| | Home > Dealing with Magic Show Hecklers | Dealing with Magic Show Hecklers | Magicians and comedians have a great deal in common including hecklers. Comedians are often prepared for hecklers and use a variety of techniques to remain in control the exchange. As a magician, you’ve spent countless hours ( and a great deal of money at the local or online magic shop ) perfecting your magic tricks, but are you prepared for dealing with hecklers?
Hecklers often physically interfere with magicians performing street magic tricks and close up magic. For example, a heckler may swipe his arms around you in an attempt to expose invisible wires or he may grab your props, exposing the “trick.” Not only is type of heckler aggressive, he spoils the show for the other spectators. The other spectators will be disappointed in learning the secret, so use your powers of deflecting attention and deflect this disappoint where it belongs: on the heckler. Laugh and use humor to diffuse the situation. For example, you might use a one liner such as “I bet he doesn’t believe in the Tooth Fairy, either.” If you’re prepared in advance, you might ask the heckler to open his mouth and then pull a quarter out of it.
Hecklers also interfere with stage magic tricks, blurting out the secret to the trick or making inappropriate comments. Again, use humor and deflect the audience’s disappoint back to the heckler. A line such as “Guess who just picked up a copy of ‘Magic for Dummies’ at the magic shop?” implies that the heckler is a dummy, which he is. Otherwise, he’d keep his mouth shut.
Another technique is to invite the heckler on stage to either perform the trick for the audience or to participate in your next act: the “cut the heckler in half” trick.
Not sure you want to respond to an aggressive or insulting heckler with insults of your own? Use the heckler as a confidante of sorts. For example, if you’re doing card tricks and a heckler says, “The deck is rigged,” you might respond by saying, “Actually, I’m using smoke and mirrors on this particular trick.”
Hecklers are a nuisance and interfere with magic tricks just as they interfere with comedians. The next time you’re at the magic shop picking up new magic tricks, consider how a heckler might respond to this type of trick. Develop a set of responses that will diffuse interruptions for specific types of tricks as well as a set of general “all purpose” responses. When practicing your tricks, ask a friend to play the part of a heckler and practice your responses. | |
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