Whenever I do the "Here And There" trick or any other trick that involves a switch in the spectators hands, I always have nosy spectators. When I hand them the card, they always say, "Can I look at it?," or while I'm in the middle of the trick, they just go ahead and look at it. What ways do you get out of this, and any suggestions how I should handle it?

What I do, is I present this as an experiement in observation...so as I hand them the card, I tell them "don't cheat because you need to remember which card is where." I don't make a big deal out it...I just say it off the cuff. Seems to work for me.

You also need to implore good judgment when choosing your spectators. There are always going to be people out there that are going to try and jack your stuff up and bust you before the trick is over.

I will never pick those people to help. Why risk it. I would always do a here/there plot several effects in to my set so I can gauge whom I'm dealing with..., and I choose the less dangerous person for assistance.

Do some magic where it does not matter if anyone is too curious. Size up your audience. You may not be able to do certain effects.

I try to also make sure that the person you have selected to help you is able to count, remember, handle and shuffle cards.

Use patter to keep the magic moving. Control the situation with gesturing and eye contact.

How about getting them to put their other hand on top of it to make sure that YOU cannot do anything sneaky? And plant that idea in their minds. That would perhaps change the psychology of the situation so that they will guard the card against being seen?

Are you doing anything that might arouse suspicion? Ideally, once the card is in their hand they won't need to look at it again because they KNOW it's their card.

Your post asks for ways to handle it after it happens. If they feel a need to look at the card after you hand it to them, they were never totally convinced you gave them the card you said. What are you doing or not doing that leads them to be unconvinced? You need to addess the moments before it happens.

As Open Traveller says, address the moment before it happens. As you hand the card to the spectator, give him or her instructions -- "Hold this card face down, don't look at it yet" -- or something along those lines. Only a jerk would then look at the card and you don't want to do magic for them because their idea of fun is to mess you up.

I disagree. I think saying "don't look at it" is just another way of saying "shh...it isn't really what I said it was." If you go that route, you need to set it up properly--for instance, by confusing them and having them "bet" on which it is without looking.

For me, I simply don't give them a chance to screw me up. I hand them the card (I always tend to repeat the name of the card it's supposed to be to psychologically reinforce it), and then move on, directing their attention away from it.

Misdirection isn't really shouting "Hey look! There's Elvis!" Misdirection is subtle psychology. If they're convinced that the card they're holding is what it's supposed to be, and you don't continually call their attention to it (better, call their attention specifically to some other sphere of focus), why in the world would they have any reason to turn it over anyway?

Unless, as Sean says, they're a heckler deliberately trying to screw you up (though in most cases, they're just as easy to misdirect as the others--just requiring a slightly different tactic and tone), in which case, it's time to make yourself disappear anyway.

Welcome Robert!

Okay, look, it's like this: When you put a card face-down in a spectator's hand, you are in no uncertain terms announcing that something is going to happen with that card later. So, if the card's not what you claim it is, there'd better be a high level of conviction with the spectator that the card is what you claim it is. This means eliminating any tells on your part, such as hesitation, ill-founded actions, untenable moves, postures of guilt, etc.

Depending on the context, there are ways to get around it a bit. For instance, in Carlyle's Transposition, you attempt to find a selection, but find the Ace of Spades instead. In an attempt to cover your error, you say you'll do a trick with the Ace of Spades later as you hand it to the spectator and ask him to put it in his shirt pocket. If your attitude is right, he will do so without looking, because he will totally buy into the idea that this is NOT part of the current trick. Later, when he finds he has the selection in his pocket, it's quite a surprise.

Bill Malone has a trick he calls "My Favorite Opener," which is a stripped-down version of Fecther's "I've Got A Surprise For You." He also attempts to find a selection and apparently misses, but he only realizes his miss just as (or just after) the card lands in the spectator's hand. They are distracted from looking at the card themselves because they're taken with his situation.

Does anybody here do Fechter's "I've Got A Surprise For You?" So, you're trying to find the selection and, full of confidence, you find some other card instead. The spectators tell you it's the wrong card. At that point, you throw the card down on the table in disgust, saying something like, "No wonder I can't get the big circuits!" Then you tell the people you have a surprise for them and pull a card from your pocket. It turns out to be the card you just showed them, though, and the tabled card is revealed to be the selection. Again, here, the audience never thinks to look at the tabled card because it's completely lost its importance. The ending always comes as a total surprise.

How about "The Last Trick of Dr. Jacob Daley?" Here, you show and put TWO cards in a lady's hand. What keeps her from looking? What keeps her from suspecting that the cards you place are not the cards you claim? The answer is not only in your chosen techniques, but in your sense of command and audience management. You choose a certain double technique because it's completely above question. You choose a certain technique to unload the face card of the double because it presents the best retention of the identity of the card. When you place the card on her hand, you make a pertinent comment or have something else happen that occupies her attention well enough that the card, for the moment, isn't the most important thing on her mind. And...you do all this twice. Later, she finds that she has the OTHER two aces, not the ones she thought, and the reaction is strong...if you were able to sell the shows and instill the conviction.

You wrote in your original post that you ALWAYS have nosy spectators, meaning that this happens to you pretty consistently. The thing is, they're not nosy. They're doing what's natural based on what you're doing. In other words, you're leading them to look. Something you're doing is creating enough suspicion that the audience feels they have to verify your claim. You're either lacking context, command or comfort, but I suspect it's probably, to some extent, all three. This is why I said you have to analyze what's happening before the point in the routine where you're giving her the card, because somewhere in there is where your problem lies.

I second that, can't remember when this did not work for me.

Yeah, I do agree with that. I think it's best if they're so convinced that it is their card that they don't even think to look. But getting a hand on top of it (or even make a joke of it and get several spectators to cover it) is a nice way of covering your bases, just in case.

Arranging ways so they can't look won't remove the thought in their minds that it might not be the card you say. In fact, it may only increase their confidence that the card isn't what you say, because you won't let them look. Sometimes having them nail the card down works, sometimes it doesn't, because they're still suspicious. Spectators can be fairly intelligent, and they're not above reconstructing and saying, "Well, that was never my card in the first place."

Whenever I do the tricks, I tell them to put their hand over it to make sure I can't switch the cards. I always have one person say "can I look at it?" I sometimes don't know what to say. Most of the time after they ask I say "do you remember your card? Don't forget it. " to distract them. I have had a couple people put their hand on top and then right in front of me, lift a corner, and look at it. So what do you say when that happens?

I'm not retyping everything.

I mean after they looked at it and ruined the trick, what do you say.

Short of printing Open Traveller's post and memorizing them (not a bad idea), here's another way to look at it:

Your initial question is not the best one to ask. The question should not be, "what to do with nosy spectators?"

A better question would be, "how do I keep spectators from being nosy"

An even better question would be, "how do I keep spectators focused (nosy) in what I want them to be focused?"

Asking better questions gets better answers.
BTW, please forgive me if the tone of this post sounds harsh. Not my attention. I just popped in the Café to get a breather from the "work day" and wanted to post this but am tight time-wise so I'm being a little less than avuncular.

Best,

DD

And I'm suggesting you shouldn't ever get to that point. If they feel a need to look, you've done something prior to that point that didn't play right for them.

So, I guess if they look at a card and ruin the trick, you can say, "Hmm. I didn't do that right."

If you're standing and they are too you could guide their hand to the height of their hips or mimic how they should behave. Even a line like "put your hand straight down" or alike could work. Of course, best would be if they don't get suspicous or you continue talking to them so they don't have time to ask. There are always people who would want to take a look, and you can't do anything against it besides not giving them the card. Put it on the table and immediatly put a glass/ashtray on it or something like that when you feel that this spec is a difficult one.
Perhaps, only brainstorming here, if they look and they tell you "that's not my card" you could take it and do a fast visual change. Then put the card in their hand. They will almost look again to see if it's right, then you take it tell them "of course it's the right card you saw it..." while you do a top change to place the card you originally wanted back in their hands. They think they know it's the wrong card in their hands but won't look again. However, all this stuff might be a awkward too, don't know if it works for you.

What's there to say? The trick has been ruined. You treat it as a learning experience and make sure it doesn't happen again. OT's points are all good for re-evaluating the effect.

Another thing that's worth checking out is Whit Haydn's very smart ideas on calling the card face down. Back when the database went on the fritz and it looked like a whole bunch of data had been lost to time, I was able to rescue some stuff from google cache and threw it up on the blog. I never did check to see if it got restored properly, but here's what I was able to rescue.

http://erlandish.blogspot.com/2007/09/ca......ued.html