My hands are on fire!

[RealityOne]

Definitely some very good advice and thoughts have been posted, and they are applicable almost all of the time. However, I think that it is unavoidable that from time to time, there is going to be that person who cares about nothing but trying to show up the performer and prove how clever and smart they are - no matter how well the presentation is structured. In some cases, this may have nothing to do with a deficiency on the part of the performer, but a character trait of the onlooker.

I'm not going to say these people don't exist - but I can say that I never seem to encounter them.

Part of this may be age. If you are older than 25 (or 45), people tend to challenge you less than if you are under 18. Part of this may be how and where you perform. Friends and family are more likely to challenge you than strangers. People you perform for more frequently are more likely to challenge you than someone who has never seen you perform before. People you approach "on the street" or in a bar are more likely to challenge you than the audience in a paid show. People in smaller groups (table hopping) are more likely to challenge you than people in larger groups. Most of those variables are beyond our control.

HOWEVER, the one thing we have control over is the selection, the design and the presentation of our magic.

To break out of the "understood" game of I try to trick you (or "Fool Us") and you try to guess how it is done, you need to convey the sense that what you are about to do is something completely different than the spectator has ever seen and that this person will remember for the rest of their lives. That is the difference between a performance piece and a trick.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

I always forget about the age thing. I started magic when I was 25 or 26 or so, after having been a casual/part time performer in other genres for 5 or 6 years already. I was already comfortable on stage both in groups and solo performances.

Both my age and my confidence probably did have a big effect that I didn't even realize. Between that, and the style of performance I have developed, I think that's probably why I don't run into these problem audiences.

 

[VagueTheory]

Whenever your hands get burnt to a crisp, bring out some self working stuff. I have a few in my repertoire just for those daggone hecklers!

 

[Josh Burch]

So, we all know about audience management and misdirection, but what do you do for that person who just won't stop burning your hands? You know the type, that one guy who just gets obsessed with the how of it, usually either a fellow magician, or just an avid spectator. My question is how do you entertain folks like this?
Getting them into the spirit is easy enough, but how do you pull them away from their curiosity, and if you can't, what do you do that helps when they're basically trying to laser beam your hands?
A part of me loves people like this, because they challenge me as a performer, but I also want to entertain them, and sometimes they leave me at a loss. Thoughts?

You do self working magic. Something from a shuffled deck would be prefferable.

I'm not sure why this doesn't come up very much. When a spectator starts to demand to shuffle, check out your cards and poke fun at your sleight of hand the common advice is to move on. This is sound advice but I don't always take it. Chris Ramsay has a video on this. While I like watching Ramsay's videos he is completely wrong here. He argues (and he's not the only one) that you should do a trick with hard core sleight of hand. I think that in these situations even a double lift is probably too much.

That said, I want to be skilled enough that even when the guy wants to shuffle the deck or is burning my hands, I want to perform a miracle. If I can succeed then I'm a legend.

Imagine that someone says to you, "If you were a real magician you'd make a car appear right here in my living room." If you could do that exactly as he said you'd be a miracle worker. We can't do that but when they say, "Can I shuffle? Can I see the Cards? Hey, I saw that move!" you can perform something in their hands with cards they inspected and shuffled.

These moments are stressful, take a load off and perform something self working.

ps. Listen to the other guys as well. They all have great tips and performance advice.