Psycrets have announced the fourth of the Tabula Mentis event to take place in London. Tabula Mentis IV will this time focus on seance, bizarre, and psychic demonstrations, and will take place on 15 November 2008 at 7 Mallow Street, London.

The line up of lecturers and speakers feature, Roni Shachnaey - Rogova seance, Jon Randall (Editor. Pentacle Magazine) - Fraud! A lecture on mediumship, Tom Lauten - Creating aged props for bizarre magick and Dr. Steve Murray - Bizarre magick.

There will also be a special evening presentation with David Berglas.

Full Details in our event entry, which also contains the website details.

Craig Mitchell has kindly sent some of his on the ground reporting, which he’s covering over on the Genii Forum as well from Kentucky:

So here we are on day 3 of the “convention of the century” - a little too lofty a title unfortunately..

First event at 11 am was the “business of being funny” - a discussion forum with Mike Finney, Mac King and David Williamson - hosted by Stan Allen. This was a great opportunity to get to know these legendary comic stars - their inspirations, approach to comedy, and ideas. Very relaxed and informal.

For those wondering, David Williamson wasn’t quite his usual hyped up self - but still presented plenty of antics along the way - including dismantling the podium as part of his ‘presidential debate’

The Stage Contest followed in the Kentucky Centre - a few observations of the acts today. Read the rest of this entry »

Craig Mitchell has kindly sent some of his on the ground reporting, which he’ covering over on the Genii Forum as well from Kentucky:

Today’s programming has been very sparse. No events until the 12 noon stage contest - surely with the sheer volume of talent at the event a few more lectures could have been arranged ? The same applies to this afternoon - with a single lecture by David Ben & Jon Racherbaumer on Vernon & Marlo … if thats not your cup of tea - you’re out of luck until the 8 pm gala show.

On to the contest ….
Unfortunately I am going to butcher some names as we werent provided with a printed list of competitors for the stage contest. Note to organisers - this would have been very useful along with a notepad and pen in the registration bag..

The contest got off to a bang with An Ha-Lim from South Korea presenting a kaleidoscope of multi-coloured card manipulation - an unbelievable number of cards and technically brilliant. But does a lay person find this entertaining ? Magicians went mad. Read the rest of this entry »

Craig Mitchell has kindly sent some of his on the ground reporting, which he’s covering over on the Genii Forum as well from Kentucky:

When you call yourself the ‘convention of the century’ - you’re setting a VERY high standard - and unless you are 100% sure that you are going to over deliver BIG time - the safe money is that you are setting yourself up for a very nasty fall.

The IBM SAM kicked off with an Opening Show at 12:30 pm this afternoon at the nearby Kentucky Center theatre - a short stroll from the main Galt House hotel complex.

If we are going for convention of the century - one would hope ( and expect ) some high powered show to really set the tone - kick off with a bang - and really get the adrenalin going. What we got was 5 minutes of 1970’s computer generated synthesiser music accompanied by a demonstration that the tech guy could use all the settings on the intelligent lighting system - not exactly heart pounding stuff. Five minutes of light show over - and out comes the convention organisers, the society presidents -spouses and the mandatory 10 minutes of speeches along with citations by the ‘replacement’ sent by the mayor who ‘had other engagements’. Note to producers - speeches are BORING. Quite ironical considering the tag line for the convention is ‘it’s all about the magic’ Read the rest of this entry »

Craig Mitchell has kindly sent some of his on the ground reporting, which he’s also covering over on the Genii Forum as well from Kentucky:

Early reports from the registration desk ( which was well staffed ) were of enormously long lines with wait times in excess of an hour ( caused in large part due to a very long checking process of ensuring that everything was in the bag and having delegates sign off receipt of tickets, voucher etc which just delays matters immensely )

Thankfully - my wait time was significantly shorter ( and made all the more enjoyable by bumping into hot contest favourite Shawn Farquhar and family ) With Jim Steinmeyer standing in line right behind me … everyone who is anyone has descended on Kentucky. Read the rest of this entry »

Make mine a big one…!!! the IBM / SAM convention in Kentucky USA is now on…

The registration queues were long.. the goodies bags full.. The excitement is mounting..

We’re hoping to have some reporting moles over there, so fingers crossed.. but remember if you want you name up in lights on here.. and a few over high profile websites…

..then simple send throughy our reports, photos, news, rumors, feelings or experiences to us at info@magicconventionguide.com