I usually can find the perfect participant in a group to be the one who picks the card. Someone who is involved, halfway intelligent, and will give a good reaction to the magic. But sometimes a sweet face fools you. Have you had the woman who takes the card and goes against your instructions, as she stuffs it in her pocket and defies you to perform. You must stay professional while trying to get her on your side and cooperate.
It's always our fault however, we judge wrong or are not clear, but sometimes you just come across the daughter of Satan. So next time I'll be ready. What is an effect you can perform with a regular deck, no prep, for the time that they secure the card? I can think of many with prep or with a special deck, but all natural? What would you do? Any thoughts on this?

Your question is a bit unclear. Are you saying she just doesn’t give the card back?

If so this is solved by forcing a card every time you have one selected. It is also the best way to learn to classic force. Then just do a reveal and move on.

Might it be your personality? Do you exude a respectful friendly confidence in your approach and interaction? People pick up on things and might mess with you because of that. Sometimes it happens regardless. When it happened to me, I would say "I see we have a heckler at the table". This often difused the situation acknowledging their antics but also identifying their actions as negative. Often
times others at the table will say something to the heckler since they have a relationship.

As you mention you sometimes run in to the son/daughter of Satan. It happens. I remember one time in my career where I just thanked them for their time and politely moved on.

Sorry if I was unclear friends, yes I am extremely nice with my audience, always get them on my side. No, this was just a strange moment where I believe the participant wanted the limelight. I thought about it a lot last night and I thought of one path forward. I might compliment her on making the card vanish, then turn to someone else and announce that I'll try to get their card into my pocket... A la card-to-pocket illusion. Other ideas welcome. Thanks

If it is such a rare happening why bother worrying about it? Things happen move on. If it is not happening regularly don’t put much thought into it.

It is live entertainment, things will happen.

The problem with your strategy is IF she wants the limelight as you suspect, you are reinforcing the behavior. You are teaching her that acting like a jerk gets her attention. Why would you ever do that? It will make the behavior worse not better. Move on and ignore her and let the table take care of the problem. Otherwise you will never be rid of the problem.

Also what situation are you talking about? Are you there being paid to do this?

Clock the deck and reveal the name of the card. Let her keep it. Go perform for the next group.

Keep in mind most of the audience wants to see you succeed and no one knows what you are going to do next. You should be prepared for these situations, but don’t put too much energy into appeasing the difficult spectator.

You mentioned that she went against your instructions. Do you recall what the instructions were?

I failed to mention this in my previous post, but I recommend picking up Charles Hopkin’s “Outs, Precautions, and Challenges” if you have not already done so.

https://www.lybrary.com/outs-precautions......id=33734

One of the great things about not opening with a card routine is that it lets you see which spectators are going to make good helpers which helps avoid such situations.

Acknowledge her little joke and let her get a laugh. Share the spotlight.

I would then say "Actually this isn't that kind of trick, it's OK if I see the card. Go ahead and sign it". Offer the sharpie but don't let her take it until she brings out the card.

In the extremely unlikely event that she still refuses to bring out the card just have someone else select a card and sign it and do Ambitious card.

It's definitely best not a think about it too much, if you honestly didn't make a mistake and upset her, which I am certain you didn't, (performers tend to blame themselves first) then just move on. Have an escape plan for the next time that happens, because it will, and just move on to the next group.

I had a lady once rip a gimmick out of my hand, FLITE by Steve Thompson, while a ring was on it. She could have easily exposed the trick or, even worse, lost the ring that it was attached to. She was holding it above her head to show her "trophy" but fortunately my wife was right behind her and yoinked it from her hand. The lesson I learned is, never get close enough to someone so that's even a possibility and keep a closer eye on who may be drunker than they appear.

Best of luck!

You never know what their doctor prescribed for them, since doctors seem to hand out psychoactive substances as if they were candy. Occasionally, I run into a drunk or addict who usually hides their problems well, especially at corporate gigs. When they get in front of the audience, they don't look good.

I love these kinds of questions, because this type of thing happens, not all the time but in my world every two or three gigs someone acts outside the norm and my 'plan' needs to adapt to the new novel situation.

I also think its professional to aim to be able to gracefully handle these types of volunteers. If I were watching this happen as a lay person the smooth recovery would either fly right by me or make me think the magician really knows their stuff.

From reading the above ideas I could imagine saying "oh perfect, great idea" and then handing the sharpie and saying here sign the card and then going into a card to pocket. The sharpie gets the card back in play and the card to pocket is an elegant connection.

Now there is a chance that this type of person would just pocket the sharpie, funny idea on their part. At that point I think I might start handing them larger and larger objects to see if they'd keep putting things in their pocket. This would be more like a clown show at that point using the improvisors idea of 'yes and', but this could end up failing. Some times I've played along too much and end too deep and the person refuses to bend, it becomes like a game of chicken and that is the point I realize I should have walked away as soon as the card went into their pocket.

Don’t work for idiots. If someone does something belligerent like that just be disruptive I forget they even exist, tune them out and work for everyone else. I don’t even LOOK at them. If some idiot stuffs a card in their pocket - if it’s done belligerently - then just extend the deck to someone else and keep right on going.

You will extinguish the issue IMMEDIATELY.

I worked as a bartender for years and I can attest to this. I had a few run-ins when people turned from overly friendly to raging maniacs in minutes.

At one of my restaurants, I performed for a woman and her son, CTIL. (Card to impossible location)
The boy loved it. His mother said to me "You WILL show my son how you did that" I thought she was kidding.
Oh NO! She was dead serious. I explained that I could not (would not) reveal the magic in a polite way.

She got irate, caused a fuss where other people were noticing and she asked to see the manager.

Fast forward to the end, I did not reveal anything and the Mgr. laughed it off and said don't worry about it.
Wonder what the boy's home life was like???