Now the ‘woofle’ dust hast settled at Blackpool Magic Convention, I’m eagerly awaiting next years. A faultless event from the Blackpool team, and I take my ‘top hat’ off to Mark Waddington, for ensuring a seamless operation with the mobile app and social media. An excellent adventure was had in a fun filled, packed day, with my short trip to Blackpool. Great to see the Winter Gardens in full swing, with some ongoing development at the conference and exhibition centre.
Upon arrival, I made a bee-line for the World Magic Shop stand. It was a pleasure to see both David Penn and Wayne Fox doing what they do best, working the room with their latest effects. Their stand was very busy at the ballroom balcony, and I was happy to purchase Wayne’s ‘Light/Heavy’ and Dave’s ‘SBT’ after a demo with yours truly.
As a big fan of their products, which are always workers, they’ve been tried and tested by themselves out on the field. The Wizard Product Reviews always has a workers perspective of the products, and their own will not disappoint, with informative tutorials and solid packaging.
Next, I headed for the TV Magic lecture in the Renaissance room. It was a great turn out, with a panel of experts hosted by Luke Dancy. The panel of magic consultants consisted of; Tom Elderfield — recently worked on Ryan Tricks new show, Ali Cook —worked exclusively with Objective in numerous TV magic shows, Luke Dancy — consulted for celebrity magician Criss Angel for seven years, Rory Adams- creative mastermind behind Nobody Knows, Russ Stevens - Britain’s Got Talent’s magical expert, and creative genius Noel Qualter.
This was a great talk, that could have easily gone on for two hours. There were so many tips and advice about working in TV magic from the panel, sharing their valid opinions and anecdotes throughout the talk. With insightful discussion about pre-shows, editing and commissioning, it was an informative talk that I shall be putting into practice. There was also an excellent follow up talk on the Sunday, discussing Social Media Magic.
My new years resolution on more practice, less purchases, hasn’t quite gone to plan. Although I did restrain myself from magic books, but not without some deck of cards creeping in. After the TV Magic lecture I caught up with Luke Dancy, who had kindly reserved me the new Cherry Casinos in Sahara green. I could only reciprocate with handing him a deck of The Abandoned Room playing cards. Luke had craftily hidden some of the new cherries under his audiences seats, during his popular lecture. Top man!
We traversed the dealers hall and it was great to catch up with old and new friends. I spent some time talking cards with the awesome Owen Packard at Big Blind Media, as we discussed card storage. Check out this very smart deck display case Owen recommended from Kickstarter. And thank you Owen, for the complimentary Karnival Fatal Playing Cards. Awesome!
Mark Mason continued to prove himself the king of demos, with his faultless presentations of his new effects ‘Fourtunate’ by David Jonathan and ‘Juxtapad’ by Alex Laorre. Kieron Lefever was commanding an audience with ‘Isolated’ whilst Mark Traversoni demo’d the ice cool ‘Remaxed’ at Saturn Magic. I also managed to briefly catch ‘Out of the Blue’ from James at Magic World, Nicholas Lawrence’s ‘Blade’ with his team at Abstract Effects and Joao Miranda with his ‘Prison Deck’ demo.
Beau Cremer and Chris James were manning the fort at the very smart, understated, Nobody Knows stand with their cool wheel of fortune and excellent prizes. Daniel Garcia and FISM winner Eric Chien were set up in the Spanish hall, where Luke Dancy also had a stand for his brilliant ‘Skycap 2.0’ and his Blackpool exclusive ‘Pipped Off’. Also thank you to some encouraging words from the card legend John Carey, displaying ‘Destiny’ and his latest book. It was refreshing to see so much talent, with dealers sharing their passion in magic.
I picked up some Shuriken decks from Joshua Jays excellent Vanishing Inc stand, and also have Shin Lims NOC deck on pre-order. Christian Grace at Vanishing Inc, demo’d his great effect ‘Level One’, which proved very popular, selling out at the convention.
One of my favourite effects of the convention was presented by the gregarious Peter Eggink, ‘CTC’. Peter gave an excellent demo of his genius effect, and I highly recommend checking out his effects at Magic from Holland. I have no doubt this will prove very popular, with Dynamo making an appearance before his talk at Peters stand. I’m positive CTC will be gracing our screens on TV soon. It’s an awesome effect, and I felt it was the best of the convention.
As the convention came to close, we quickly perused some Magic books before seeing some excellent eye candy demo’d by Ilusionista Snake from Tumi Magic by Jhony Zam. I love their ‘Twisted Flavor’, and this effect is also made to perfection. Keep your eye’s peeled for ‘Delicious Change’.
Wrapping up for the day I also got introduced to the legendary Charlie Frye and his lovely wife Sherry, who both gave an excellent performance on Fridays gala show. Blackpool Magic Convention offered so much magic in one day, and I plan to make the full three days and galas next year. The Dutch Festival of Magic will be taking place soon, and I look forward to visiting Vegas next year for Magic Live!. Until next year, keep the magic alive!
Post edit: I forgot to include the post Blackpool chat on the Murphy’s Facebook Live:
