How to Treat Volunteers

“I don’t know…maybe you’re going to poison me or something,” the ten-year-old girl said with a smirk on her face.

I looked at her in confusion. Poison?

The audience laughed and looked at me. How was I going to respond?

Welcome to this week’s The Professional Magician’s Life, your weekly newsletter by your host, Cris Johnson.

The above story happened to me at a gig earlier this week. Here’s another one from a few days ago:

I had just finished up a routine and a young child shout out, “This is very satisfactory!”

The audience laughed and I was once again in a position of needing to say something. But what should I say? How would you handle it?

The easiest thing would be to just keep going and ignore the comments, sticking to my script. But that’s not very fun. Part of the appeal of magic shows is that they are live and there is a back-and-forth relationship with the audience.

But I’ve seen far too many magicians take shots at their audience. Make disparaging comments. I remember a religious magician making comments to a young teen onstage at a show I watched over 25 years ago. (Yeah, it stuck with me this long.)

I was dating a girl whose mother was ultra-religious. She knew I was a magician, so she invited her daughter and me to see a magician who had been hired to perform at her church.

I’m not religious. Far from it. But I love a good magic show, so we went.

When we arrived, I was impressed by the magician’s set design. He had a really nice backdrop with professional photographs of him and graphics printed on it. This was over 25 years ago, and that sort of thing was very new.

The magician was dressed impeccably in a nice suit. His sound system was impressive. This show was going to be great, I said to myself.

When the show started, I continued to be impressed. He opened with a dove pan trick – to magicians, it’s old hat, but the audience ate it up. His first speaking piece was a cut and restored rope routine he tied into some piece of scripture.

At the time I was just starting to get into themed shows with messages. I was very impressed with his script.

But when he got his first volunteer up on stage, the cracks began to show. His volunteer was the afire-mentioned teen., She was kind of plain, but pretty, with a ‘girl next door’ look.

The guy had scripted lines like, “You’re beautiful…on the inside.” Over and over with supposed comic lines that clearly made the girl feel terrible. With every dumb comment, you could see her shoulders sag more and more.

I was livid.

And my heart went out to that poor girl.

And this guy was performing a gospel magic show preaching love and Jesus and all that?

When we have volunteers onstage with us, it’s so easy to damage them. Hang on for a fun ride. I’m gonna drop some neuroscience on you.

First, we have two minds. Our Subconscious mind is where our emotions, long-term memories, and firmly held beliefs are. Want to see your own Subconscious mind at work? Say the alphabet. Yup, right now.

If you did it, you likely found it easy.

We also have a Conscious Mind. This is where our logic comes in. We use this part of the mind to solve problems. Here’s a fun task. Say the alphabet again…. but skip every other letter.

Much harder, right?

The vast majority of our actions and thoughts stem from our Subconscious Mind. We only use our Conscious Mind a little each day. Once you learn something with your analytical Conscious Mind, the Subconscious takes over, making the new task routine.

When we are interacting with parents, doctors, or other people in positions of authority, our subconscious minds are opened up more than they normally might. Why? We get nervous. They’re in charge. What if it’s bad news? What if we did something wrong?

So, we listen intently. And often what those in authority say gets accepted by our Subconscious mind.

I saw this a lot when I had my hypnotherapy clinic open. Countless clients told me their phobias stemmed from being told how dangerous their trigger was by their mother.

“Get that bee off your arm! It could KILL YOU!” screams Mom. And voila! 5-year-old Sally now has a fear of bees.

This kind of stuff happens to us all the time. Even otherwise rational adults across the country believed the rantings of QAnon. It was stunning, to say the least.

And with kids, it’s even more profound.

When you have a kid on stage, their Subconscious minds are opened up wide. They likely are nervous, even if they are trying not to show it.

So, you’ve got to be careful what you say.

I can’t fathom the damage that religious magician did to that young teen girl all those years ago. I wanted to rip the guy a new one. Maybe I should have? Who knows.

But I share all of this with you because you’re better than that guy.

I know it because you’re still reading.

Here’s my simple rule when an opportunity for an adlib happens during a show.

If I can come up with a funny line without saying anything that will embarrass the volunteer (adult or child) I’ll say it. If nothing comes to mind, I just keep going.

Back to the story at the beginning of this article.

I had brought this ten-year-old girl up to help with a trick. She backed away slightly when I handed her a deck of cards.

Concerned, I asked, “What’s wrong?” That’s when she made the comment about me poisoning her.

I looked at her and the audience and reassured her, “No, I’m not going to poison you. That would be mean.”

Then I paused and added, “And it wouldn’t be a well-thought-out crime on my part because there are a hundred witnesses.”

It got a big laugh without embarrassing my volunteer.

What about the little boy who said my show was “very satisfactory?”

He was very young and had probably recently learned the word and had a rudimentary grasp of its meaning.

I simply replied, “Thank you. And you have an impressive vocabulary.”

That got a small, polite laugh from the adults in the audience. To me, that was enough. Better a small laugh and keep the respect of the audience.

This entire topic is something I’m very passionate about. Our audiences look up to us.

I’ve done mentalism shows for adults where afterward I’ve been asked, “How did you get this gift?”

Did you notice the picture at the top of this article? It’s a picture of me a kid drew right after my science show.

He asked me if I would like to be the main character in his new comic book. So, he drew a picture of me as the superhero Science Guy.

I was (and still am) honored.

Here’s the thing…sometimes we don’t even know what we are doing is harmful. Sometimes it takes a fresh pair of eyes on our business to see the things we need to change.

P.S. By the way…whenever you’re ready, here are 4 ways I can help you grow your magic business to book more shows at higher fees:


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Need help in multiple areas? I can help you with your website, direct mail, email, or other marketing strategies. I also offer consulting services for crafting magic routines or even entire shows. Want to find out more? Shoot me an email at cris@theprofessionalmagicianclubpro.com.

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