Benjamin Earl has asked anyone who has a copy of the ‘Gambit’ magazine that was launched at The Session to return it to him for a replacement.

He has re-worked the first issue; correcting all of the errors, sorting out the layout, printing on ‘magazine paper’ stock and added in ‘more’ material. He will send you the re-worked and now complete issue One.

If you have not had an email directly from Benjamin please email him directly at benjaminearl9@googlemail.com for details on where to return the magazine to.

For those of you who missed it, or for those that want to remember what a great weekend it was, here is our video of ‘The Session‘ Convention. We’d like to thank Andi Gladwin and Rob James for letting us film, and their help with reporting the convention. We’ll have a full summary review soon, but until then, enjoy..

..and remember catch everything that happened at The Session 2009 - Here

There was a problem with playing the video through some versions of Internet Explorer, which should now be fixed

The Sunday evening closing gala show opened with Piff the Magic Dragon, who’s comedy timing, slant on being able to pull off performing magic in a large green satin suit, and ears Shrek would have been proud of, is something you really shouldn’t miss. I found Piff hilarious, and loved the jokes and comedy that was put into turning the effects he did into Dragonese..

Ray Kosby was next up, and unfortunately I think hit a few problems with his set, he didn’t seem on top form, an there was a few confusing moments, and effects that didn’t seem to sit right, which was a real shame as Rays normally a fantastic performer, and his lecture earlier was good.

Thom Peterson, was as always ‘The Amazing Guy’ and lived up to his title. Fast quick magic, great comedy, and a ton of laughs picked the show back up  again. He performed his ‘Thom Deck’ the self printing deck that really is a joy to watch.

Next up was John Guastaferro, who performed amongst other things a very nice card transposition, where aces moved from wine glasses to one held by a spectator. Kerry Scorah was also lucky enough to turn four frogs cards into Kings, walking home with a frog that was produced from the final for set of Kings.

Rodney J Piper brought in two girls from a party that was happening at the hotel, and proceeded to hypnotise them, giving one a box, she was able to send across the contents of a sealed, locked box to her friend, who correctly described a scene, names, and objects mentioned in a note held in the box. A very nice routine, which left the two girls bemused as to how it was done and their friends at the back who had come in to watch clapping and cheering.

John Archer closed the show how only John Archer can. Performing a number of mental miracles, he had the audience laughing throughout his set. Full of energy, and showing exactly why he’s one of the best performers in the UK today, he closed on a multiple person dice prediction, under seemingly impossible conditions.

After the gala show, the audience headed out to the bar to continue ’sessioning’ late into the night.

Gazzo, who now lives back in England is one of the worlds best street performers, although in his youth he was a fantastic card technician, being mentored by the author of “phantom of the card table” - Walter Scott.

David Britland, along with Gazzo authored a book by the same title that told Walter Scotts story.

In this session Gazzo told stories that were not included in the book about his time with the card legend and what he learnt from him.

For those that hve read the book it was a great addtion to already fantastic material, for those who haven’t got the book, hopefully an insight into why they should read it

Unfortunately David Acer didn’t make it over, but in the first of two replacement events, Mark Elsdon interviewed Gordon Bruce, one of the gems of modern magic who is probably not as well known as he should be.

Gordon talked about how he got started in magic, spending a fair amount of time at Tam Shepards in Glasgow.

In a very funny and interesting talk Gordon talked about how he met many of magics names through his life, including Marlo, Vernon, Fred Robinson and Andy Galloway.

The audience was also treated to some displays of perfect card magic by Gordon, even when watching it on the big screens, and you knew what was coming, he still managed to get cards on and in card boxes and under glasses without you seeing.
The session wonderful and funny to see and I do hope it makes it to a Session DVD or audio format as the stories and tales of his encounters were brilliant.

Noel Qualter took the second ‘flash talk’ to show a nice move for taking a selected card out of the deck, whilst dribbling the cards from one hand to another.

The move was very simple, and in the short 5-10 minute section of the program, Noel ran through the move, how it was set up, and how it could be used quite easily to get a card out of the deck quickly, and almost invisibly.

Again it was a very good, short session, concentrating on just one single simple effect.