Ever had a trick sussed?

r3nu4l

This question is more for the experienced magicians and not the fumbling buffoons like me

Have you ever been performing and totally sussed by the audience during one of your tricks? How did you deal with it and did it effect the audience perception of your act?

Were you sussed because you fumbled a sleight of hand or a prop failed on you or was it because some smart-arse in the audience knew how the trick worked and told people?

Just curious.

Popinjay

Never had a prop fail but that's about the only problem I haven't had. Never at an actual performance but when just doing a few bits for friends or acquaintances. Normally, when someone susses something they like to say so as soon as they spot it, just to show how clever they are.

This can sometimes be a good thing because once they do, you can just change the whole effect fairly quickly and leave them utterly stumped. Then the rest of the audience that didn't get it are even more impressed because this guy who 'knew how it was all done' is speechless.

Of course, this only really works with smaller stuff, it's very hard to rearrange a whole stage effect like sawing your wife in half or the like at the spur of the moment. As I said though, I'm lucky that it's only ever happended at small gatherings and never during a real performance.

For a genuine performance, it's best to have the effects practised so often that you sometimes find yourself unconsciously going through the motions while you're just thinking about the effect.

bigslick

Happened to me in the beginning of when i was just getting used to the whole sleight of hand thing, but nowadays i rarely get caught unless the person is really out to get me, ie stopping me now and then to try work out where certain cards are, or kneeling down to check all sides of deck.

but mostly if someone says sumthing like, "the cards on the top of the deck", i do a quick sleight of hand showing the top card not to be the chosen card, and continue on.

oeb

Once or twice I have found myself preforming to a group that included an iMagician (A product of youtube). They won't suse everything I preform, but it can be very frustrating as they tend to be very vocal.

I can walk away and preform that trick to a different group, but they have ruined the astonishment of the magic for everyone within earshot.

zuroph

i find the best reaction when you f@!k up and get sussed is just to admit it, if you have no "out". I usually know an out to any trick, but if it goes wrong, and i cant get an out quick enough, i'll admit defeat. people will aceept this as ur only trying to entertain them and ur being honest, its better than being arrogant and failing.

6th

zuroph wrote: »

i find the best reaction when you f@!k up and get sussed is just to admit it, if you have no "out". I usually know an out to any trick, but if it goes wrong, and i cant get an out quick enough, i'll admit defeat. people will aceept this as ur only trying to entertain them and ur being honest, its better than being arrogant and failing.

Now thats something that would get a lot of respect from me. Takes a lot of balls and I'm sure most audiences appreciate it.

zuroph

it usually shuts the hecklers up too, cos they know ur not claiming to be perfect, they usually shut up and let u get on with it.

Popinjay

zuroph wrote: »

i find the best reaction when you f@!k up and get sussed is just to admit it, if you have no "out". I usually know an out to any trick, but if it goes wrong, and i cant get an out quick enough, i'll admit defeat. people will aceept this as ur only trying to entertain them and ur being honest, its better than being arrogant and failing.

I must say I've had to do this more than once. There's usually a little bit of good-natured laughter but it does seem to bring the audience more on side. Also, look at Tommy Cooper. The best thing about him was that he looked like he was constantly screwing up. People loved him, even if they didn't really believe he was dying .