Something I’ve never seen at other conventions was the ‘Commercial Magic Panel Discussion’, The Session had brought together some of the most busy and well know commercial magicians attending this years session together to talk about the business, and their own personal experiences.

Noel Qualter, John Guastaferro, Kerry Scorah, Rob James and Jon Allen (with music by Tim Sutton on the accordion to start off!) made up the panel, who started to answer the questions put by Andi Gladwin.

Although at first this was slow to start, and I was struggling to see the worth of the questions, it quickly turned into a very interesting, and funny discussion around their work. from describing the funniest situation they’d ever been asked to work in, the changes happening in magic today, through to what skills a successful commerical magician need today, and how to take the right bookings for you through to fees and prices that are acceptable, or make sense in the business currently.

At the end of the questions, it was opened up to the floor to ask the panel, and a number of interesting questions came up. The nice thing was that the panel took each question, and answered them with a fair bit of humor, so it was both educational and funny at the same time.

It was definably something I’d like to see again next time, and from the comments after the session, so would many others.