I am wondering if you've had any embarrassing moments when you've been performing, particularly with children (but could also be adults). Have you any tricks that have gone wrong? How did you recover? Just interested.

I consider the best recovery to continue as if it didn't happen. Half will think it's part of the show,
and most the rest won't care.

One time I was doing my bubble bag routine (similar to egg bag), and the kid got the idea to feel around. "I feel something
in there!" "You do? Well, take it out!" The crowd had no idea there was supposed to be more routine.

Nearly every story I have is continuing as if nothing went wrong.

I had the Card Frame screw up on me once. The card didn't shoot up into the two plexiglas holders. The children and my little helper knew something messed up and just laughed their little heads off at me! I played it off as well as I could and just moved on. Luckily, I was in front of a bunch of children who I performed for many times so they were quite forgiving! That being said, I never used the Card Frame again! I prefer the Lasso card trick for the kids these days.

Not a specific trick...but a whole show: my first (and only) kid's birthday party. When I was 17, owner of local magic shop I'd hang out at referred me to somebody looking for a magician looking for an 8 year old party. They didn't want to pay much, do he passed but thought I might be interested. I'd no desire to do a kid's show, but felt "honored" he thought of me and figured if I'm doing magic I should get out an perform.

I put together a collection of tricks I had, using patter straight from the instructions. No thought about flow, connection, or even if it'd be interesting for an 8 year old. I had no clue about audience management (let alone wrangling kids).

I show up, Mom is with other wives in the kitchen, a few dads are drinking in back yard. About 10-12 kids are running amok, fueled by cake and candy. They had no interest in sitting down for a pimpley faced nerd in a denim vest (it was the late 70's). Finally I get enough of them to sit to start the show. But those running around would go behind me to see the secrets, one grabbed my stuff. Every trick was met with "I know how you did that!" or "I see that!" All this had me rushing through everything to get it over with. When I did my final tricks, the kids shot out like greyhounds released for a dog race...

Walking outside the Mom grudgingly handed me a check for $25 while muttering under her breath. I told her to keep it...and left.

Since then, only kids shows I did were for my own children and their friends (before cake was served).

Yes, the first and only time I did Bob Reads bottle production the bottle slipped down my pants down to my shoe and I had to just play it off as a weird gag. It turned out to be no big whoop, but as it was slowly slipping down I was nervous trying to figure out what to do. I created a pocket for it so it wouldn't happen again, but never got around to trying it again. I did Hobson's Balloon Bag today, and the dog was mostly deflated when I pulled it out, never had it deflate/fall apart that much before. I just said, oh well, that didn't work as planned and moved on. That one is sort of risky cause balloons are unpredictable so I don't like to wait too long after I make it before doing the trick, if it's going to me more than an hour I usually don't bother making it.

I once tossed an extinguished "sparkle" match (the kind that have sparkle additive on the match head so it "sparkles" and burns off and the match continues to burn). I blew out the match and tossed it into my case. As I tossed it into the case, it re-lit (like one of those birthday candles that re-lit after you blow them out) and the match ignited the rest of the flash paper I had in the case. Crowd thought that was part of the act, I had to change up that show on the fly. Lesson learned, never used sparkle matches again.

Long time ago, I had a piece of lit flash paper fall down into my shirt pocket setting off the whole packet of flash paper. It caused me to jump around patting my chest with smoke coming out for a minute or so. I didn’t really know what to say other than ‘I’ll do anything for a laugh.’ At that time, I guess I thought it was best that they saw me as being crazy and not stupid. Lesson learned for me with flash paper.

Tom

Split my pants right before show time.
Had to rework my show to keep my best side forward.

Now that's good, LOL! Well not good but very funny!

Thirty years ago, when I was fairly new to magic, I accepted an invitation to do an after dinner show for my church - banquet for about 100 people. I had a full time job and two preschoolers, so rehearsal / prep time was at a premium. I had never done anything on that large a scale (one hour parlor show with lighting, sound, music, live rabbit, chair suspension, flash effects, vanishing torch, and more)

Day of the show was crazy busy, as it was primarily just my wife and I setting up stage risers, backdrop, PA system, lights, etc. I had forgotten to prepare my torn and restored newspaper (Gene Anderson) and found myself frantically preparing an hour before showtime. It was my closing effect. When I attempted the flash restoration, the newspaper only opened part of the way and then just stopped mid-air. I had folded it up before letting the glue dry, and it was a sloppy rushed prep. I just rolled my eyes, wadded up the paper and threw it back over my shoulder, in disgust. It actually got a big laugh. Several thought it was planned, since I employ a lot of comedy in my shows. Many, many lessons learned from that experience.

I have had the same as the 2 above. I had my tear and restore newspapaer restore with the torn pieces on the outside. I played it off like it was suppose to happen and I was just joking around.

Before that yrs ago I put on a few pounds but didn't buy new pants. At a kids show right in front of the kids my pants split from my crotch to my knee. I was so embarred and asked the mother if she had any safty pins. She was oh I thought it was part of the act. LOL
In my head I was yeah standing in front of a bunch of kids with my pants split with my under wear showing was part of my act. But it did make me realize that they have no clue if its part of the show or not and that helped when the T&R didn't work and I just played it off.

I was showing an "empty" rabbit cage from one side of the room to the other, when I swung back around to the right I didn't realize that my nephew came right up beside me. I hit him in the head with a very heavy production box, causing him to have a huge goose egg on his forehead... that was the last time I performed for quite a while.

I have performed amateur magic for many, many years. So, of course things sometimes go wrong.
Even as a child-performer, I had a terrible time with a "heckler" - another child who was constantly shouting, "I know how that is done" "there is a duplicate" or "that is not a real bottle." The vast majority of these guesses were wrong, but it was extremely distracting. Then, as an adult, I had this same problem - often one very vocal child. I learned. Now, my introduction includes a funny explanation, "I pretend to do magic, and YOU PRETEND TO BE FOOLED." I give a little intro about "don't break the pretend, because we are all pretending that I am doing magic." This does not detract from the show. I have even heard some kids say, "that one thing with the rings that were linking - that was not pretend, that was real."

In other effects, things have sometimes gone wrong. Keep in mind, the audience has no idea of what was supposed to happen. Card magicians, failing to find a selected card, will sometimes bail out by resorting to an Invisible Deck. They report that sometimes that "bail out" gets a better reaction than their original trick.

I guess the funniest "gone wrong" story I have is about the Needle Thru Balloon. I had not done it in a few years. Apparently, whatever balloons were made from CHANGED, or else I had aged more than I thought. I could not blow up the fricking ballon! I simply ditched it and moved on, acting like nothing had happened. I never heard mention of it.