** is in my pocket"


Steerpike said:
Which works fine until you're getting paid to do this in which case your boss will think you're an unprofessional twit and fire you.

Or when you encounter someone whose solution to being humiliated is violence.

Heckler is an utterly ridiculous routine, created by an arrogant man-child to buoy his own absurd ego. Any professional who uses it doesn't deserve to work.
Click to expand...


No they will enjoy it and laugh with me.
http://ca.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-LUZNN7Bqc
OH do I wish I could do that to a Heckler

If I encounter a violent one Ill take him on,Hey if your not though enough then whatever man

Heckler By Brian Tudor?Oh ho ho ho ho...You must be kidding me,Respect Brian Tudor
 
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