Naquada

Speaking to Andi Gladwin over the weekend, the line up for The Session 2008 is looking great.

The Session is now the only yearly specialist close-up magic convention in the country and is constantly breaking new ground by booking performers who have either never been to the UK or are rarely seen here. In the previous two years they have featured Lee Asher, Allan Ackerman, Paul Cummins, Tyler Wilson, Wayne Houchin, Kostya Kimlat, Robert Moreland and many others. This years Session features Chad Long (USA), Aaron Fisher (USA), Tome Stone (Sweden) Michael Vincent (UK), Matthew Dowden (UK) and Will Houston (UK)..
Seats are limited to 120 and can be booked direct on the site
The pretty pink fliers are also quite appealing, but no mention if the seats are also in the pretty pink colour as well..

The 36th International Magic Convention started around 7:30pm on Friday evening, its always great wandering round and running into people you know, or recognise, Magician Bingo is always a favorite pastime of ours when we’re there. Magician Bingo for those who don’t is a bit like buzzword bingo and the like, you get points for spotting various members of the magical fraternity, and points are added up on the last day’s gala show (normally where the points roll up), I probably should post the slightly loose rules at some point for those into the weirdness of it all, but generally Magician Bingo got off to a good start me me scoring a starter for 10 with JJ shopping in Tottenham court road.

The start of the evening was Guy Hollowingworth, Guy was presenting his ‘Expert at the card table‘ a 75 minute play and performance based around the book by S.W Erdnase. Another double word score on Magician Bingo with Andy Nyman, who I had a quick chat with as Derren Brown was sorting out his registration and was signing books (again forgetting mine for him to sign!)

Guy started his show with a demonstration of traveling aces, talking about the history of two gentlemen, SW Erdnase, and Milton Franklin Andrews, following their lives and disagreements, whilst showing some of the methods and techniques used by Erdnase and Andrews in their card cons

As he talked about Andrews ability to stack and cull cards, he slowly took a shuffled deck back to new deck order, dealing cards from the top, bottom and ‘middle’ of the deck, and dealing called for numbers of red, or black cards. A great solid show and very entertaining, presented as always to guys professional standard

Anthony Owen, was the first real lecture of the convention, presenting his ’some tricks’ lecture, commenting on how nice it was to be lecturing, remembering his youth sitting at the back of the show shuffling cards with others many years ago. I was also nice for me to be taken back to my youth at the the conventions! He covered some good material, although most of which I’ve got already, it was nice to see it as a reminder for me to hunt it out from the loft when I get back next week. His lecture coudl have been entitled ‘Various ways to stick cards together‘, as a lot of the material was based aroudn that wonderful blue glue we all have laying round the house. He explained ‘Holy Sh*t’ and his Son of a Bitch Oil and Water, probably the most clean and fair looking gaffed oil and water effect there is.

Dynamo was next to lecture, and you could tell he was nervous, he worked through a number of items he uses in his professional routine, and given this was his first lecture, ever, anywhere, I think he did pretty well. If the material didn’t come across as new or cutting edge, what did come across was that he has a great personality and enthusiasm, coupled with having some big names behind him, unfortunately he did also explain a certain coin in soda can effect, but he was honest, and fresh in how he talked to the audience (if not slightly disjointed on some stuff) and it was a pleasant end to the lectures.

Afterwards I caught up with a few more people, and I also had an extremely pleasant chat with David Berglas. I’d brought my Mind and Magic of David Berglas in the hope that he’s be here to sign it for me, and David was kind enough to inscribe it for me. We had a chat about the book, and how much I was enjoying reading it, and he seemed genuinely pleased that I’d brought the book and managed to find him. It was a great end to a long day.
Saturday was of course the main competition day, I’ve listed a full description of pretty much all the acts elsewhere but in summary, the standard was good, with some notable gems shining out;

John van der Put (UK) had a great funny personality, starting with a sponge rabbit routine, which was quite dry and funny, so that was an uplift to the running, He did a two deck prediction that seemed to go wrong, but he recovered by ‘restoring’ the wrong card to the correct one (including signature!) which was actually a really nice effect, quarter by quarter changing from a court card to the chosen card. The card was also handed out at the end.. John did a nice multiple card selection and various revelation section, the final revelation was a kind of card on window, but with a MacBook (bonus points from me if i was a judge!), the card being sprayed at the screen, one sticking to the inside of the screen. John then ran off stage to appear in the scene inside the macbook to retrieve the card, returning to take his applause. His humor throughout was good, and very entertaining.

Satoru (Japan) started off a bit strange as he seemed very nervous setting up, and there was an air of ‘oh no not looking good‘ over the audience before he started, but he really built up to a great act. Once he’d warmed up he managed to milk laughs and applause form the audience, and his approach was very fresh. Personal favorites where his ‘take a toothpick’, selecting a toothpick from a pack of 400 odd, to reveal the ‘chosen toothpick’, seeming to be a gag, it turned out that all the toothpicks had different coloured bottoms, and in fact he had correctly found the chosen one. Also favorite was a three person ’stamp on a card’ freely selected cards on the floor being stood on, and the selections being revealed on the bottom of his shoes, socks and finally feet, as a final kicker he produced a large umbrella from his sock and shoe bundle with the predictions again correctly spelt out on the umbrella. The consensus view was that we’d just seen the winner.

Lior Manor (Israel) did a generally quite amusing mentalism act, mainly focused around his bad english but intentionally funny, a jumbo poker hand type effect, where the spectator could select a card for his or Lior’s hands, there was a nice bit again at the end with another laptop (pc this time.. booo!) and a Lior on the laptop correctly interacting with the spectator to reveal a chosen number. Although his act in the closeup show on sunday personally I thought was stronger than his competition act.

Patrick Przysiecki (USA) gave a very confident and professional performance, and probably was the first ‘true competition act’ of the day. Patrick did a nice globe production from inside the closeup mat, and the globe theme carried on through the act, a signed note was burnt and found inside a smaller global (thanks to a Tommy Wonder move), and finishing with a 3 shell game routine, unfortunately set to rhyme, the final loads being large dice and ball, and him flattening the globe under the closeup mat to finish.

Gianfranco Preverino (Italy) Started with a clean printing of faces and backs on a blank deck, along with a colour change of the deck and then box. Some nice ace locations (roll over aces?) separation of reds and blacks, reordering of the deck, but a very very weak ending. It was a shame he almost just said, ‘..and thats it’.

Troy Von Scheibner (England) Despite his name, hes not German, he’s English, 18, black , funny and has great potential talent, as he said, not a old german dude but a 18 year old who wears hoodies and had cool hair. He did a very sharp and polished coin manipulation set in the style of Michael Jackson, and a short rope trick (knots on and off) in Bolloywood style, followed by a Kung Foo fighter section that didnt contain any magic as such… up to this point he’d had the audience laughing and warming to him, he then followed with a fair card trick, but seemed to be unhappy with the ending section and I think brought the audience down. I think he’s very raw talent, but has good things ahead.

Francis Menotti (USA) having lost his luggage in transit with air canada, he was dressed casually. He started with a deck in new deck order, and mimicked the shuffling of the deck with the mixing of the words in his sentences, the more the deck was mixed, the more mixed his words became, a selected card table on the place was, and find from order hard much could have been. He returned his sentences to the right order, and revealed the same had happened to the deck, back in new deck order. a small magic number effect with the outcome being 24, the location of the selected card in the deck, along with the number 24 on its back, and some by play with ‘nothing’ allowing him to make coins invisible (given you cant seen nothing and hence is nothing is on top of the coin, you cant see it as nothing is in the way) meant it was a strong act.

The winners of the Competition ended up as 1st. Satoru (Japan), 2nd. Pattrick Przysiecki (USA) and 3rd. Gainfranco Preverino (Italy), awards of merit went to Francis Menotti from the USA, and UK entries John van der Put and Troy Von Scheibner.

Saturdays lectures saw Al Schnieder, Just Alan and Mr Daba take to the stage. Al Schnieder, a legend for the invention of the matrix effect, was always going to be a lecture worth seeing, he started off with a great and very clean looking routine of coin vanishes and productions, a bit like mickey silver but without the swishes!! He then continued with a very neat and clean cups and balls routine, explaining a nice new pinch move. along with a clever little coin to silk, it was a good solid lecture with very usable material.

Just Alan, gave a lecture entitled ‘Thoughts to ponder on Transcending Technique’ which to be honest could have been a killer lecture, but it left me feeling a bit disappointed and flat. It didn’t start well with Just Alan starting the lecture again for technical reasons, and continuing to have failures and errors in the lecture as he went through. The main message of the session was to take the technique of an effect and work on it, to fit into your personality and persona.

Mr Daba explained a very good hold-out of his own design, and explained a number of practical uses of it.. It was very good, and I could see a lot of uses of it, even in the area of mentalism, so a good lecture there.

The close up show on Sunday was pretty good as well.. opening with Darwin Ortiz, Juan Ordeix and finally Francis Menotti. All three gave a great show, hosted by John Lenahan.

Sundays Lectures continued with Juan Ordeixm Darwin Oritz and Mr Daba. Ordeix opened with strong and compelling mentalism, a very clean book tests and a nifty method for swapping a note or card in front of the audience, on the whole a very good and workable lecture. Ordeix won the FISM mentalism category in Stockholm and the quality of this lecture was top notch.

Darwin Ortiz, gave a lecture which obviously contained very strong and technical card work, he also had reprints of card shark, and lecture notes with unpublished material, as well as the new book Designing Miracles and the solid work on theory and presentation Strong Magic.

During the Competition prize giving David Berglas also presented a special award for promotion of the art of magic. The 1st Berglas International Magic Award was presented to the Macmillan Family for their continued efforts and work organising International Magic Weekend. They got a standing ovation from the audience.

Sundays Gala Show Gala Show was on the whole very good again (both from a performance point of view and a Magician Bingo aspect, with a tripple word score on Alan Alan, Kovari and a Daniel Radcliffe look alike). The show opened with Jade from the USA, performing her chinese act, with silks, parasols, rice and water balls and a nice costume change at the end.

Jade was followed by Dana Daniels form the USA, a comedy magic act with Dwaine, the mind reading dove. Svetlana from the Ukraine was next, a contortion and modern dance act (with fire!) and was a good break from the magic. Francis Menotti again performed a great routine with an egg bag and mobile phone, with some great twists and touches that really made the egg bag special, even performing mentalism and predictions, down to predicting his own death on stage in a fantastic comical way.

After Francis’ body was dragged off stage the world class skills of Mahka Tendo from Japan produced some excellent card manipulations and productions. Just Alan opened the second half, and presented his award winning act The Sands of India, it was a lovely piece about an indian fakir, producing coloured sands from a bowl of water, a nice piece, and did make up for my disappointment yesterday. Juan Ordeix again did some mind blowing mentalism, three balloons with cards in through out to the audience matched three cards freely selected from the deck, a beyond explanation prediction of the money spent, bill serial number, playing card and date in a sealed envelope along with the actual money, and card left the audience lost for a method.

Voronin from the Ukraine just was singularly the best act, and should have closed, mixing the traditions of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, he held the audience with his silent act, polished and flawless it was a joy to watch, he even involved the rest of the gala show acts.. it was just wonderful. James Long, the traditional end of show illusion act closed, which I think was a shame, I dont think anyone could have followed Voronin, on his own, great but I think he looked weak after what I think was perfection. A tough slot to have. James did a number of good illusions, but it was a weak finish I think to a good show.
The convention was as I remember it a great weekend, the shaw theatre providing an excellent and very comfortable environment for the shows and lectures, dealers were a bit thin on the ground, I would have liked to have seen a bit more there, but pretty good on the whole.

The only downside of the weekend was the sheer number of Magicians in the UK now with iPhones, Andi Gladwin, Derren Brown, and others, all having geekiness over myself!!

JJ also has some nice photos over on the Opus Magazine Blog

InternationalMagic, magic

Tonights Gala Show was on the whole very good again. It opened with Jade from the USA, performing her chinese act, with silks, parasols, rice and water balls and a nice costume change at the end.

Jade was followed by Dana Daniels form the USA, a comedy magic act with Dwaine, the mind reading dove. Svetlana from the Ukraine was next, a contortion and modern dance act (with fire!) and was a good break from the magic.

Francis Menotti again performed a great routine with an egg bag and mobile phone, with some great twists and touches that really made the egg bag special, even performing mentalism and predictions, down to predicting his own death on stage in a fantastic comical way. After his body was dragged off stage the world class skills of Mahka Tendo from Japan produced some excellent card manipulations and productions.

Just Alan opened the second half, and presented his award winning act The Sands of India, it was a lovely piece about an indian fakir, producing coloured sands from a bowl of water, a nice piece, and did make up for my disappointment yesterday.

Juan Ordeix again did some mind blowing mentalism, three balloons with cards in through out to the audience matched three cards freely selected from the deck, a beyond explanation prediction of the money spent, bill serial number, playing card and date in a sealed envelope along with the actual money, and card left the audience lost for a method.

Voronin from the Ukraine just was singularly the best act, and should have closed, mixing the traditions of Buster Keaton and Jacques Tati, he held the audience with his silent act, polished and flawless it was a joy to watch, he even involved the rest of the gala show acts.. it was just wonderful.

James Long, the traditional end of show illusion act closed, which I think was a shame, I dont think anyone could have followed Voronin, on his own, great but I think he looked weak after what I think was perfection. A tough slot to have. James did a number of good illusions, but it was a weak finish I think to a good show..

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The offical results are:

1st. Satoru (Japan)

2nd. Pattrick Przysiecki (USA)

3rd. Gainfranco Preverino (Italy)

awards of merit went to Francis Menotti from the USA, and UK entries John van der Put and Troy Von Scheibner.

David Berglas also presented a special award for promotion of the art of magic. The 1st Berglas International Magic Award was presented to the Macmillan Family for their continued efforts and work organising International Magic Weekend. They got a standing ovation from the audience.

InternationalMagic, Magic

Todays lectures were the ones I had been looking forward to all weekend, Juan Ordeix, Darwin Ortiz and Francis Menotti.

Juan Ordeix opened with strong and compelling mentalism, a very clean book test, although similar I think to a Banachek idea, it was a good twist on a proven routine, and probably different enough to warrant it being new material. He then talked through another method for a book test, using a nice set of utility items, and a nice prediction using a wipeboard, a thought of image and a bit of preparation.

He also have a nifty method for swapping a note or card in front of the audience, although maybe not as workable as the other items, on the whole a very good and workable lecture.

Darwin Ortiz, gave a lecture which obviously contained very strong and technical card work, he also had reprints of card shark, and lecture notes with unpublished material, as well as the new book Designing Miracles and the solid work on theory and presentation Strong Magic. I got a copy of Designing Miracles, to go alongside the copy of Strong Magic I already own, and he was nice enough to inscribe both books to me afterwards.

Francis Menotti did a excellent lecture and really proved how good, and clever his material is. I’ve picked up he has a keen eye for little details and touches, often overlooked which make his performances really nice.

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The close up show today was pretty good as well.. opening with Darwin Ortiz, Juan Ordeix and finally Francis Menotti. All three gave a great show, hosted by John Lenahan.

Given Juan Ordeix’s mentalism act today, I’m looking forward to his lecture later on today.. He was the mentalism winner from FISM, and has some really great looking material

InternationalMagic, Magic

Todays Lectures were Al Schnieder (the man who invented the matrix!), Just Alan, and Mr Daba..

Al Schnieder, a legend for the invention of the matrix effect, was always going to be a lecture worth seeing, he started off with a great and very clean looking routine of coin vanishes and productions, a bit like mickey silver but without the swishes!! and then explained the simple and very effective method for making them disappear and appear at ease. He also explained a very convincing coins through cloth, and a nice silk vanish to coke bottle.

He then continued with a very neat and clean cups and balls routine, explaining a nice new pinch move. along with a clever little coin to silk, it was a good solid lecture with very usable material.

Just Alan, gave a lecture entitled ‘Thoughts to ponder on Transcending Technique’ which to be honest could have been a killer lecture, but it left me feeling a bit disappointed and flat. It didn’t start well with Just Alan, starting the lecture again for technical reasons, and continuing to have failures and errors in the lecture as he went through. The material was good, but I would have loved to have seen it shorter, or more material. It definitely wasnt the Eugene Burger type experience I was hoping it to be.. The main message of the session was to take the technique of an effect and work on it, to fit into your personality and persona. I was quite disappointed really..

Mr Daba explained a very good hold-out of his own design, and explained a number of practical uses of it.. It was very good, and I could see a lot of uses of it, even in the area of mentalism

generally a very good day.. only spoiled by the Premier Travel Inn giving me food poisoning!!!

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Well the competition started almost on time and in true style ran late, and later, and left the audience with something to be desired from some acts, JJ’s already done a fine job of running through the acts but my views are below (in running order)

Jerome Bourgeon (France)

Jerome opened the running with a taped commentary and voice over art, Jerome played a character based around his youth, and the cups and balls, there were some nice twists with his magic book that he was learning from reappearing under the cups over and over, he finished with a nice appearance of a fourth cup, and final acrylic ball loads, and a small to full sized book production to end, generally a good start to the day.

Kolos Tarkanyi (Hungary)

Opening with color changing decks and card cases, the theme seemed to be green. He did a lot of fast flourishes, a few of which he didnt quite pull off, but I was a little lost with the speed, loosing the idea of some of the appearances and appearances. He did have a good personality, and did some nice ace and ace through king productions of suits, but I dont think he’ll be in the prizes camp..

John van der Put (UK)

John had a great funny personality, starting with a sponge rabbit routine, which was quite dry and funny, so that was an uplift to the running, He did a two deck prediction that seemed to go wrong, but he recovered by ‘restoring’ the wrong card to the correct one (including signature!) which was actually a really nice effect, quarter by quarter changing from a court card to the chosen card. The card was also handed out at the end.. John did a nice multiple card selection and various revelation section, the final revelation was a kind of card on window, but with a MacBook (bonus points from me if i was a judge!), the card being sprayed at the screen, one sticking to the inside of the screen. John then ran off stage to appear in the scene inside the macbook to retrieve the card, returning to take his applause. His humor throughout was good, and I think personally he’s also i the running for something award wise…

Satoru (Japan)

I actually really liked Satoru’s act, it started off a bit oh no not looking good as he was setting up his act, but really built up to a great act. Once he’d warmed up he managed to milk laughs and applause form the audience, and his approach was very fresh. Personal favorites where his ‘take a toothpick’, selecting a toothpick from a pack of 400 odd, to reveal the ‘chosen toothpick’, seeming to be a gag, it turned out that all the toothpicks had different coloured bottoms, and in fact he had correctly found the chosen one. Also favorite was a three person ’stamp on a card’ freely selected cards on the floor being stood on, and the selections being revealed on the bottom of his shoes, socks and finally feet, as a final kicker he produced a large umbrella from his sock and shoe bundle with the predictions again correctly spelt out on the umbrella. I’m currently putting money on him winning.

Peter McLanachan (uk)

Peter McLanachan is at a technical card level well above most, running through flawless shuffles and ace locations, selected card at called for number, separation of reds and blacks in the deck and generally excellent card stuff, although very confident, and solid, I get the feeling that he’s probably not going to get anything, which is a shame, but I’d like to be proved wrong.

Shorty (Switzerland)

Not a great act and definitely not a closeup act, this was entirely stage, based around a street character, there were cigarette productions and cigar work (all lit), I wasnt quite sure what he was doing when he was jiggling on stage and undoing his zipper, it seemed he had the urge to pull a silk from his crotch… Not on the shortlist..

Alex Moffat (UK)

Generally ok, he started with a reboxing of the deck back into the box, multiple decks coming out of the same box and a pen form box. generally presentable personality, and threw in a nice broken and restore spectacle arm, it was an ok act, but again, not one of the winners I think.

Lior Manor (Israel)

Generally quite amusing, mainly focused around his bad english but intentionally funny, a jumbo poker hand type effect, where the spectator could select a card for his or Lior’s hands, there was a nice bit again at the end with another laptop (pc this time.. booo!) and a Lior on the laptop correctly interacting with the spectator to reveal a chosen number. Again I’m not sure he’s on the winning list, but as a generally entertaining act he might get a merit award

Patrick Przysiecki (USA)

Very confident and professional, and probably the first ‘true competition act’ of the day. Patrick did a nice globe production from inside the closeup mat, and the globe theme carried on through the act, a signed note was burnt and found inside a smaller global (thanks to a Tommy Wonder move), and finishing with a 3 shell game routine, unfortunately set to rhyme, the final loads being large dice and ball, and him flattening the globe under the closeup mat to finish. Given the material and general crowd pleasing, he’ll more than likely get an award.

Gianfranco Preverino (Italy)

Started with a clean printing of faces and backs on a blank deck, along with a colour change of the deck and then box. Some nice ace locations (roll over aces?) separation of reds and blacks, reordering of the deck, but a very very weak ending. It was a shame he almost just said, ‘..and thats it’. Generally very good, but might get let down by the anticlimax ending, I think probably he should get something..

Troy Von Scheibner (England)

Despite his name, hes not German, he’s English, 18, black , funny and great potential talent, as he said, not a old german dude but a 18 year old who wears hoodies and had cool hair. He did a very sharp and polished coin manipulation set in the style of Michael Jackson, and a short rope trick (knots on and off) in Bolloywood style, followed by a Kung Foo fighter section that didnt contain any magic as such… up to this point he’d had the audience laughing and warming to him, he then followed with a fair card trick, but seemed to be unhappy with the ending section and I think brought the audience down. I think he’s very raw talent, but has good things ahead.. I doubt he’ll get anything this time round, although a merit might be a surprise here.

Francis Menotti (USA)

Having lost his luggage in transit with air canada, he was dressed casually. He started with a deck in new deck order, and mimicked the shuffling of the deck with the mixing of the words in his sentences, the more the deck was mixed, the more mixed his words became, a selected card table on the place was, and find from order hard much could have been. He returned his sentences to the right order, and revealed the same had happened to the deck, back in new deck order. a small magic number effect with the outcome being 24, the location of the selected card in the deck, along with the number 24 on its back, and some by play with ‘nothing’ allowing him to make coins invisible (given you cant seen nothing and hence is nothing is on top of the coin, you cant see it as nothing is in the way) meant it was a strong act. Another personal favorite to get some award.

Jon Gordon (UK)

I didnt like this act, Jon performed standing with no table, he did a coin in glass routine, a ring on rope/cord with a spectators ring, ending up with a ring flight. There was a selected card that ended up pinned to the front of his jacket, but it didn’t catch me.. probably not a winner but a fair end to the day..

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So the first days been pretty good so far, after a chinese in china town we headed back to the Shaw Theatre and the Novotel to wait for 7:30pm and the start of the weekend..

We ran into (or past) depending on how you see it a few people on the way, JJ was obviously upgrading the van with technology as we saw him shopping in some of the electrical shops on Tottenham Court road, we even passed the old venue, which seems to now be a spearmint rhino!!

I met up with Andy Nyman again, and we had a brief chat whilst Derren Brown was getting his registration details and badge sorted, again I didn’t have the books to get him to sign!

After the standard delayed opening of the doors (given the program said 6:30, the registration desk said 7 and the theatre announced 7:30) we headed in and sat ready for the evenings line up.

First up was Guy Hollowingworth, Guy was presenting his ‘Expert at the card table‘ a 75 minute play and performance based around the book by S.W Erdnase. I didn’t quite know what to expect, given that it was billed as a play, as opposed to a lecture, but it was very enjoyable. Guy started with a demonstration of traveling aces, talking about the history of two gentlemen, SW Erdnase, and Milton Franklin Andrews, following their lives and disagreements, whilst showing some of the methods and techniques used by Erdnase and Andrews in their card cons.

Guy, as always presented the part beautifully, whilst also showing just why he is one of the most respected card technicians of today. As he talked about Andrews ability to stack and cull cards, he slowly took a shuffled deck back to new deck order, dealing cards from the top, bottom and ‘middle’ of the deck, and dealing called for numbers of red, or black cards. Ultimately revealing the mystery that still surrounds S.W Erdnase, and the book, Expert at the card table.

After Guy, Anthony Owen took to the stage, presenting ’some tricks’ which was mainly around the material in his previous books, ‘some tricks’ and ’some more tricks’ . He said it was touching for him to lecture at international, given his history with it, and remembering sitting at the back in his youth shuffling cards. It does seem like not that long ago I saw him there, in the days of the Dungeon and before.

Anthony covered some good material, although most of which I’ve got already, it was nice to see it as a reminder for me to hunt it out from the loft when I get back next week. The lecture could really have been called ‘various ways to stick cards together’ as a lot of material was based around that wonderful blue glue we all have laying about. ‘Holy Sh*t’ was explained in detail, and is actually a very nice trick, but my favorite was his (and I think I have the name right) Son of a bitch oil and water. This is probably the most clean and visual oil and water effect, and I remember him showing it to me years ago at I think a southport IBM convention, even then it was so clean, and ultimately, simple.

Dynamo was next to lecture, and you could tell he was nervous, he worked through a number of items he uses in his professional routine, and given this was his first lecture, ever, anywhere, I think he did pretty well. If the material didn’t come across as new or cutting edge, what did come across was that he has a great personality and enthusiasm, coupled with having some big names behind him. He was honest, and fresh in how he talked to the audience (if not slightly disjointed on some stuff). It was a pleasant end to the lectures.

Afterwards I caught up with a few more people, and I also had an extremely pleasant chat with David Berglas. I’d brought my Mind and Magic of David Berglas in the hope that he’s be here to sign it for me. I darted back to the hotel and got it and David was kind enough to inscribe it for me. We had a chat about the book, and how much I was enjoying reading it, and he seemed genuinely pleased that I’d brought the book and managed to find him. It was a great end to a long day.

DavidBerglas, InternationalMagic, Magic, mindandmagic, GuyHollingworth, Dynamo, AnthonyOwen, erdnase, ExpertAtTheCardTable

Well I have successfully settled into the Premier Travel Inn on Dukes Road (just off Euston Road), placing me about 30 seconds from the Shaw Theatre ready for tonights kick off at 7pm, I’m looking forward to seeing Guy Hollingworth and Anthony Owen, although I think I could live without Dynamo (nice guy that he is), but I think it would be rude to skip that one..

The hotel is nice and cheap (ish!) and its got wireless, which is an added bonus and should be handy for updates over the next few days..

Now it’s food time, and we’re mainly meeting up in Leicester Square for some chinese I think and drinks before the walk back to Kings Cross..

InternationalMagic, Magic