Starting with Shawn Farquhar, the close up session started at 11:30. Shawn is a multiple award winner, and showed just why in this session. Funny and sharp, he did his signed selected card back to sealed, new deck order, boxed deck of cards, and his award winning cups and balls. Fantastic stuff.

Next up was Nick Einhorn, starting by producing a regular deck from a mini box, coins from spread cards, and a fast quick coin matrix, recieving lots of applause from the audience. Nicks excellent card work was a joy to watch as he continued with a poker demonstration with an audence member, and an any card at any number, audience thought of card and number found in the deck at the selected position.

Last by no means least was Steve Beam, again funny and strong magic, entertaining the audience throughout. Steves 40 years in magic shined through his entire performance. A number of wonderful card effects, and wonderful magicans jokes, an absolute joy to watch.

The entire session was great and oustanding closeup from three wonderful performers.

The first lecture of the day was David Tomkins, his ventriloquism for kids session introduced a number of his vent puppets, a number of which were the wonderful axtell puppets, which he showed off well.

He then moved onto the techniques of ventriloquism, how to get started, and mouth work. Ventriloquism is normally quite a hard skill to master, and David covered a number of useful tricks on pronouncing certain words and letters.
He also spoke about how to pick your puppets voice, and even your puppet, accents and how to work these into a routine, and working the puppet to create a double act.

The format of the lecture was good, running through a routine and then explaining the main points and things to note of each. There was a wonderful Christmas routine, the night before christ-mouse, a good length set involving the audience participating in sporting the mouse.

An excellent lecture for those either starting in ventriloquism, or looking to further their act.

We are now here and registered. The programme for the day looks good, and the welcome and opening ceremony was performed by IBM President Trevor Lewis, introduced by BSM president Steve Lawrence.

This year the convention has changed the layout to put the lectures in the Consort Hall, and the dealers in the more fitting and spacious Ballroom, allow much more space for the dealers, and a larger area with stage for the lectures.

Join us for the 49th Bristol Day of Magic – tomorrow Sunday May 10th in the Winter Gardens & Playhouse Theatre, Weston Super Mare. This year the line up includes International Magic Convention competition winner Shawn Farquhar, Nick Einhorn, Steve Beam, and John Archer.

There will be an extensive dealer’s exhibition as well as children’s entertainer David Tompkins lecturing on ventriloquism for children, and special event oganised by Mandy Davis, Chair of The Magic Circle’s Young Magicians Club, for under 14’s.

The evening show will feature Colin Rose, Brian Sefton, comedy juggling from Michael Pearse, Craig Christian, Shawn Farquhar, Nick Einhorn, illusionist Daniel Dean and Company, compared by Steve Evans.

We’ll also be reporting live during the day, so join us down there, or on the site.

The Bristol Day of Magic 2009 takes place this Sunday, 10th May at The Winter Garden Weston super Mare.

This years convention features Shawn Farquhar (canada), Nick Einhorn (UK) and Steve Beam (USA), a one man show from John Archer, and Ventriloqism for children with David Tomkins. There is a special event for young magicians (under 16’s), as well as close up shows and three lectures, as well as over 20 dealers from the UK.

The evening Gala Show at the Playhouse theater will feature: Colin Rose, Nick Einhorn, Brian Sefton, Shawn Farquhar, Craig Christian, Michael Pearse, Daniel Dean & Company, with compere Steve Evans.

The online registration form can be downloaded from our registration forms or via the Bristol Day of Magic 2009 site.

Completed forms must be sent to Andy Mac, 8 Nottingham Road, Bishopston, Bristol, BS7 9DH – or contact them directly by Phone 0117 942 2449, or the website

If you need a room, check out our get a room guide for local hotels and places to stay, and we’ll have a guide for local places to eat later this week.

We’ve just put up a quick ‘Get a Room’ guide for Bristol Day of Magic, in our Guides section. It lists hotels in the Weston Super Mare area, as well as trialing a new system for booking local bed and breakfast’s as well as independent hotels. Just click here to access it.

The Bristol Day of Magic takes place on 10th May 2009, Weston Super Mare, UK, for full details check the official website

The online registration form can be downloaded from our registration forms or directly from the Bristol Day of Magic 2009 site.

Completed forms must be sent to Andy Mac, 8 Nottingham Road, Bishopston, Bristol, BS7 9DH – Phone 0117 942 2449.

You can check all the Bristol Day of Magic news as we report it on our site.