They’d feel awkward, embarrassed for the magician…and overcome with a sudden desire to get as far away from this whole mess as possible. The audience would perceive that the mistake was a ‘big deal’ and so treat it the same way themselves. Think about how an audience would react to a magician that got visibly flustered and stressed over an apparent ‘mistake’ in the routine. Your audience treats something as important only if YOU treat it as important. Let me let you in on one of the biggest secrets in magic:
“Alright, turn over your card to show everyone, as predicted, the nine of….whu-?”Īs I mentioned we could talk about multiple-outs and ‘magician in trouble’ plots all day, but I want to suggest something a little simpler: Maybe you get sloppy and miss the classic force without noticing.Īll kinds of stuff can go down mid-performance without your knowledge.Īnd when you finally find out, it’s a pretty rude awakening. Maybe you accidentally actually mix the cards when you were only trying to false shuffle. The thing is, t hings can go wrong in an effect you’re performing WITHOUT you realizing. Most likely they’ll talk to you all about ‘multiple outs’ and ‘backup effects’ and ‘improvisation’.Īll of which are most definitely GOOD suggestions.īut in this article, I want to suggest a perhaps counter-intuitive solution that requires absolutely zero work, and will still keep the respect of your audience. If you ever ask a magician “What should I do if my magic trick goes wrong?”, they’ll be able to spout out hundreds of answers.