What can a magician do when the spectator wants to shuffle the cards?

Every magician has been in the situation where a spectator asks if they can shuffle the playing cards before the magic trick begins. This is uncomfortable if it is no longer possible for technical reasons.

Here’s the answer to what you can do in that situation. But you’ll also get something much better:

I’ll explain how you can prevent spectators from ever asking this question!

When I do magic tricks with playing cards, I’m almost never asked this question. That’s because my presentation and audience management prevent this question from arising. But they not only prevent the question about shuffling the cards, they also reduce any disruptions caused by spectators.

Avoiding challenges: The main reason why spectators become difficult and disruptive is that they perceive the magic trick as a challenge. They see it as a competition of the mind, in which the magician competes against the spectators to outsmart them. In this competition, there are clear winners and clear losers. Either the magician is exposed or the magician wins.

This leads to spectators trying to improve their chances of winning by putting obstacles in the magician’s way and behaving unpredictably. The result is a magic effect interrupted in its flow, with one side ultimately losing. This is not entertaining.

So, the first task of the magician who wants to entertain is to clearly signal to the spectators that he or she is not competing against them, but rather wants to create a beautiful experience together with them.

Creating a sense of unity: The easiest way to create a positive atmosphere for your magic is by adjusting your inner attitude. When I perform magic, I’m always very aware that I’m not superior to my audience just because I know a few secrets. Instead, I choose to like my audience and want to give them a gift. I want to give them a fascinating experience which we can share together.

This attitude that I have can be sensed by the audience. They feel that I don’t want to show them up, but instead see them as my partners in creating something wonderful. When everyone realizes that we’re on the same team, a pleasant atmosphere is created, and the stage is set for great presentations and fascinating magic.

Engaging presentations: Once you’ve earned the audience’s attention through your attitude and hopefully great magic effects, you need to use it.

Take the entire group on a journey and tell a beautiful story. Give the audience a reason to listen to you, rather than thinking about how you’re going to trick them. If your presentation is good, the audience will gratefully follow you. Unfortunately, many magicians don’t do this. Instead, they just describe what they’re doing. Something like:

“Pick a card. Now shuffle the deck. Oops, now your card is in my shoe!”

That’s not a presentation and invites them to think about the trick technique and get into “competition mode.”

But if you want to offer high-quality magic, then you should offer the audience something better than just tricks. Give them a story, and you’ll notice that you’re interrupted or disturbed much less often when performing magic.

What can you do if you have laid the right foundations but still end up with a difficult spectator? Unfortunately, there are occasionally people who want to be in the spotlight or who are not willing to participate in a shared magical experience. In that case, you need a contingency plan.

I have three solutions for this situation:

1. I ignore the question. Especially when performing for larger groups, it’s easy to pretend that I didn’t hear the question. Then I continue with my presentation and don’t react to it. I would even do this if there were no technical problem with letting the spectator shuffle the cards. Basically, I want to conduct my presentations at the pace I have chosen. If I let a spectator shuffle the cards, it’s wasted time. Watching the shuffling process is not interesting for anyone. It interrupts the flow of my presentation, and I don’t want that. In most cases, this is the best solution.

2. If it’s clear that I have heard the question and I have no way of ignoring it, then I say “Unfortunately, no” and smile at the spectator. This creates a cheerful atmosphere at the table and makes it clear to the spectator in a friendly way that I don’t want to be interrupted by him. Since I have already laid the right foundations before the effect, I don’t have to defend my supposed reputation as the best magician in the world. Everyone knows that I don’t have real magical powers and that I use tricks. And everyone also knows that it’s a better experience when we work together on this experience rather than when individuals sabotage me. Often, the other spectators take on the task of keeping the disruptive person under control for me.

3. I spontaneously show another effect where it doesn’t matter if the cards have been shuffled beforehand or not. It’s always good to have an effect for such emergencies that you can always show. For example, a short peak and subsequent force to find the card in any way afterwards. This always works and is not technically demanding. However, I never use this method in a professional environment. The reason for this is that I have something in mind when I want to show a particular effect. Perhaps it fits well with the group’s mood or appropriately continues a theme from the previous effect. That’s why I’m not willing to deviate from my plan and show a random other effect that doesn’t fit as well and isn’t as entertaining.