The awards and prizes for the convention were:

Best Article in the Northern Lights: Allan Clarke
Cliff Lount Dealers Trophy: Magicians Cave

Close-up Society Trophy: Alan Mylecrane
Close-up 3rd Prize: Clive Moore
Close-up 2nd Prize: Craig Petty
Close-up 1st Prize: Alan Mylecrane

Junior 3rd Place: Toby Davis
Junior 2nd Place: Jack Clarke
Junior 1st Place: Patricia Duncan

Senior Society Trophy: Michael Jordan
Senior 3rd Place: Cascade
Senior 2nd Place: Michael Jordan
Senior 1st Place: Dave Andrews

Presidents Wand 2009: Allan Clarke

Dave Andrews was first on, with immaculate card manipulations, umbrella productions and billiard ball manipulation. His pink billiard balls changed colour to white, and one of the white balls transformed into a steady stream of salt which covered the stage and a final double umbrella production brought the act to a great climax.

Paul Sunderland had a great start with David Regals Sudden Deck producing a pack of cards, which lead into a comedy mind reading routine where a member of the audience ended up wearing a sieve and winding a whisk against her head to supposedly project her thoughts to the audience who then could tell her the card she picked. For his second trick the idea was that he would turn a box of prawn cocktail crisps into ready salted, unfortunately, certainly from where we sat he seemed to display the method to the audience, which may have cost him a place.

Cascade was Terry Crawford and assistant. A very traditional, colourful act with flower productions, blendo, a totem pole escape complete with misfiring pyro which seemed to knock Terry off his feet and unnerve his assistant but it didnt hamper the big finish of a Yogano Stool Suspension.

Jeannie from Derby was on next again a very colorful act with lots of glitter and confetti. Silk to Rose opener, was followed by a Blendo, Colour Changing CDs, blending Ropes, a Rainbow Streamer production followed by a Crystal Casket production lead up to the finale of a big production of miniature umbrellas and finally a goodbye banner.

Last on the competition was Michael Jordan with a strong Fire Eating opener, he continued with the Jerry Andrus Zone Zero hole trick, Pavels Walking Knot, a Gypsy Thread accompanied by a poem about feelings, a Razor Blade and Thread swallowing effect where all the blades came back out strung on the thread, and finally Kevin James’ Snow Storm again complete with poetic patter brought this fantastic act and the competition to a close.

For one or two junior magicians this was their first attempt at performing on stage or so one proud mum told me. I’ve been listening, recently, to Jonathan Goodwin being interviewed by Jay Fortune and Jonathan’s views on competitions and on tricks – he’d be pleased to know that there was not one bow tie in sight.

For these teens, jeans and trainers were in the majority. But silks, parasols candles were very much in use. Probably the first competitor, James Orr came closest to the Goodwin philosophy of making magic with real world objects, if you include coins, cards and a table made from a bathroom cabinet. James has grown in confidence over the last couple of years and his inadvertent announcement of his final trick “to finish you off” brought a smile to the audience. Junior magicians, often it seems to me, acquire old tricks, pieces of apparatus and new props which have caught their eye. Not having seen much magic they frequently are quite creative in the way in which they combine these to create a routine. James did this turning a Merry Switch Can, a Demon Wonder Box, pieces of paper with colours written on them and a silk into a prediction effect.

Phil Jobling has a nice smile, when he looked at the audience, he produced silks galore, transposed knots in them, dyed them magically and conjured up a Ribbon Fountain from a Dove Pan, Dove in Balloon, and a Dancing Cane were in his act too. Toby Davies opted to open with the vanish of a Fantasio Candle – presumably because he has one. He asked for a succession of brave adults to assist him including a quick thinking Su Jayne who saved the day, un-noticed by most of the audience when a card prediction went slightly awry.

Later an intrepid Stevie B from Bradford entrusted his arm to Toby in a Wrist Chopper. Toby invited a cute, very young boy to assist with Mental Epic, asking him to write down his selection of shape and card when it was apparent to the audience that the lollipop sucking youngster, who was game to help, probably hadn’t done National Curriculum writing shapes or cards. Next up Patricia Duncan in sparkling outfit and a stage full of props and boxes worked her way through them changing the colour of Feather Plumes, lighting up a bunch of Tulips with a D’lite and producing a rabbit from a giant Dice before finishing on her feature trick a Floating Ball Routine.

The final Junior entrant, Jack Clarke, pattered his way through Driebeck Die, Unequal Ropes and Sidewalk Shuffle. He finished with a six ring Linking Ring routine. The judges were Alban Unsworth of Karmar Magic, Alan Maskell representing Magic Books by Post and Brian Sefton, The non-magical Judge was Victoria Gore. Compere was Stuart Richardson and timekeeper was Nicholas Mohammed.

If you registered before the end of March you got the chance to pick up a chocolate biscuit from the registration desk, if this contained a Wilson Bonkers Golden Ticket it meant that you had a free pass to a special limited masterclass from Gregory Wilson. I opened my biscuit and nothing, my friend Jon Marshall opened his, and miraculously there it was a Golden Ticket, which he very generously passed to me, so thanks Jon!

We were treated to two hours of one on one tuition from the man himself, including all the handling tips, dos and don’ts and lots of brainstorming of ideas for routining and scripting. Greg started off by going back to some of the items in the lecture including some behind the scenes material on his coin routine. Next he work shopped the Starbucks Coffee material he had covered briefly in the lecture. He is hoping to write a book containing at least 75 ideas that you can do at the local coffee house.

We were all provided with the materials necessary to follow along, Greg went through the broken and restored stirrer trick he showed in the lecture, and asked us all to perform it, and he, along with the group offered feedback and ideas on how it could be presented. Then he took us step by step through the nuances of Vanish 5000. Finally he showed us a diabolical ruse with a Starbucks Cup which I wont share in fairness to the masterclass attendees, but make sure you pick up the book when it comes out!

Lastly we had step-by-step hands on training on Gregs new trick Pointless, which is a modular routine involving a pen that can lead very nicely into Recap. Again Greg went through each stage and gave his thoughts and timing on it, and made sure we all had the moves down and gave us gentle pointers on things to watch for in our own handling.

A true joy to spend a couple of hours in Gregs company along with the other masterclass attendees, I think we all agreed this was truly a golden event.

John Palfreyman presented his talk, ‘Illusions of Grandeur’ which gave us a glimpse into just some of the 49 illusions he had built for TV, in particular the ones he had built for use on the David Nixon show. Complete with video clips John talked about some of stories behind the building and broadcasting of the illusions. John got involved after Ali Bongo asked him to help out with the last show of the series, John built the final illusion the Thai Toture Trial, which was a sword cabinet based on Val Walkers Radium Girl.

The Toffee Bag illusion saw an assistant being lowered into a big paper sack, and crushed with a giant hand, only to appear from the back of the audience. In the Assistants Revenge, a much younger Rolf Harris, was tied up to a brick wall, and then magically swapped places with David Nixon. Airline saw a very clean ring vanish and the re-appearence in a matchbox tied to a toy plane, that flew in over the heads of the audience. John told us the problems he had in setting this up with the workings having being disturbed minutes before going on air.

The Bachelors illusion was the magical production of the singing group of the same name from a very small cabinet. The Gorilla saw the crushing of a girl in a box, by a big gorilla being lowered on top of her, she then reappeared swinging above the audience. A clip of some of Johns own collection was next, David and Ali displayed them on air sometimes showing the trick behind the prop. Lastly a clip taken from the Magic Comedy Strip of The Pendragons where John had to repair the illusion that Jonathan and Charlotte were going to perform. This was a quick disappearance of Charlotte from an isolated box, who then reappeared some feet away. A fascinating talk illustrated by some great video clips.

The Junior Show was based around the concept of I’m a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, but re-titled to I’m a Northern Juniour Get me out of Here!

Set in a jungle setting the juniors took it in turns to do bush-tucker trials which were magic tricks with a jungle theme, these included a Chimp puppet who helped with Unequal Ropes, Diablo with half grapefruits, Bamboo Chinese Sticks, Linking Rings with vines, Mutilated Parasol, Cut and Restored Vines, Topsy Turvy Bottles, Dancing Snake (Cane), Zombie Coconut, Dlite Fireflies and a finale food production with all the juniors joining in.

After each trick they got a piece of a jigsaw puzzle which put together was a picture of two keys and that was peeled away to reveal the NMC logo, which was the Key to Magic. Produced by John Russell it was a great idea with a good set and story-line.