The Winners of the 2008 IBM/SAM Convention have been announced.

Stage Winner Goes to - An Ham Lim - Korea

Close-up was won by the UK’s own Marc Oberon

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:

Just finished the finals of the Close-up contest - with the winner being decided by an audience vote.

The toss-up is between Shawn Farquhar & Marc Oberon - who had a particularly strong showing today.

The results will be announced on tonight’s show. Also, a combined convention may well take place now every 5 years.

Eberhard Riese followed with a lecture on “The Evolution of An Act” A brave young performer demoed her act - Eberhard then went ahead and reworked it, going through the steps he covers in making an act that much stronger. (more…)

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:

Day five of the convention saw a bright and early start for the last round of the close-up contest at 9 am.

Observations and musings:

Charming Choi - Korea - had the audience in sing along mode repeating his name - “Charming charming charming Choi” He featured a coin matrix with a very nifty magician pleaser that sees the coins visibly travel from the 3 sides to the one corner, along with a card printing routine that suffered from the poor white balance on the big screen making the card faces impossible to see ( this should have been corrected after Monday’s contest )

John Born - New York - presented a 3 stage act - magic of the hands, mind and heart. Magic of the hands was a coin matrix ( magicians are performing this to death in the contest ) to music followed by a convoluted mentalism routine that saw a spectators named of card being discovered by counting the amount of money in a wallet given to the volunteer which equaled the value written on the back of the selected card. I know - complicated. Why can’t we just have a nice simple - think of any card, here it is in the wallet - unbelievable routine. Now that’s magic. He ended with a close-up rendition of the linking rings ( in tribute to his dead grandfather ) and then in the textbook case of how to treat your volunteer - he ended his show - walked right past the spectator and left them standing without so much as a backward glance. Beautiful to see that we have the basics of good manners covered.

Galambos from Hungary performed cups and balls, card manipulation, a bizarre marbles from mouth routine, a coin matrix and ending with multiple jumbo coin productions - with steals from behind the table way too apparent.

Marc Oberon - UK - presented a disjointed act. First half was a performance of any card called for being produced, located, counted down to, followed by his marketed item Bang On. The second segment was a Midas themed act with everything he touched turning to gold - golden cards, apples, swans, coins etc. This had a poetic nature to it ( sounds of Enya in the background ) with some very beautiful sequences. He received a standing ovation. (more…)

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:

Day 4 in Louisville Kentucky. The gift today was a specially minted souvenir medallion to join the custom printed playing cards, convention poster, leather wallet and special convention close-up set already received. A fantastic line-up of ‘goodies’ for the registration bag which really make a big difference … whoever was responsible had clearly gone to a lot of trouble in getting these extra touches together.

First event of the day was the much anticipated lecture by David Williamson on “Organic Magic - The Art of Impromptu”

Those who have seen David’s antics at past FISMs will know just how manic a magician he can be - unfortunately that mad cap magician is slowly being tamed - and that completely zany character was nowhere to be seen today. Instead we had David sitting behind a laptop computer attempting to present a ’serious’ lecture … technical difficulties however plagued the Powerpoint presentation leaving the impression of an ‘unrehearsed’ impromptu lecture ( the gods of fate are curious beings ). A few highlights though were video clips of David let loose on the streets of Kentucky to much hilarity. All in all though the lecture lacked magic and was disappointing having gone into it with such high expectations …

From there it was onto round 3 of the stage contest with a bumper 16 contestants.

(more…)

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. (more…)

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. (more…)

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’ (more…)

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. (more…)

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