The first time a volunteer got a bigger laugh than me, I panicked.
It was a corporate event in Vienna, maybe eighteen months into my performing career. I had brought a man named Stefan up for a mentalism piece. He was in his mid-forties, clearly the office comedian, and the moment he reached the stage he turned to his colleagues and gave them an exaggerated bow. The room erupted. Not polite chuckles — genuine, full-bodied laughter.
I stood there holding my props, waiting for the laughter to subside, and I felt something ugly and immediate: jealousy. This was my stage. This was my show. And this man, who had been on stage for approximately four seconds, was getting a bigger reaction than anything I had earned in the previous ten minutes.
My instinct — and I am not proud of this, but I am being honest — was to reassert control. To say something clever that would redirect attention back to me. To make a joke that would top his moment. To remind the room who the performer was.
I did not do any of those things. Not because I was wise enough to know better, but because I froze. I could not think of anything clever fast enough, so I just stood there and let the moment happen. Stefan milked it for another few seconds, then turned to me with a grin and said, “Okay, I am ready.”
The room laughed again. And then something unexpected happened. As I started the actual routine, the audience was warmer than they had been before. More engaged. More responsive. The energy had not been stolen from me by Stefan’s moment. It had been amplified. His laugh had loosened the room, broken down whatever remaining formality existed, and created an atmosphere where people felt permission to react freely.
By the end of the routine, the audience gave me the strongest reaction of the night. Not despite Stefan’s moment. Because of it.
The Scarcity Mindset
The instinct to compete with your volunteer for laughs comes from a scarcity mindset. It is the belief that attention is a finite resource, and any attention directed at the volunteer is attention subtracted from you.
This belief is wrong. Attention in a live performance is not a zero-sum game. It is a generative system. When the audience laughs at the volunteer, they are not laughing instead of laughing at you. They are warming up. They are loosening. They are building the emotional momentum that will make your big moments land harder.
I came to understand this through a parallel in my consulting work. In strategy sessions, the consultant who tries to be the smartest person in the room every single moment creates an exhausting, combative atmosphere. The consultant who sets up other people to have insights — who asks the right question and then steps back while the client has the breakthrough — creates an atmosphere of trust, collaboration, and genuine progress. And paradoxically, the second consultant is perceived as more valuable, not less.
The same dynamic plays out on stage. The performer who insists on getting every laugh, every reaction, every moment of attention creates a show that feels competitive and slightly desperate. The performer who creates moments where the volunteer shines — where the audience laughs with the volunteer, celebrates the volunteer, delights in the volunteer — creates a show that feels generous and confident.
Generosity on stage is a power move. It says: I am so secure in my ability to deliver that I can afford to share the spotlight. That confidence is magnetic.
Engineering the Volunteer’s Moment
After the Stefan experience, I started paying attention to how other performers handled volunteer humor. And I noticed a pattern among the best ones: the funniest moments involving volunteers were not accidents. They were engineered.
Not scripted in the sense that the volunteer was told what to say. But designed in the sense that the performer had created conditions where the volunteer was likely to do something funny, and then had the discipline to step back and let it happen.
Scott Alexander’s approach to stand-up magic, which I studied extensively, includes a principle that revolutionized how I think about volunteer interactions. The idea is that the performer should build the frame, and then let the volunteer fill it. You create the context, the setup, the expectation — and then you give the volunteer a moment where whatever they do naturally will get a reaction.
Here is a simple example. If you ask a volunteer to choose a number between one and ten, that is a neutral moment. Nothing funny about it. But if you build a thirty-second narrative about how this next part requires someone with extraordinary mental abilities, and then you ask the volunteer to choose a number between one and ten, the gap between the grand setup and the trivial task creates comedy. The volunteer does not have to do anything funny. The situation is funny. And the laugh belongs to the volunteer, because they are the one standing there.
I have built several of these moments into my show. They are structural — part of the design of the interaction, not improvised — but they look spontaneous. The audience thinks the volunteer said something hilarious. In reality, the volunteer said something perfectly normal in a context I had carefully constructed to make normal things funny.
The Power of the Reaction Shot
There is a technique from television that translates directly to live performance, and I think about it constantly. In television comedy, some of the biggest laughs come not from the person delivering the joke but from the reaction shot — the cut to someone’s face as they process what just happened.
On stage, you can create the same effect. When something astonishing or funny happens, do not look at the audience. Look at the volunteer. Let your face register surprise, delight, or confusion. The audience will follow your eyes to the volunteer, and whatever expression the volunteer is wearing becomes the moment.
If the volunteer is laughing, the audience laughs harder. If the volunteer looks stunned, the audience feels the astonishment more deeply. If the volunteer says something unscripted and funny, your reaction — genuine or performed — amplifies it.
This is what I mean by letting the volunteer get the laugh. You are not passive. You are actively creating the conditions for the volunteer to be the star of the moment. You are the director. They are the lead. And the audience loves the lead more when the director knows how to get out of the way.
Why My Ego Had to Shrink
I will be honest about why this was hard for me. I came to magic from a professional background where expertise was my currency. In consulting, you are paid to be the smartest person in the room. You prepare more, know more, analyze more. Your value comes from being demonstrably brilliant.
Performing magic triggered the same instincts. I was the one who had practiced for hundreds of hours. I was the one who had studied the material, designed the routines, learned the psychology. The volunteer walked up knowing nothing and having prepared nothing. Why should they get the big moment?
This is the ego talking, and the ego is wrong.
The volunteer getting the laugh does not diminish you. It reveals something about you that is far more valuable than cleverness: it reveals generosity. It shows the audience that you care more about the experience than about your own status. It demonstrates that your confidence does not depend on being the center of attention every second.
In comedy, the best straight man is often more skilled than the comedian. It takes discipline and craft to set someone else up for the laugh. It takes ego strength to deliver a line that makes someone else look brilliant. The straight man who resents the comedian’s laughs is unwatchable. The straight man who delights in them is beloved.
I had to learn to be the straight man in my own show. To build the setups, create the conditions, and then step back with genuine pleasure when the volunteer delivered.
Practical Applications
Let me share some specific techniques I use to create moments where the volunteer shines.
The echo technique. When a volunteer says something naturally funny or unexpected, I repeat it. Not mockingly — appreciatively. If the volunteer makes an off-script comment and the audience chuckles, I turn to the audience and repeat what was said, with a look that says, “Did you catch that?” This gives the volunteer’s moment a second beat, a second laugh, and signals to the audience that I enjoyed it too.
The slow build. I give instructions incrementally, and after each step I pause and let the audience appreciate the volunteer’s participation. Instead of rushing through the setup to get to my moment, I let each of the volunteer’s contributions land. Their choices, their reactions, their expressions — each one gets a beat.
The genuine compliment. At some point during every volunteer interaction, I say something genuinely positive about the volunteer to the audience. “She is much braver than I would be.” “He is handling this better than anyone I have worked with.” “I wish all my volunteers were this quick.” The compliment is real, it is specific, and it positions the volunteer as someone the audience should admire.
The callback. If the volunteer does something memorable during the interaction, I reference it later in the show. “Remember when Stefan took his bow? That is exactly the level of confidence I am looking for from all of you.” The callback keeps the volunteer alive in the show’s narrative even after they have returned to their seat, and it signals to the audience that the volunteer’s contribution was valued and remembered.
The Paradox of Giving Credit
Here is the paradox that took me years to understand: the more credit you give the volunteer, the more credit the audience gives you.
When I make a volunteer look brilliant, the audience does not think the volunteer is a better performer than me. They think I am a generous, confident, skilled performer who can create magical moments and make people shine while doing it. The volunteer’s success becomes evidence of my competence.
When I compete with the volunteer for attention, the audience does not think I am more talented. They think I am insecure. They think I am threatened by a civilian. And they wonder why a professional performer feels the need to outshine an untrained stranger.
The math is simple. Let the volunteer shine, and you both win. Compete with the volunteer, and you both lose.
What Stefan Taught Me
I think about Stefan often. Not because what happened was extraordinary — a gregarious man getting a laugh at a corporate event is not unusual. But because my reaction to it revealed something about my performing mindset that needed to change.
I was performing from a place of scarcity. I believed that attention was limited and that every laugh the volunteer got was a laugh I lost. I believed that the show was about me — my skills, my effects, my timing, my personality. The volunteer was a supporting character in my narrative.
Stefan showed me, accidentally and without knowing it, that the show is not about me. The show is about the room. The show is about two hundred people having an experience together. And the best experiences are the ones where everyone gets to participate in the joy — including the volunteer.
Now, when a volunteer gets a big laugh, I do not panic. I smile. I step back. I let the moment breathe. And then I build on it, because a room that is already laughing is a room that is ready for anything.
The Long Game
Being generous with your volunteers is a long-game strategy. In the short term, it might feel like you are giving away moments that should be yours. In the long term, it builds something that technical skill alone cannot: a reputation for being someone people want to work with.
Event planners talk to each other. Clients compare notes. And what they remember is not the specific effects you performed. They remember how you made people feel. “He was so good with the volunteers.” “She made everyone feel comfortable.” “The people he brought up on stage had the time of their lives.”
That is the reputation that fills calendars. That is the reputation that gets you rehired. Not “his tricks were amazing.” That is nice. But “he made our people feel like stars” — that is what seals the deal.
Every volunteer who walks back to their seat feeling brilliant is an ambassador for your work. Every colleague who watched their friend have a great time on stage is a future client. Every laugh you let the volunteer have is an investment in a career that depends not on how good your magic is, but on how good you make people feel.
Stefan took his bow and the room exploded. I stood there, smiled, and let him have his moment. It was the best decision I made that night.