I need to tell you about the worst thing I ever watched a performer do to a volunteer.
It was at a corporate gala in Vienna, one of those events where the client had hired entertainment for the after-dinner program. The magician was competent — good technique, decent patter, reasonably polished. He called up a woman from the audience, a mid-level manager who had been enjoying the evening with her colleagues. She came up smiling, clearly a little nervous but willing.
He never asked her name.
For the next four minutes, he referred to her as “my lovely assistant,” positioned her where he needed her, handed her things to hold, told her where to look, and at one point physically moved her by the shoulders to reposition her for the audience’s sightline. When the effect was over, he said, “Let’s give her a round of applause,” and gestured for her to sit down. She walked back to her table with a smile that did not reach her eyes.
I was watching from the back of the room, and I could feel the temperature change. The audience clapped politely, but something had shifted. The woman’s colleagues were not laughing anymore. They were exchanging glances. The performer had not done anything overtly rude. He had not insulted her or embarrassed her. He had simply used her — efficiently, professionally, and completely impersonally — and then sent her back.
She was not a guest. She was a prop. And everyone in the room knew it.
The Name
This is where it starts, and I cannot overstate how important this is: ask their name.
Not “What is your name?” shouted into a microphone like a game show host. Ask it the way you would ask someone you have just met at a dinner party. Make eye contact. Lower your voice slightly if you are using a microphone, so it feels conversational rather than performative. Wait for the answer. Repeat it back. Use it.
“Hi. I am Felix. What is your name?”
“Claudia.”
“Claudia, welcome. Thanks for coming up.”
That exchange takes eight seconds. In those eight seconds, you have accomplished something that the performer in Vienna failed to do in four minutes: you have established that this person is a human being with a name, not a functional object.
When I read Scott Alexander’s notes on stage performance, this principle hit me like a truck. He emphasizes that the volunteer is a guest in your space. You invited them. They accepted. And from the moment they leave their seat to the moment they return to it, you are responsible for their experience. Not just their experience of the magic — their experience of being a person, standing in front of a room full of people, in a situation they did not plan for and cannot control.
The name is the foundation of that responsibility. It is the first signal to the volunteer that you see them. Not as a pair of hands to hold your envelope. Not as a body to stand in a specific position. As a person.
What Using Their Name Does to the Room
There is a secondary effect of learning and using the volunteer’s name, and it operates on the audience rather than the volunteer.
When you call your volunteer by name, the audience unconsciously registers something important: this performer cares about people. Not in a grand, declarative way. In a small, practical way. They bothered to ask. They remembered. They use the name naturally throughout the interaction, the way you would with someone you actually know.
This signals safety. The audience is always, at some level, evaluating whether they would be safe if they were the one standing up there. If the performer treats the volunteer impersonally — as a function rather than a person — the audience decides that they would not want to be in that position. They disengage. They protect themselves psychologically by pulling back.
If the performer treats the volunteer as a named, respected, valued human being, the audience relaxes. They think, perhaps not consciously but certainly emotionally, “If that were me up there, I would be fine. This person would take care of me.”
That sense of safety transforms the room. An audience that feels safe is an audience that participates more freely, laughs more easily, reacts more genuinely. An audience that feels unsafe is an audience that hides behind politeness.
I have tested this repeatedly in corporate settings across Austria. Same material, same venue size, same types of audiences. The only variable I changed was how I treated the volunteer. When I used names, made eye contact, and treated the interaction as a conversation between two people, the energy in the room was markedly higher. When I was more perfunctory — efficient but impersonal — the energy flattened.
The difference was not in the magic. The difference was in the humanity.
The Guest Framework
After the Vienna incident, I started thinking about volunteer management through a different lens. Not as a performance technique, but as hospitality.
I am Austrian. Hospitality is in our cultural DNA. The idea that a guest in your home should feel welcome, comfortable, and valued is not a performance concept — it is a deeply held social value. And when someone leaves their seat to join you on stage, they have entered your space. They are your guest.
The guest framework changed everything about how I handle volunteers. Here is what it looks like in practice.
When they arrive, welcome them. Not with a joke at their expense or an instruction barked through a microphone. With warmth. A handshake or a touch on the arm if it feels natural. Their name. Eye contact. A brief moment of human connection before anything else happens.
While they are with you, orient them. Tell them what is going to happen — not the secret, obviously, but the general shape of the interaction. “I am going to ask you to think of something, and then I am going to try to figure out what you are thinking. Sound good?” This is what good hosts do. They reduce uncertainty. They make the unknown feel manageable.
During the interaction, check in. Not constantly, not in a way that interrupts the flow, but periodically. A glance. A “You okay?” A smile that says, “We are in this together.” The volunteer should never feel stranded. They should never feel like they are alone on stage while you perform around them.
When it is over, close the experience. Do not just send them back. Thank them. Acknowledge them. Make the audience acknowledge them. Give them a moment — their moment — before they return to their seat.
This is not complicated. It is basic human decency applied to a performance context. But it is astonishing how many performers skip every single one of these steps.
The Prop Trap
Why do so many performers treat volunteers as props? I think there are two reasons, and I have been guilty of both.
The first is focus. When you are performing, your mind is occupied with a hundred things simultaneously. The method. The script. The timing. The audience’s attention. The technical requirements of whatever you are doing. In that mental storm, the volunteer can become just another element to manage — a variable in the equation, not a person in the room.
I catch myself doing this when I am performing something technically demanding. My attention narrows to the mechanics, and the volunteer becomes secondary. I have to consciously pull my focus back to the human being standing next to me. It requires deliberate effort, every time.
The second reason is ego. Some performers — and I include my earlier self in this category — see the stage as their space. The show is about them. The volunteer is there to serve the effect, which is there to serve the performer’s ego. In this framework, asking the volunteer’s name and making them comfortable is a distraction from the real business of being impressive.
This is exactly backwards. The real business is creating an experience. And the experience is not just for the audience watching from their seats. It is for the person standing next to you, who took a risk to be there.
Specific Practices I Have Adopted
Over the past few years, I have developed a set of habits that I now follow for every volunteer interaction. They are simple, but they took discipline to make automatic.
I always ask for the name first. Before any instruction, before any setup, before anything related to the effect. The name comes first because the person comes first.
I always repeat the name at least twice during the interaction. Not in a forced way — naturally, the way you would in conversation. “Claudia, I want you to think of a number.” “Claudia, hold onto that for me.” The repetition serves two purposes: it helps me remember the name (which is harder than it sounds when your mind is managing a performance), and it keeps reinforcing to both the volunteer and the audience that this is a personal interaction.
I never touch a volunteer without implicit or explicit permission. I do not grab arms, reposition shoulders, or steer people by their back. If I need someone to move, I gesture. “Could you step over here?” If physical contact is natural and welcome — a handshake, a high five after a big reveal — I let it happen organically. But I never impose it.
I never make the volunteer the target of a joke unless I am absolutely certain they will find it funny. And even then, I follow it immediately with something that elevates them. The safest humor in a volunteer interaction is self-deprecating. Make yourself the joke. Let them be the hero.
I always give the volunteer a moment of glory. At some point during the interaction, I create a beat where the audience’s attention is entirely on the volunteer in a positive way. A reaction shot. A moment where they do something impressive. An applause cue that is for them, not for the trick. The volunteer should have at least one moment where they feel like the star.
I always end with a genuine thank-you and their name. “Claudia, thank you — you were brilliant.” Not shouted for effect. Said with sincerity. The audience will judge the last thing they see, and the last thing they should see is you treating a person with genuine warmth.
The Ripple Effect
When you treat a volunteer well, the effect extends far beyond that single interaction.
At a corporate event in Graz, I spent about five minutes with a volunteer named Thomas. I asked his name, used it throughout, made him look good, gave him the big laugh, thanked him sincerely. Standard protocol. Nothing special from my perspective.
After the show, three different people from his department came to talk to me. Not about the magic. About Thomas. “He loved that.” “You made his night.” “He is going to be talking about this for weeks.”
Then one of them said something that stayed with me: “You could tell you actually cared about him up there. It was not just a trick.”
That comment encapsulates why the guest framework matters. The magic was good. The effect was strong. But what people remembered — what they talked about afterward, what they told their colleagues the next day — was how I treated their friend.
This is the ripple effect of treating volunteers as guests. The magic creates the moment. But the humanity creates the memory. And the memory is what gets you rehired, recommended, and remembered.
The Standard You Set
Every time you bring someone on stage, you set a standard. The audience watches how you treat that person and extrapolates. If you treat them well, the audience assumes you are a person who treats people well. If you treat them poorly, the audience assumes the opposite.
There is no neutral. There is no “he was focused on the trick, not on the volunteer.” The audience does not make that distinction. They see a person on stage with you, and they judge you by how you treat that person.
This is true in every area of life — consulting, leadership, relationships, parenting. But it is especially visible on stage, because the power dynamic is stark. You have the microphone, the script, the knowledge, and the authority. The volunteer has none of those things. They are vulnerable by definition. How you handle that vulnerability tells the audience everything they need to know about who you are.
I want them to know that I asked the name. That I used it. That I treated the person standing next to me as exactly what they are — not a prop, not a tool, not a functional element of a magic trick, but a guest.