It all comes down to how you portray yourself in your act. Are you a technical juggler? performing a comedy routine? Do you speak? Do you perform to music?

Some people have sugested various drop lines. ("funny" remarks you can make to recover.) These can be useful if you are doing a street show, or some form of comedy routine where you're speaking to the audience. I personally don't like the "sudden gust of gravity" approach because I think it's horribly cheesy. Some people swear by it.

If you are performing to music, just pick the ball up and carry on from where you left off. Learning to kick it up into a pattern is an option here, but basically remain calm, pick it up and carry on from where you were. The important thing is not to panic or look flustered.

Above all, stay in character! If you're presenting a serious, technical piece using drop lines are no good at all as they will cause you to break character and spoil the flow of the performance more than the drop did!

As for ways of getting a ball off the floor and into your hand, picking it up is the easiest, rolling it onto your foot and kicking it up is an option, as is having an audience member throw it back to you.

LP

Seconded, although that is Two Important Things (TM):

1) don't panic! That way you avoid the big rush of adrenaline that screws up your ability to control your arms and coats you in a layer of sweat, making drops more likely.

2) don't *look* flustered. Audiences will forgive most things but will resent a performer who makes them feel embarassed for him/her. This is intrinsic in clowns, but in a juggler, if you're happy with your drops (after all, it merely goes to show how tough some of this stuff is and how brave you are to attempt it) then they will normally forgive you. If on the other hand you look like you are getting annoyed with yourself, the audience will try to find something to amuse themselves while you die a horrible death alone on stage. Not that I'm trying to put you off or anything.

Sweavo