I want to tell you about two shows. Same venue, same type of event, same approximate audience size. Both were corporate events in Graz, about six months apart. In both shows, I brought someone from the audience onto the stage to participate in a mentalism piece. The effect was essentially the same. The technical execution was comparable. But the audience’s overall experience was profoundly different, and it took me a while to understand why.
In the first show, I was still in what I now think of as my “operator” phase. I had a routine to execute. The volunteer was a component in that routine. I was polite — I was not rude or dismissive — but my attention was on the effect, on the process, on making sure every beat of the method landed cleanly. The volunteer was a variable I needed to manage. I asked her name, I smiled, I guided her through the steps. But I was not really present with her. I was present with the trick.
The audience’s response when the reveal landed was solid. Applause. Some gasps. A good reaction. Fine.
In the second show, something was different. I had been reading Ken Weber’s Maximum Entertainment in the interim, and one passage had lodged in my brain like a splinter. Weber’s fundamental principle about volunteers is this: they are doing you a favor. Treat them as guests, never as props. And it is not just about politeness — it is about the message you send to every other person in the room.
So in the second show, when I brought someone up, I treated him the way I would treat a friend who had just walked into my living room. I asked his name and used it repeatedly. I made sure he was comfortable, oriented, and not standing in an awkward position. When the audience laughed at something during the routine, I made sure the laugh was with him, not at him. I physically positioned myself so that I was beside him, not in front of him, so the audience could see us as two people sharing an experience rather than a performer operating on a subject.
The reveal landed, and the response was not just louder — it was warmer. The applause had a different quality to it. People were smiling in a way that was not just “that was impressive” but “that was lovely.” After the show, three different people mentioned the volunteer interaction specifically. Not the effect. The interaction.
Something had changed, and it was not the magic.
Why the Room Watches How You Treat People
Here is the insight that transformed my thinking: every person in the audience identifies with the volunteer. Not consciously, not analytically, but on a deep, instinctive, emotional level. Because every person in the audience knows they could have been the one called up. When the performer selects someone from the crowd, every other audience member briefly imagines themselves in that position. They project themselves onto the volunteer. They become, for the duration of that interaction, emotionally invested in that person’s experience.
This means that how you treat the volunteer is not a private transaction between two people. It is a public demonstration of your character, witnessed and felt by everyone in the room. If you treat the volunteer with warmth and respect, the entire audience feels warm and respected. If you treat the volunteer with indifference or condescension, the entire audience feels a subtle chill. And if you embarrass or belittle the volunteer — even if it gets a laugh — the audience feels a knot of anxiety in their stomachs, because on some level they are thinking: that could be me up there.
Weber puts it directly: the audience judges you by how you treat their colleagues. And even if the audience members are strangers to one another, the simple act of being fellow audience members creates enough of a bond that they extend protective empathy to whoever is on stage with you.
I think about this a lot because it maps so neatly onto something I have observed in my consulting work. In every organization I have worked with, there is a moment where leadership is tested not by a big strategic decision but by how they treat someone in a vulnerable position. The way a CEO handles a junior employee’s mistake in a meeting tells the entire room everything they need to know about the culture. People watch how power is used, especially when it is used toward someone who has less of it.
On stage, the performer has all the power. You know what is about to happen. You know the script, the method, the flow. The volunteer knows nothing. They are vulnerable. They are exposed. The power differential is enormous. And the audience is watching, with exquisite sensitivity, to see what you do with that power.
The Guest Framework
After reading Weber and reflecting on my own performances, I developed what I think of as the Guest Framework. It is simple, but it changed everything.
The core principle: from the moment someone leaves their seat to the moment they return to it, they are a guest in your show. Not a participant, not a subject, not a helper. A guest. And you treat a guest the way you would treat someone you invited into your home.
In practice, this means several things.
First, you acknowledge them as a person before you use them as a participant. This sounds obvious, but watch how many performers bring someone on stage and immediately launch into the routine. “Great, hold this, look at this, think of a number.” The volunteer has been reduced to a function before they have been recognized as a human being. Instead, I now take thirty seconds to have a brief, genuine conversation. Where are you from? What do you do? Something light, something that lets the audience see this person as a person, not just a body standing next to me.
Those thirty seconds do something remarkable. They transform the audience’s relationship with the volunteer from anonymous stranger to someone they know something about. And once the audience has that sliver of personal connection — a name, a job, a city — they care more about what happens next. Their empathy deepens. Their investment increases.
Second, you narrate the experience from their perspective, not yours. Instead of “I am going to ask you to think of a word,” I might say, “In a moment, you are going to think of a word, and it is going to be completely private, completely your choice. Nobody can influence it, least of all me.” The difference is subtle but significant. The first framing positions me as the active agent doing something to them. The second framing positions them as the active agent having an experience.
Third, you protect them physically and emotionally. You help them up if there is a step. You make sure they are not blinded by a spotlight. You never put them in a position where they might fail publicly. If something goes sideways, you absorb the blame completely. Weber is emphatic on this point: if a volunteer blows an ending, it is your fault, not theirs. Your instructions were not clear enough. Your handling was not smooth enough. The audience should never, ever see you express displeasure toward a volunteer.
I failed at this once, early on, at a private event in Vienna. A volunteer did not follow my instructions correctly, and something in my face must have flickered — a moment of frustration, maybe not even conscious. The volunteer noticed, and she visibly deflated. The audience noticed her deflation. The energy in the room dropped like someone had opened a window in December. It took me ten minutes to recover the warmth that I had destroyed in half a second.
That experience taught me more about performance than a hundred hours of practice.
The Empathy Cascade
When you treat your volunteer as a genuine guest, something beautiful happens that I can only describe as an empathy cascade.
The volunteer feels comfortable and valued. Because they feel comfortable, their reactions are genuine and unguarded. Because their reactions are genuine, the audience connects with those reactions emotionally. Because the audience is emotionally connected, their own reactions amplify. Because the room is buzzing with amplified emotion, the next volunteer will feel even more comfortable coming up, because they have seen how well the previous person was treated.
Each positive interaction builds on the last. By the third or fourth time you bring someone up during a show, the audience’s willingness to participate has compounded. People stop dreading the possibility of being selected and start hoping for it. The energy in the room shifts from defensive to open.
I have experienced the opposite cascade too, and it is devastating. A performer who embarrasses or disrespects a volunteer early in the show creates a defensive posture in the entire audience. Every subsequent request for participation is met with resistance. People avoid eye contact. They shrink in their seats. The room has learned, through direct observation, that coming up on stage means being exposed, and no one volunteers for exposure.
Practical Techniques I Have Learned
Let me share some specific things I do now that I did not do before.
When someone arrives on stage, I shake their hand. This seems small, but it is enormously important. A handshake is a social ritual that communicates equality. It says: we are two people meeting, not a performer acquiring a prop. In Austrian culture especially, a handshake carries weight. It is a gesture of respect and recognition.
I use their name at least three times during the interaction. Not in a forced, car-salesman way, but naturally, woven into the conversation. “Maria, would you hold this for me?” “What do you think, Maria — is that the word you were thinking of?” Using someone’s name in front of an audience has a dual effect: it reinforces to the volunteer that I see them as an individual, and it reinforces to the audience that this is a person, not a function.
I position myself beside the volunteer rather than in front of them. This is partly practical — it ensures the audience can see the volunteer’s face and reactions. But it is also symbolic. Standing beside someone communicates partnership. Standing in front of someone communicates control. The audience reads these spatial relationships intuitively, even if they could not articulate what they are noticing.
I let the volunteer get the laughs. Weber makes this point: all laughter is a desired reaction, regardless of its source, and you look better by sharing the spotlight. When a volunteer says something funny, I do not try to top it or redirect attention back to myself. I laugh with the audience. I enjoy the moment. This generosity costs me nothing and earns me enormous goodwill.
And at the end of the interaction, before the volunteer returns to their seat, I pause the show for a moment. I turn to them, I thank them genuinely, and I lead the audience in applause for them. Not for me. For them. This final moment reaffirms everything: they were a valued guest, their contribution mattered, and they are being sent back to their seat as someone the room appreciates.
Why You Cannot Fake It
You cannot fake treating someone well. You can go through the motions — use their name, shake their hand, say thank you — but if you are performing politeness rather than feeling it, the audience will sense the gap. The mechanics of the Guest Framework only work if they are backed by genuine regard for the person standing next to you.
This is why I believe the most important thing a performer can develop is not technique, not timing, not scripting, but genuine interest in other people. The ability to look at a stranger who has just walked onto your stage and feel, authentically, grateful that they are there. Curious about who they are. Invested in giving them a good experience.
When that feeling is real, everything else follows. A room full of people who have watched you treat someone well is a room that trusts you. And a room that trusts you is a room where extraordinary things become possible.
The volunteer is not a tool for your trick. The volunteer is the most important person in the room for as long as they are on your stage. Treat them that way, and the room will reward you with something no technique can produce: warmth.