I've seen people argue that the judges on AGT are in on it, or that they use CGI (check out captain disillusion for his theory...I'm pretty sure he's dead wrong).
I think it's possible that Captain Disillusion is partially right. Sometimes the camera's frame rate can capture some things that are meant to be so fast that it's invisible (flap cards, etc.). So I think it's totally possible that the producers had the footage edited over to make sure the trick wasn't revealed to millions of people. But you're right, a lot of people seem to think the trick was done entirely with camera tricks which is a shame.
you can never really convince everyone. there are the regular people who, when you perform a good trick, are in awe and who are willing to be convinced that magic is real, and then there are the hecklers. no matter how convincing, how clean, you are, there will always be that one person who looks past the magic and only sees a waste of money. the thing about most of these people, though, is that they dont know how you did it. and people are afraid of what they dont know, and because of that, they so one of two things: find out how its done, or take out all of their anger on the magician. you can make your magic tricks as fair as possible, there will still be those people who ruin the magic for everyone. the best piece of advice i have got for you is FORGET THE HECKLERS THEY ARE ONLY MEAN BECAUSE THEY DONT KNOW HOW YOU DO YOUR TRICKS, BUT INSTEAD OF FOCUSSING ON THE HECKLERS, TRY YOUR BEST TO ENTERTAIN THOSE WHO WANT TO SEE YOUR MAGIC AND ARENT GOING TO RUIN THE FUN JUST BECAUSE OF THEIR INSECURITIES. thats the best i got and i hope it helps.♠️
I don't really know if I'd call these people hecklers. They aren't really saying this to magicians to their face. It's just skepticism that comes from the magician performing on TV or on a stage. I have nothing against stage magic or even magic on TV but neither of them are very personal forms of magic. If magic happens on TV, a number of things could be happening. Everyone could be in on it, it could be edited, straight up CGI could be used. There's a lot to be skeptical of. While a live stage show is a little bit more personal, a lot could be happening in a big budget stage setting. The stage could be hiding anything and the "volunteers" could very well be stooges. I think that's why people are skeptical.
I don't fully agree with your statements, as a lot of magicians aren't trying to convince anyone they are doing real magic (but to each his own). However, I do think you're right that you'll never be able to convince everyone. There's only so much you can do to try to convince your audience that it isn't staged, and even then there will still be skeptical people, although I do think they're in the minority. Even though a lot of comments on AGT and Fool Us videos will say it's edited, staged, or "fake" (whatever that means), I don't think that represents most of the people who watched those performances.
Although the issue of people saying it's stooges or editing seems exclusive to stage and TV magic, I think the overall issue is inherent to all types of magic. Even in a closeup setting, there are always people who will say or think something like, "It's up his sleeve", regardless of whether that makes sense for the trick or not. Obviously there are plenty of ways to reduce these suspicions, but no matter where or how you perform, there will always be someone who thinks they've got it figured it out, regardless of whether they're right or not. I think this applies to all types of entertainment as well. Although there are things you can do to be more likeable or entertaining, it won't ever apply to everyone, especially when you have larger audiences.
On Fool Us, Penn and Teller have said that you cannot use any sort of pre-show work or stooges to fool them and yet people still comment on Fool Us videos saying that performers are using stooges. Now as magicians, we know that P&T are fairly upstanding and honest magicians for the most part, so we know they're telling the truth when they say "no stooges". But to the audience, this could just be another lie they're using to fool them. That's not to say everyone thinks that way though.
Recently I did Wikitest on a friend of a friend (let's call him John because I can't remember what his name was) and some girls he was with. Hadn't met him until my friend was like "Hey Anthony, you should show my friends some magic". Anyway, once the trick was over, one of the girls asked John if we knew each other. John told them "No but before the trick he told me exactly what to say" or something along those lines. So he basically admitted to being a stooge even though that's not at all how the trick works. I got a lot of advice from people on the forums saying that from now on, I should confirm with them beforehand "Now we've never met before, right?" just so they can't backtrack on that statement later on. Even though this advice was given to me to prevent people from lying, I think confirming that you and your volunteer are strangers could be beneficial. However, this can only do so much. If you do that on stage or TV, a good chunk of the audience will believe you, but there will always be a few people who think you're outright lying.
Another method I've seen is to select a volunteer by throwing a ball behind your back and using whoever catches it as the volunteer. This basically eliminates the possibility that they're in on it since basically anyone could have caught it. This is a pretty fair way to pick someone completely random but I still don't think that would convince everyone in the audience.
I'm not sure, but I notice a lot of stage performers will rotate through people during their act. This seems like an obvious choice because you want as many people to get involved as possible but I think this also eliminates some doubt that people have of you using plants. Obviously you could still just have 10 different stooges in the audience to use, but I think people would generally be less skeptical if multiple volunteers are used throughout the act.
Anyway, as I said before, I have no issue with stage or TV magic whatsoever. There are plenty of stage acts I absolutely love. Obviously there is good and bad magic in both categories but I do think the issue of people yelling "Audience Plants!" and "CGI!" is something inherent to stage and TV magic. Both mediums aren't very personal for a majority of the audience, unless you're directly involved in some way, meaning that you are either the person being selected or know the person selected to come on stage, it's pretty easy to dismiss them as a plant because you have no idea what the magician had set up. And if you can't figure out the trick by any other method, it would make some sense to jump to the conclusion that they person selected as a volunteer was in on it.
I think this is especially true of magic on TV or YouTube. Stage magic still happens in the same room as you, so even if the volunteers are plants, the tricks are still happening in the same room as you. So you know it's "real" to some extent.
With video, not only do you not know any of the people in the video (most likely), but there's that barrier of watching it through a camera. There is a lot more that could be going on behind the scenes in a video that we don't see. The entire "audience" in the video could be in on it, it could be edited or cut in a certain way, it could be straight up CGI, or the angle might be hiding something essential to the trick.
I think the impersonal nature of TV (and to a lesser extent, stage) magic is the reason a lot of people have such a positive reaction to closeup. I think a lot of us have heard something along the lines of "Wow. I thought the magic on TV was good, but having it done to you is a whole different experience". From what I can tell, you'll never be able to convince everyone of anything. There will always be someone who will reject what you do for them and the best you can do is hope to entertain and amaze the majority of your audience.
But yeah, that's just my two cents based on my very limited experience performing so take it with a very small grain of salt.
