Every clown has had at least one show where someone in the audience, child or adult, has attempted to or has ruined the show for everyone else. There are three ways of dealing this situation as a clown and it is important to know which one works best at any given time.

1. Use Them: Most of the time when someone is heckling a performer it is because they feel that they deserve of the attention that the performer is receiving. The best situation for this strategy is a stage or birthday party show. You should bring the heckler up to the stage area and make them a small part of the show, using them for something as small as holding your props or retrieving your juggling props as you drop them. Typically once they have been a part of the show they will sit quietly for the rest of your performance.
2. Ignore Them: This is most effective to use against adults at a birthday party. By not acknowledging their disruption or allowing them to interrupt the show they will get frustrated, giving up to harass someone else or quiet down. A lot of adults become hecklers because they want to be the center of attention. Once the rest of the audience sees you ignoring the heckler they will follow suit and the heckler will not get any response and will quiet down.
3. Leave Them: This is the hardest strategy to use but is sometimes necessary. The first thing to do is to ask the politely for the heckler to please stop disrupting the performance. That way the host or hostess of the party will notice what they are doing and hopefully step in and stop the heckler. If they continue to heckle, ask them a second time, mention that you will be stopping the performance and leaving if they persist. If they continue, start packing up and get ready to leave. Once you are all packed and ready, if the host\hostess hasn’t come to talk to you yet, find the host\hostess and collect your fee. Typically, at this point, the host\hostess will ask you to stay and will stop the heckler, hopefully moving them to a different part of the part of the house. This method is only to be used in the most dire circumstances, typically when Uncle Dude gets drunk at a birthday party.

Using these three strategies to handle hecklers at a show will allow you to be prepared for any event while still maintaining a professional attitude and appearance. Remember that as a clown you must never stoop to the level of the heckler, no matter how satisfying it might be.