At Christmas I performed the annual Christmas Magic show for the extended family.

Plenty of practice ensued in the lead up to the event so that nothing would go wrong and a polished professional performance would be delivered...

I was well into the set list with no issues and had already successfully negotiated the first part of a two part routine. The second part consisted of a chosen card being placed in the deck which was in full view all of the time. After some suitable waffle and time delay the deck would be ribbon spread and the chosen card disappeared into the ether, only to be found inside a Kinder 'egg case', which was in turn inside a Christmas bauble that had been hanging on the Christmas tree from the start.

Pride goes before a fall...

I was just thinking that I was doing so well! I ribbon spread the deck of cards and there in full view was the spectators chosen card (it should have been safely ensconced in a gaff in the deck). After missing a few beats, I just said "See your card has gone, nowhere to be seen, vanished into thin air". The thing is that genuinely, everyone agreed it had gone. The spectators 'card' was duly found folded up in a seemingly impossible location and a nice round of applause followed. Happy days.

Obviously this scenario has many different outcome possibilities and perhaps I was just very lucky. It did make me think though. I have read enough trick descriptions where the author says 'this move requires you to be brave/bold'. e.g. Card to Mouth. I had never been either brave or bold enough to try some of these routines. However, the Christmas experience makes me wonder just how much you can get away with (by bravery or by accident).

So, what is the biggest thing that you have 'got away' with and have you ever done it more than once?

Is it possible at least one person saw it and was polite enough to avoid mentioning it? If I understand correctly, the whole deck was spread face up and your card was somewhere visible in the spread among the rest? Most laypeople probably don't scan the indices as quickly as magicians do, so depending on the time delay between the "disappearance" and reveal, it's possible they just took your word for it and suspended their disbelief enough to enjoy your performance.

I'm not sure it's the boldest thing I've ever done, but I enjoy doing a bluff shift without any cards in the right hand, which is supposedly cutting off half the pack. Inspired by subtleties from Aaron Fisher's bluff shift replacement.

I did an ESPacaology type routine as a finale of a parlour show. I messed up the backstage setup (certain order had to be maintained not to go into detail). So my backstage assistant placed the wrong setup "order" on stage for me to use. Two letters in the final word reveal were therefore mixed up. First, I was stunned and wondered why the word did not match. I reacted quickly and just switch the stands and the secondary objects around in full view of the audience. Just because I can and why not! Dani DaOrtiz style. In the end the audience still appreciated the finale, also due to the fact that ESPacaology routines are more on the complicated side of magic structures and is based upon different layers. Moreover, I focused on planting and reinforcing the visual memory of the last "correct" order. So when many think back to the performance they don't remember the part where I witched up the order. Of course there are always people that see behind the curtain after a mistake. Nobody's perfect.

You may have missed a beat or two, but you did the right thing. You recovered and kept going as if nothing wrong had happened. And because of that the audience did not realize something unexpected (to you) had happened. That can be difficult to do because a lot of magicians suffer from "magician's guilt" already and flubbing up on a trick or getting busted will make many of us break out in flop sweat and start stuttering and stammering, completely losing our way. When that happens it can be difficult to recover. But indeed it is much better to be bold and act like nothing wrong has occurred (with the attitude and tone of voice that communicates: "I meant to do that ... now let's continue.")

I think it's good to anticipate when this sort of thing might happen (not in a fearful way, dreading it , but in the sense of BE PREPARED) so you have a few "outs" planned .