MAGIC Live! starts properly tomorrow. Today is a travelling day but registration has been open all day meaning there were no queues to get registered and the wait time for the photo badge (your face on the cover of MAGIC magazine as in previous years) was reasonably short.

In the registration bag is a sealed envelope. You can leave it shut and therefore be surprised by all the events. Alternatively it can be opened to reveal a full itinerary of the days events. The line-ups of the evening shows are still a secret though.

This year the seating for the shows is unallocated and being done in groups. The earlier that you bought your ticket for the convention, the earlier you are allowed in to choose your seats. I am in group C which means that for each of the three shows I will have to wait for 50-75% of the audience to sit down before I can. I have a suspicion this means that it’s very unlikely I will ever be able to get a particularly good seat… but we’ll see.

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.