Craig Mitchell has kindly sent some of his on the ground reporting, which he’s covering over on the Genii Forum as well from Kentucky:

Just finished the finals of the Close-up contest - with the winner being decided by an audience vote.

The toss-up is between Shawn Farquhar & Marc Oberon - who had a particularly strong showing today.

The results will be announced on tonight’s show. Also, a combined convention may well take place now every 5 years.

Eberhard Riese followed with a lecture on “The Evolution of An Act” A brave young performer demoed her act - Eberhard then went ahead and reworked it, going through the steps he covers in making an act that much stronger.

His list of steps in putting an act together and improving it are what many would term ‘common sense’ but as we well know - in magic that is so often in short supply, and it is such a great pity that more magicians don’t take his words to heart.

In summary, a very useful lecture - reinforcing quite a few of my comments already made on the contest acts ( such as when does seeing a millionth parasol become boring ) Topas assisted Eberhard and covered the ‘character of the magician’ as the victim, killer and witness ( or whether the magic happens to you or you cause the magic to happen ). His performance of the Professors Nightmare as each of these characters was worth the price of admission. Topas is truly a great performer.

4 pm saw a FISM Update by Eric Eswin - a brief overview of FISM, its structures and their continued quest for continental championships. As many will know - IBM SAM was potentially going to be a FISM North America before the plan was nixed by saner heads. Despite the unwillingness of the individual societies ( IBM, SAM, Magic Castle, CAM ) to buy into the concept of FISM North America and the loss of autonomy that this would entail ( and more likely financial requirements ), FISM seem determined that this is still going to take place in future.

I can only imagine the difficulties in trying to bring 2 organisations such as IBM and SAM together with all their respective committees and councils - I question whether adding a further 2 to the mix could ever be possible - or what possible benefits any of the societies would receive for such a scheme.