After a few weeks holiday to recover from the Convention it was back into the thick of it with my many corporate magic shows and events. I was invited to lecture for Bradford Circle Of Magicians and also appear in their Theatre show at the theatre in Bingley. I love doing these kind of shows as they are always light hearted and great fun to be a part of. The line up of acts were a mixture of semi professional and amateur performers with myself topping the bill as the professional magic act.

I had a my assistant/ dancer Stacey join me again and we had a great show.

With the success of the Blackpool Magic Convention 2009 in the bag I received the exciting news that Derek Lever on behalf of the  Blackpool Magicians’ Club was planning to bid to become the 2012 host for the FISM World Championships of Magic.

These championships held every three years in a different host city/ country each time, this years being in Beijing, China. It brings together the finest magicians across the world who compete in different categories of magic to win the title of World Champion of Magic’

The many areas of magic included are:

Stage/ General Magic

Illusion

Close Up Table Magic

Parlour Magic

Micro Magic

Mentalism

Comedy Magic

Manipulation Magic

So a small delegation including myself was put together to head to Beijing to present the bid for Blackpool at the end of July. We headed over to the Asian capital via numerous long flights and finally reached the amazing hotel close by to the enormous convention centre.

The championships kicked off with some amazing 2000 delegate social banquets and exotic Chinese acrobatic displays Watch Here along with the impressive opening stage and close up magic competition rounds.

We had our exhibition stand and after numerous calls to UPS in Beijing in order to clear our display materials through customs we were able to create our trade show area.

We did plenty of networking and meeting of the many international delegates throughout the week along with catching the numerous competitions in order to spot the quality acts worth bringing to Blackpool in the coming years.

As the months have flown by this year I have found myself with a whole stack of things to cram into my blog but not a minute to spare to type it all up. So here I am onboard a cruise ship along the coast of Spain with a view of the ocean in front of me and not a scrap of land in sight with at last a few spare hours to get my manic year into words.

After the theatre show in January we went straight into the Showzam festival in Blackpool which was in it’s second year. It is a festival of Comedy, Circus, Variety and Magic around the seaside resort. With numerous events taking place in the town including sideshow attractions, variety shows, street theatre and international magic shows.

I was asked to perform at the VIP festival launch party which was held at Showzam central in Blackpool’s Olympia Hall which played host to Jon Marshall’s  amazing sideshow recreations such as ‘Girl in a fish bowl’ ‘The disembodied girl’ and numerous others. I have always loved these kind of carnival curiosities and is possibly one of the things that sparked my interest in magic as a child.

Myself and a whole team of fantastic close up magicians such as Marc Oberon, Harry Robson, Mike Shepherd, Andrew Dean and Danny Hunt performed close up table magic worked throughout the festival at various venues around the town to promote the Showzam programme of events. It is always to get together with a team such as this as there is always time for bit of social banter and sharing of a trick or two.

 Throughout the festival my mind was primarily focused on the end of February as I heavily involved with the orgainisation of Blackpool Magic Convention which is the largest magic convention in the world. It attracts 3500 magicians every year from across the globe and welcomes the biggest stars of magic, illusion and mentalism to perform at this amazing 3 day conference.

As Assistant Convention Organiser I work long and hard to help ensure that the operations side of the convention runs like clock work. With only a core team of about 6 people headed by Derek Lever it is a mammoth task that saw me barely survive a 60 hour schedule over the 3 days ) although a couple of those hours did include a drink or two with old friends).

This year we had some of the finest magicians in the world today including Joshua Jay, Daniel Garcia, Dan and Dave Buck, Rick Merrill, Jeff McBride, Eugene Burger, Dirk Losander and many more.

We had a surprise guest, top US Magician and showman David Blaine join us for the weekend, which was a fantastic coup for us. He was a great sport and welcomed all photos and autograph requests far from the elusive image he often portrays in the media.

It is great fun to be a part of this organisation as I have attended this annual convention every year since I was ten years old and is the place that inspired me to become a professional magician and enable me to travel the world and experience some amazing things. So now to be able to work on this record breaking convention from the ground up and hopefully allow other young budding magicians to be able to experience what I did all those years ago is very rewarding. 

In between the different events I managed to catch up with my fellow magic friends and make some new pals such as Daniel Garcia who is well on the way to becoming one of the leading magicians in the US and regularly works as an advisor for David Blaine’s TV shows. A great magical mind with an awesome sense of humour.
 

It was another amazing convention and for many it was the best they had ever attended. For me it was a great weekend of breathtaking close up magic and slight of hand wizardry, grand stage illusion at it’s best and whole bag of fun.

Onto next year which we hope will be even bigger and better!!!

Time to update goings on in my world. It has been a great start to 2009 with several great projects already completed.

For the past 5 years I have produced a theatre show at a local theatre and this year’s came at the end of January. Myself and my colleague Paul Roberts and my team of dancers put together a 2 hour magic variety show. It is a very time consuming project but always great fun to do. It gives me the opportunity to try new ideas and create scenes in a controlled environemnt which isnt always possible at corporate events where the environment is dictated by the client.

All in all it was a great show with once again a great audience.