Monday morning’s events kicked off with a video shot by David Williamson on his way to the convention along with a puppet version of Dai Vernon. As you would expect from David, very funny indeed. We then heard David Copperfield’s voice apologising that he couldn’t make it as he was too busy enjoying himself on his private island!

Stan Allen introduced Paul Gertner who was the host for the morning and first up to address the crowd was Richard Mcdougall who told us that “the general state of magic at the moment is lamentable”. Which of course, is correct but not often addressed. He asked: “when was the last time that we truly felt the hairs stand up on the back on the back of our necks after watching magic?” (actually, for me it was a few days ago watching Penn & Teller’s superb show at the Rio). By showing us clips from the Olympics and a Michael Jackson concert, he illustrated what truly well-orchestrated theatre looks like and finished by urging everyone to “try and put the humanity back in to our magic” and to stop working in isolation. His presentation was very well received.

A short video from Michael Weber explained that the room keys that we all have the hotel all have the ability to be used for two psychological forces. Paul Gertner’s main section followed next as he explained some of the work on the classic force. His out-of-print pamphlet on the force were given away free at the end as part of the notes from the morning. The main topic in his section was how to script magic for a trade show environment and he invited two fellow trade-show workers to perform the professor’s nightmare rope trick as they would if they were using it to promote a product. Mark Phillips performed using patter for a paint firm, Lee Terbosic used a script he would use if he was working for Xerox and finally Paul himself using a presentation for IHOP – not the pancake house but rather, as we are in Sin City after all, the “International House of Pleasure”. His routine was helped along by three ladies all suitably attired and a few magicians in the audience looked like they were thinking that perhaps they should have sat closer to the front.

Eric Mead was next on stage for a short section called “rhetorical answers” where he emphasised the importance for young magicians to educate themselves correctly through studying of the literature rather than ellusionist forums. For the final “Talk about Tricks” section, rather than Joshua Jay who has had an accident and fractured his wrist, we had John Lovick stepping in to observe proceedings. John was joined firstly by Daniel Garcia performing and explaining an impromptu version of Wenk’s Misled using a clear plastic straw. Simon Aronson followed explaining a self-working card trick that on this occasion, much to the amusement of the audience, didn’t quite work. He had more success with a two card transposition effect. Finally from Denmark, Rune Klan performed an excellent trick with two socks, a knife and a pool cue, some visual coin magic and a funny vanishing pizza.

Rob James is a close up magician from the UK. He co-founded The Session convention and has performed all over the UK and Europe, Dubai and on two occasions at the Magic Castle.