The intercontinental Stage Magic Championships, started with a tribute to those of our family who had passed on and would be greatly missed at Blackpool this year. Ali Bongo, Pat Page and Mahka Tendo. The championship itself was quite short this year, with just five entrants.

Dave Allen & Carl Charlsworth (UK)
Jung Min Lee (Korea)
Hyung Joom Kim (Korea)
Mist (UK)
Sandro Ricoli (Austria)

I dont think the standard was as high as last year, although as always with Korea the level of manipulation skills was very high. Mist suffered from some bad angles from the circle and (presumably the balcony) which exposed a few of their illusions.

The results placed the entrants as:

1st Place - Hyung Joom Kim (Korea)
2nd Place - Jung Min Lee (Korea)
3rd Place - Sandro Ricoli (Austria)

Sandy Marshall talked about his father James Ward Marshall, better known to magicians as Jay. This was a very interesting talk about a man with an amazing knowledge and thirst for magic. We were lucky to hear many amusing stories about Jay’s life and career. Tales of involvement with all the greats of magic like Blackstone and some funny stories of Jay’s early romances.  This wasn’t just a talk about his father, but about all the amazing magicians, comedians, actors and politicians that shaped the times that Jay Marshall grew-up through.

After leaving the Army as a Sergeant he went straight into magic. Great stories about his agent followed. We were lucky to be introduced to the famous glove puppet Lefty.  An interesting fact was Lefty originally started out life without ears. We saw footage of Jay’s ‘ Bagpipe Act’ and also’Lefty’.

This was  a lecture worth spending the time taking in a great history of a great man.

The Spanish hall was full for the lecture by one of best quick change acts there is.

The audience was taken through David and Danias new act, that they will be performing in tomorrow nights gala show.

It was intreguing to watch as David dressed Dania dress by dress. Amazingly the process of adding the dresses was quite simple, and even when 5 or 6 dresses had been put on Dania, it was almost impossible to tell she was loaded up with the costume changes.

It was fascinating to watch just how much preparation goes into the act, and just how much weight is carried around in the dresses.

They provided a few techniques and insights into how the dresses are changed during the act.

It was a unique lecture, and something very different from the normal lectures, very little material is about on costume change, and even less on costume change for males, it was a wonderful lecture for those interested in this area.

From Argentina, Mr Tango needs no introduction when it comes to coins. He amazed his audience with some outstanding coin magic.

The lecture was translated into English, but it was easy to follow, due to the very visual aspects of Mr Tango’s magic.

Tricks with every imaginable coin and some clever adaptations of existing effects, including a signed coin to pepper. Mr. Tango also performed a very beautifully choreographed coin set to music, resulting in many appearances of coins on the table.

To say the audience was spell-bound was an understatement.

A limited admission event in the V.I.P. suite, Franz Harary gave an insite into his thinking and methodology behind everything to do with the Franz Harary brand.  The lecture started with a full promotion video showing his work with corporate organisations to special effects for some of the worlds largest recording artistes.

Questions and Answers followed in a no holes barred session. Franz discussed  the business of making money by separating yourself from your product. We learnt how to deal with rejection and how to simply our marketing approach.

Every item he performs is his own and from that he talked about how difficult it is to protect your own invention. By performing the effects he creates he can call them his own and whilst he has suffered throughout his career from piracy he is no longer affected by it. His belief is that we as a community should protect each other against this issue.

It is the small details that make the difference. Franz owns every aspect of what he does/performs/creates. The discussion evolved onto the topic of camera trickery and it’s ethics. Whilst he agrees that it’s use is a fine line, he believes he performs nothing that he can’t recreate without the use of CGI. However his magic is always real to the camera, using no CGI or similar processes, magic through the lens of the camera is still magic. The more you listen to Franz, the more you become aware of how his mind works and how his amazing illusions happen.

Everything he has developed over the years he has kept. His advise to everybody is to create stuff that makes you YOU. An extremely creative man with vision. A superb lecture.

I have seen David lecture before, and its always a great one to see, David started by talking about his love of Houdini, setting up for a strait jacket escape that turned into a set of comedy moments, of being locked in the toilets, and never actually doing a strait jacket escape.

David mixes great comedy moments with solid magic. His magic is also interlaced with sound queues, which he uses a queuing system that he works himself from his ankles.

He is an accumplished juggler, and he worked through a number of these items in his lecture, including some hat juggling and cane work.

David is an instantly likeable person, and as he said, most of showbusiness is getting people to like you, and he has definately cracked that one.

Good start to the Saturday morning lectures.