The Awkward Quandary

I get emails pretty regularly about what to do after an effect. Especially when you do something that’s a little immersive or unusual, or something that doesn’t feel to people like a traditional magic trick.

There can be a moment after such a trick that feels a little awkward if the audience is really engaged. You’ve planned out how the interaction will go, but then the person you’re showing the trick to is extending the moment. They’re pushing past the climax to a moment you hadn’t anticipated. Their reaction is maybe stronger than you anticipated. Or they have questions you didn’t think would come up. Or they want to dig deeper into some aspect of the presentation you weren’t really prepared to talk more about.

It can be uncomfortable. I feel this a lot. And it used to bother me.

But I came to a realization recently about this.

Over the holiday season, I was with a magician friend of mine. He performed an old Sankey trick for some other friends. It’s a trick where you slide the tip of a pencil down to the middle of the pencil.

“That’s crazy,” someone said. And they all smiled and nodded. And my friend gave them the pencil to look at. “Yup, that’s in the middle alright,” another person said. My friend took the pencil back, gave it a look, and raised his eyebrows.

“Fun…,” someone said. And the interaction sort of sputtered out and talk shifted away from the trick.

My friend did the trick well, fooled them, they reacted positively. But there was still a sense of awkwardness at the end. But I didn’t get the awkward feeling from my friend, I got it from the audience.

They saw the trick, they reacted, but there’s only so much to say about the tip of a pencil moving to the middle. You can’t expect them to clutch their chest and say, “I always dreamed I’d see something like this! A pencil with the tip in the middle!”

How do avoid awkwardness at the end of a routine?

Well, if you’re performing professionally, it’s not really a huge issue. Either the lights go out. Or you say, “Okay, goodnight!” I’m reminded of this demo of Craig Petty doing Lucky Lotto. The trick gets a fine response. The girls smile. But within seconds of the climax, Craig asks for a round of applause, gives fist-bumps, and peaces the fuck out of there. There’s no real time for any awkwardness to creep in.

You can’t really do that as an amateur magician. You could, I guess, but you’d seem like a psycho. “Round of applause for me. I’m out of here!” And everyone is like, “Where are you going? This is your living room.”

As an amateur, you have to sort of let the ending of the trick play out. You have to ride out their reaction (or lack of reaction).

As an amateur, there’s no real set pacing for how long you “stay in the moment” after a trick is over.

And if you and the audience aren’t 100% in sync (which is hard to accomplish, unless you’ve performed for them a lot) then there are two possibilities.

Either you’re going to want to stay in the moment longer than them. Which can cause them to feel slightly awkward towards you, because it comes off as a little needy.

Or they will want to stay in the moment longer than you. Which can cause you to feel awkward and uncomfortable because you’re unprepared.

My point is: it’s likely someone is going to feel a little uncomfortable after the trick.

I want it to be me. Because that means they are the ones pushing the interaction forward. They’re the ones guiding the moment towards something I hadn’t expected. And I’d much rather have the awkwardness of them giving me more than I had planned for, than the awkwardness of me asking for more than they want to give.