Magician hecklers!

What you've got to keep in mind is that at the events that I perform at most, weddings and birthdays and company celebrations, most people are there to have a good time and chatting to the magician and having a bit of a laugh and a joke is all a part of that. Some might even call it "banter" (although I'm not usually a fan of that word, it does fit well here).

If they shout out a secret I try to give them a gentle reminder that they should enjoy the show now and chat about the secrets later if they really want to. I'm also aiming to make all of my routines engaging enough that people focus on the magic, and don’t care about the secret. It's never 100% possible because we know it's the illusion of magic, not real witchcraft, right?

However, there are also some people who just don’t like magic! That's fine and I'm always polite and leave people alone if they don't want to see anything.

Once however, there was a guy - contrary to what you might think it's not always guys - it seems 50/50 to me. Anyway, this guy didn't just want to join in with the fun, which is ok. But more than that, it seemed that he wanted to ruin the performance, which is not ok. He was shouting out random things like, "it’s up your sleeve," (I was wearing a T-shirt!), "those are trick cards," (someone at the table had already shuffled them), "it's magnets" (they're certainly a thing, but are very rarely used in magic). I think he was just saying whatever he could think of.

If I had been performing to just that person, I would have said something along the lines of, "you don't like magic, do you?" and when he said, "no" that would have been a great time for me to briefly explain that, "I've got a lot of people to entertain tonight, so I'll leave you in peace!"

In the above situation, I was performing to someone else and this guy was shouting across the table! Perhaps he was drunk? I thanked everyone for their time and explained that I couldn't continue but would be happy to show anyone a little magic if they found me later in the bar. That’s the simplest way to deal with a situation like that.

Later that evening, the others on that table called me back, apologised for their friend and told me they had sent him to fetch something from the car (a long weight, or something similar!) and could I now show them some magic. Of course, I spent time with them showing them some of my best routines, which they thoroughly enjoyed.

You can see an idea of my performance style and how I interact with people (no performance is ever exactly the same) in the video below.