Dealing with Hecklers - Advice

[nickm1]

These Ideas and Tips are from what I have experienced and my thoughts towards dealing with them.

WHAT IS A HECKLER

Basically a heckler is one of those annoying people or that one person who stuffs up your whole performance.

No one likes hecklers, mainly us magicians but also the spectators, you’ll often notice when any heckler is doing his annoying job to bug you out, someone will often stand up and tell them to stop spoiling the moment, which magicians do like but it is best to know how to eliminate any situation where there is a heckler trying to figure out your tricks, by either – if it is a hold your card face down trick – flipping the card over before you even do anything, ruining your performance or even saying that you’re a fake or accusing you of something.

So if you are performing or planning to perform to one, a group of or a group mixed of hecklers, make sure that you are careful and that you perform routines and effects that you are confident in using and that it leaves you clean or doesn’t require to much skill or technique which people like hecklers can easily pick up. Also make sure that anytime you perform hecklers or not that you practice a lot and make sure that your technique is quick, efficient and not obvious.

IDENTIFYING A HECKLER

Sometimes it is quite easy to spot and identify a heckler. I sometimes can identify them when I perform the snap change, but when I perform it is quick of course but as I ditch the card I like to give the card a flick, show both sides, and even though I am clean, I can tell some want to ask to see the card, to make sure its not rigged but I give them the card to hold. So to spot a heckler you look for stubbornness, anger, trying to annoy you – behavior and whatever interferes with your routine.

WHEN YOU'VE SPOTTED THEM

So once you have spotted a heckler or group of hecklers you can either choose a routine that you can perform well, but try to use better and quicker technique and better patter and speech by assuring them everything is fair and by being open with a lot of things. So basically you should include them more in the performance or routine so that they don’t feel left out inside and maybe flip the card over that someone else is holding. Another example of what to do in a situation which you are unsure which one is the heckler is if you are performing a routine in which it consists of a person holding a card, you should have both of the people to hold the card. So that they wont be more likely to flip the card up before you do your effect.

EXAMPLE

An example of performing a card holding effect would be the 2 card Monte, when ever I perform this to someone, heckler or not I always assure the person is okay, and like to talk them through what I just did and make sure that everything is fair and also so that they agree. Also you don’t have to make the presentation to quick or else they will suspect that something is up, but if you need to you can use more misdirection by making more eye-contact and talk to them about it. Also you can explain the situation, saying what you just did and what they think about it, so you can get their mind off trying to figure you and your effect out.

Why do I use effects which require the spectator to hold the card as an example? because, through my experience often people get suspicious when they are holding the card faced down, they want to make sure it is the card you just gave them, the 2 card Monte is the first few stages lets the spectator actually hold the card they think they are holding, but in different cases some do have suspicion and some don’t but this suspicion can be easily lead away by talking to the spectator more, asking them questions etc.


CONFIDENCE

Another tip would be, not to be too over confident, or else they might become suspicious and/or try to outsmart you and be sneaky and steal your deck and spot out all of your duplicates

WHAT NOT TO SHOW

Also don’t show your nervousness or awkwardness during performing any technique or sleight otherwise they will think something is up but this wont happen in many cases since there eyes are glued to your hands, but as I said earlier use misdirection and humor, chatter, questions and including them to lead their eyes astray for that 1 second you have to perform the switch, or the coin ditch, or the pass, whatever it is, it should be a move you can perform efficiently and quickly without to much suspicion and sound.

ADD HUMOUR

Another thing as I mentioned a little bit just before, is I like to add humor into it, a little bit of a joke now and then, to make them feel more comfortable, to make them feel as if you are not some sort of robot who has no personality. Doing this will eliminate any opportunity for them to spot anything or tease you out during your routine.

MISDIRECTION

Some tips on misdirection would be that if there is a group of people you should include all of them, not just one, just because you know only one is a major heckler it doesn’t mean that your best friends are watching you, so use hand gestures, and as I said jokes and if you have to include them all. Have them all hold hands maybe around the card and quickly slip the card out, very hard

So here are the tips summed up:

- Practice your technique and patter
- Create your own patter, what you will say, ask and how you will get them involved
- Think quick to spot any hecklers, include them more
- Don’t be too over confident
- Use misdirection and humor and chatter to execute any of your techniques without anyone seeing

Remember tricking and fooling your audience is not all that is to magic, it is about getting to know a person, how they react to certain things, getting them to think emotionally, including them, giving them that special moment, not for you to go “HAHAHA I FOOLED YOU!”

Also Magic is not life; there is more to life than just practicing magic ALL day.


Hoped you liked my share, love to hear your thoughts and ideas.


Cheers,


Nick

 

[byu]

Hecklers are easily misdircted. You'll take a random card and say, this is not rigged. Then they'll go examine it, and you can do your pass or whatever you need to do.

 

[phrozunsun]

there was a thread on this about 4 days ago...

First, I'll say that your particular method can work. But everyone, you included have neglected to mention that it's really dependent on your personality and the environment you are in.

There is no "one way" for EVERYONE to handle ALL hecklers. In social situations there's too many variables. The best you can do is gauge the situation and decide what to do based on your character.

Take a guy like Gazzo. He WILL call you out if you heckle him. And he's effective about it. And that's almost completely contrary to everything you just posted.

I've developed and borrow a few of my own that I'll share.

The first one I use is the "cool man". Sort of a nod to the Pickup Community, it works remarkably. I'll give you the coles notes...

(performing....performing)
(heckler interrupt)
(turn quickly, non chalantly, and like no one should pay attention to him because he's the equivalent of a child jumping up and down for attention and say) "cool man"
(quickly turn back and continue performing)

The more he heckles, the more immature he looks. The crowd will even start laughing. Anyone can do this really. This will build your connection with the crowd too, as if you're both in on some inside joke.

Being that I'm sort of dominating in general - both in personality and stature, I have a few ways of dealing with them that probably don't work for everyone.

Sometimes, I'm up for a bit of clowning around so I'll say "wow! (pause) OMG! (pause so do I!" and I totally juice up the sarcastic sounding surprise.

That, or I'll say "everyone give this man a round of applause!" and start clapping/motioning for the crowd to start cheering. They'll heckle him out.

Other times, if he looks like a complete tool who no doubt will make a complete fool of himself, I'll take a small risk and say "Really? Lets see it." And hand him the cards. (I usually do only card stuff)

Again, not for everyone - it depends on your style, and how dominating you can be.


Essentially though, the methods consist of controlling the spotlight. Either keep it on you ("cool-man") or bombard it with him so hard that he gets embarassed and let the audience heckle him.

You were definately right about another thing: It's about the connection with the audience and what happens in their mind. A Heckler can be an asset or a liability - personally, I think asset, because I USE the heckler to create a bond with the rest of the audience.

REMEMBER: You are in control. You are offering something to the audience, he is trying to take something away. They are on your side, not his. The second you think about it that way, it'll show in your confidence and it will become true.