I’ve received a couple of promo emails recently that reminded me of a book I saw at Magifest: Tarbell 9

Well, kind of Tarbell 9. But, not really. It’s actually named You Are All Terrible, Vol. 9

At Magifest, at the Tannen’s booth in the Dealer’s Room, there was this purple and white book that had the same cover design as the normal Tarbell series. I had a very brief spike of excitement and wonder, which almost immediately got replaced by the question of “wait, how?!”

When I picked up the sample copy that wasn’t sealed, I quickly realized that it wasn’t a Tarbell book, just designed to look like one. I didn’t really pay too much attention to it after that, I didn’t have interest in a comedy style book at the time. Receiving these promo emails reminded me of it, so I did finally read the description of it.

Having seen Harrison Greenbaum perform his stand-up at Magifest, I have an inkling of what to expect from this book. Overall, it looks like it’s a theory lecture. I’m not sure if it’s targeted to all magicians, or just stage performers though. But, I'm still going to pass on it.

Speaking of promo emails, I impulse-purchased Socks when Vanishing Inc. landed it in my inbox.

For over a year now, I’ve avoided buying the trick. “Not my type of magic,” I kept telling myself. Then again, I’ve been trying to branch out and try more than just card magic.

Ironically, it’s a card trick with a kicker-ending. Or, it’s a mentalism trick that uses cards… with a kicker ending.

I decided to buy with the full intention of performing it, but I paid for it to support the creator (Michel Huot). I’ve seen the performance of the trick live and have already come up with a “how to” perform it, even with variations. I have several routines I perform where I use custom cards I’ve drawn, so the only thing for this would be some wacky socks. Turns out, you can buy just the socks for this too. But, I went all in and purchased the full product.

It will be neat comparing my performance idea to how Michel created it. Who knows, maybe it’s completely different!

I’ve been watching Malone Meets Marlo by Bill Malone lately and absolutely love it.

I like Marlo, and I really like Malone, but this combination is just fantastic. I’m still only on Volume 2 (out of 6) and have already learned a ton. Coincidentally, I have most of Marlo’s printed works… and haven’t read nearly any of them yet.

The best part about this series, and why I think that it’s actually better than a lot of other videos, is that Malone is teaching someone else’s tricks. Since they’re not his own, he’s also showing his variant handlings and including ideas from others who have expanded on the original over time.

I picked up a new in-the-hands false shuffle from Volume 2 called Ravelli’s Waterfall Shuffle, by Ron Wohl. It’s a beautiful, visually perfect (in Malone’s video) shuffle that doesn’t need a cut afterwards. He also teaches it, and I think in more detail, in Here I Go Again. While I do own that series too, I haven’t watched it yet — though it’s on my list to skip forward to this specific shuffle’s lesson to get more details. I’ve been practicing it off-and-on during meetings at work and have had to pick up half the deck from the floor a few too many times, so clearly it’s not as easy as he makes it look.

The scenario is simple: you’re in the middle of performing a trick and something distracts the spectator. They look away, or start talking to someone else. Seconds, or even a minute or two later, they’re back with you, if you’re lucky. Or, perhaps that makes you unlucky?

I’ve encountered this issue several times and I was never prepared for recovery in any of them. While I do think that a few of the times I successfully managed to control the situation, others, in hindsight, I could’ve done much more. Given that I’m a hobby magician who performs semi-rarely and not a professional worker, my input here could be vastly different than what you might encounter on the streets or doing walk around. However, I wanted to share my thoughts anyways.

To be clear, what I'm talking about here is something interrupting the trick, not a spectator that has a short attention span. While they are similar outcomes, they are different topics with, in some cases, different responses.

Consider the Audience

From what I've noticed, there are various factors that are at play:

• the type of trick you’re performing
• at what point in the trick the spectator’s attention is pulled away
• the environment you’re performing in
• the age of the spectator(s)

There may be others too, and the above list is in no particular order.

My common performing environments, not including just sitting on the couch and showing my wife a card trick:

• one, or both, of my kids asking me to show them a trick (or me asking to show them one)
• at a friendly gathering (e.g., a party with friends) where everyone’s my age or older, and they 99% of the time ask me to show something
• at work, or a work event, and someone asks to see a trick

That’s really about it — though this list is in frequency order, the latter being the least likely to occur in my case.

Also, I don't consider any of this relevant to stage magic, only close-up. If you want my thoughts on that, send me a message!

How to Recover

The majority of tricks I do are card tricks. Most, though that's probably less accurate right now, but most of them are considered impromptu. I have plenty that require a stack, and some that require other setups, deck switches, or even gimmicks. While I can do a few non-card-tricks, I haven't performed them for anyone yet. So, all of the ideas below are purely from my card-filled brain and may not (or may!) apply to other types of magic tricks.

When Was the Interruption?

The "when" is really important, because in some cases you can just reset whereas others, well, the moment's lost.

In a normal card trick, for example, if the spectator's attention was taken away right after they selected a card but before anything else happened, just restart the trick. This does assume that the selection of a card can be simply redone. If there's a stack or other type of setup or gimmick, you may need to move to another trick, or if the interruption is long enough you might be able to reset the deck and repeat.

If the interruption was right before a magic moment, especially the big magic moment, well, sorry to break it to you but the moment is lost. You can try to recap everything that happened so far, like we already overdo in most tricks -- "now remember, you selected a card, then you shuffled the deck, and I've never touched them until now". This lets you continue with your performance for sure, but the buildup, the anticipation, it's gone. From experience I've done that exact thing I just said that you can try, and I did it during a trick that every single audience I've performed it for lost their minds on. Except the one that was interrupted. I think the best reaction, from a group of about 10, was "oh wow, that was pretty cool." I should have just moved on to another trick and attempted to repeat this one later in the set (if at all).

How Long was the Interruption?

This one's very trick-specific in my opinion. Since I mostly do card tricks, and I'm familiar with all of the moments within each trick I perform, I can tell whether an interruption at any given point can be tolerated or not. If it can, the next thing is considering how long of an interruption can it withstand?

In most cases, a few seconds at max. And that's with the assumption that the spectator remained in their spot but just turned their head away. If they left their spot and you don't have an audience of loyal deck-watchers, consider the trick over and reset, or move on to another trick.

I recently ignored the very same advice I just mentioned, and it was super anticlimactic. I was performing a trick I created (though, there's likely to be several others just like it), and in the trick the spectator has to sign the face of their selection and you draw a picture on the back of your selection. The interruption was in between those two things. There was no opportunity to reset, but rather than do another trick, I recapped what had happened so far and continued. The reaction to the final magic moment was a smile and, well, that's about it.

Better Audience Management

Whenever I think of this topic I get a nagging thought in my head that’s saying “if you had better audience management skills, this wouldn’t be an issue.” And perhaps, for a professional walk around performer, this is true. But in my case, I don’t think it is.

I do a lot of public speaking. Typically in the form of presentations at work or conferences, but also as a teacher, Cub Scout leader, etc. Holding an audience’s attention is something I’ve practiced for over 2 decades. There’s always the possibility of an unexpected interruption that’s outside of your control, but if you're engaging and entertaining the audience, it should be much easier.

I’m confident that the audience’s age is a huge factor too. I don’t perform for children other than my own, but I read the At The Kid’s Table column in Genii and this issue exists by default nature with them. 75% of the time, yeah, my kids are off in their own world halfway through my trick. Would that be the case if it was a different kid? Probably not. But a group of them? Maybe.

I want to bring back that conflicting argument though, the idea that having better audience management skills might actually help. If the trick is suitable for the current audience age and also designed to have them participate more than just watch, whether it's physical participation or even just speaking, and if you spent time upfront to establish a "connection" with them, I do think it's more likely to hold their attention even when potential interruptions are around. I have had the case when someone comes up to the person I'm showing a trick to and the spectator just waved them away without ever moving their eyes from the cards -- that was a great feeling for me!

However, there's always the possibility of an unexpected interruption.

How to Restart or Move On?

If the spectator's attention was pulled away so much that you're still standing there with a deck of cards in your hands after a few minutes, I think it's safe to say that the performance is over and you should find something else to do.

If, however, it was a few seconds -- or up to a minute, give or take -- but the trick was essentially ruined because the suspense build-up required their attention the whole way through, it's going to be better to restart the trick, or to move on to another one. Don't continue the trick from the point of the interruption unless you're certain that the spectator is still fully invested in it from where it left off!

I've had success restarting tricks just by saying you're going to have them select a different card. Boom, restarted. I don't even tell them that we're restarting the same trick, I just say something like "You know what, let's try something", and then move back into having them select a card. If the delay was a little longer, sure, it's perfectly fine to say "Well that was fun, let's try that again real quick", or whatever works for you.

Does your trick have a robust or complicated card selection process? If so, don't restart it. Also, consider making an easier card selection process.

In the case that magic moments already occurred during the interrupted-trick's performance, don't restart it. Just move on.

Moving on to another trick is very similar to restarting the current one. If it's another card trick, just say you're going to try a different trick, or even keep with the "You know what, let's try something" line. I've done both and, since the spectator wasn't invested in the original trick too much yet, they moved on right with me.

I have thought about, what if the next trick isn't a card trick? How would I handle that? Well, mentally, I think I would keep the same idea as above and say something like "Let's actually try something without cards real quick," and put the deck down -- or even back in the box -- and do the next thing. The problem with this is if the spectator already picked a card, they may be expecting you to come back to it sometime later in your performance. You might be able to turn this into another trick, before doing the trick you originally planned.

Let's say that no magic moments occurred in the trick yet and you have the selection under control. When you're going to move on to another trick, rather than continuing your current one, control the card to the top of the deck and put it back in the box. Later, before pulling the deck out of the box, ask the spectator if they remember the card they selected. If not, tell them that that's perfectly fine and then you can enjoy the auto-reset. If they do remember it, have then say the card out loud and boom, you're setup for an ambitious card routine. "Oh wow, the seven of clubs?! That's going to make things difficult for me because no matter how hard I try, that very same card always seems to come back to the top of the deck. What? You don't believe me?! Look for yourself!"

Conclusion

There likely exists resources already written about this topic. Even though the books are within arms reach from me right now, I would expect one of the Card College books to likely mention it, or maybe even one of the books about general magic. Or, maybe not? Not sure. I made the executive decision to not research before writing about this one so that I could share my unbiased thoughts, directly from my experience. Limited experience, but still.

There aren't a ton of interruptions that I've encountered while performing, and most of the time I feel like I have the audience very interested and engaged. However, it has happened more than once, and each time it's been fairly memorable from my side of the deck. Having outs, or at least a mental preparation for how to handle them, I think that's a pretty important thing.

Hopefully this has given you some ideas that you can use. If so, or if you have other suggestions as well, let me know and we can chat!

I've had full access to Magic Stream for the last 3 months and have given it a thorough use. I want to share my experience with you in case you're wondering whether you should sign up for the platform yourself, or to compare notes if you already have had a chance to play with it.

As with all of my reviews, I share the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's important to note that this is all 100% my opinion and yours may differ. Either way, if you have questions about anything, please feel free to reach out.

What is Magic Stream?

If the name of the platform isn't a big enough hint, the easiest summary is that Magic Stream is a website where you can watch magic tutorials.

It's not a site where you can go and buy tutorials individually. Instead, you buy a subscription to the site and then have full access to their entire catalog, which is hundreds of tutorials!

Where to sign up?

It's pretty easy to sign-up directly on Magic Stream, or on Ellusionist's website. Click below to get started:

Sign up for Magic Stream

The subscription model allows you to either buy monthly subscription, or sign up for a whole year. The year-subscription has a pretty good discount on it, so you end up paying for only about 10 months.

And just a note, by clicking that button above -- or by using the code BABBITS10 at checkout on Ellusionist -- you'll actually score 10% off your subscription!

Magic Stream Review

To review Magic Stream, or to review anything, is to provide an opinion of "the thing" by judging it against a set of standards. These standards can be personal, or set by the broader community or industry, but they are standards nonetheless. This platform is, at the bare minimum, a "video streaming platform", so I asked myself... "on what points do you rate a video streaming platform?"

The content, obviously, is the biggest thing to judge. I have a section dedicated below to going over the content in Magic Stream, but a quick summary would be to say that there is a wide variety of tricks, suitable for beginners to experts, and the average quality is really good.

The pricing and value of the content, another data point to consider, is where personal opinion comes into the mix. What I find a good value, well, the next person might think it's way more affordable. Or, not. Given the content that is currently on the platform, and the amount of time that I have to actually sit down, watch, and practice magic, the annual subscription (which currently sits around $100) is a steal. There's no chance I can go through all of the content that I would be interested in, while giving time to actually learn and practice the tricks, in that amount of time. And if I go to purchase each of the tricks individually, yeah no, $100 for all of this is beyond worth it in the magic world.

After the above, the website itself is what we'd need to review. I do say "website", and I probably should've clarified this earlier, but they don't really have a mobile app experience. There is an Android app (low rated), but I didn't find one for iOS. I only used the website, on my computer, so that's all I'm really discussing in this write-up. And, after speaking with them, they're mainly focused on the website experience anyways -- which works in my favor!

We don't need to dive into too much on this since y'all know what you like and don't like from websites, but here's an overview of my impressions about:

• The user experience of Magic Stream is okay. If you're looking for a specific magic trick and don't know the name of it, it might take you a minute. If you're just browsing, or know exactly what you're after, it's easy-peasy. The video interface is really good too. I have a few "feature requests" (below) that would make this jump from "okay" to "great" though.
  
  
• The features of the site are, well, as expected. The purpose of it is to stream magic videos, and that's what it does. It's missing a "related videos" type of thing, and the community aspect (more on that below) is lacking, but neither of those have stopped me from using the site to watch videos.

Overall, it's an online video streaming platform that's catered to delivering magic videos. It's affordable, they're adding new content fairly regularly, and it's easy to use.

The "Content"

The content, or more specifically the collections of videos, available on Magic Stream are easy to review. They're great. That's all that needs to be said.

Ok, perhaps I should expand...

At the time of this writing, as far as I am able to count, there are just over 300 collections available. A "collection" can be one or more videos for a specific trick, like Latch by Geraint Clarke or Surface by Daniel Madison. The videos are often separated into parts, such as a performance video, history, one or more how-to instruction videos, and credits. Based on the trick itself and the magician(s) teaching, the videos can be quick and to the point or extended and verbose.

They have several categories for tricks from cards to coins, mentalism and street magic, things that are more advanced and others suited for beginners. I don't know the full list of magicians that have contributions, but it's a lot.

After speaking with the support staff, I learned that they don't have a set schedule for new content, but they do still add content regularly. They put a focus on quality over quantity, and this was due to their initial attempt at promising consistently regular additions that forced lower-quality videos. Given that their library is so extensive as it is, I don't see this leading to a consumption issue in the least bit, and I would personally prefer quality tricks over mass-produced fodder.

The statement above, about their initial "let's add a lot of videos" emphasis, does mean that some of the older videos can be lower in quality. Honestly, I only noticed it in one video about how to make a specific gaff (the camera angle wasn't the best), but even that wasn't terrible.

I don't know which, if any, of the tricks on Magic Stream are exclusive. I do know that several of them are things that you can purchase on Ellusionist... because I have purchased them.

Some tricks on the site require gaffs or some other "thing" that you would need to buy -- which feels like a ballsy move in my opinion. It's like walking into a magic shop and the guy behind the counter first demos the trick, then shows how it works. Before you buy it. If you're familiar with how cheap some magic tricks feel once you buy them -- what I call "magician's buyer's regret" -- then you'll likely know more tricks would end up not being purchased this way. It would need to be a quality trick, something I can't easily make myself, to move me from watching the "how to" to jumping to another site to buy the thing.

...

And it's already happened twice so far!

I'm not going to review the actual "tricks" themselves in this post (or at all on this site, if I haven't purchased the actual trick individually), but I will mention that a couple of them are "meh" while others have grabbed my attention fully. I missed half a day of work last week for Fade by Chris Mayhew and have been practicing sleights for it daily ever since.

Again, with over 300 tricks available across a wide range of magic, you're going to find a ton of things you're interested in.

The "Community"

The community features of Magic Stream come in the form of a forum where community members can ask and answer questions, and then the form of being able to comment on individual tutorials. I think that both have their own merit, but neither are done very well on this platform.

I have no idea what the member-size of the actual community is. There could be a dozen people, a few hundred, or thousands. More, less, I have no clue. But if the activity of the community forum is an accurate indication, I would say it's closer to a dozen. There aren't a whole lot of posts from people and the ones that are there are weeks, if not months, apart. Some of the posts have replies, some don't. Standard forum I guess. Except, there's only a single "general" category. No separation for card magic, coins, mentalism, etc. There also isn't any promotion of using the forum, or links to it from anywhere else. Really, it's just a place you might stumble across.

Personally, I would have really expected Ellusionist to use this to push their Discord server here instead of implementing a built-in mini forum. There's probably even a Discord plugin or widget where they could embed it directly into the site.

On the tutorial commenting front, the comments there make the videos feel like Instagram posts. Not like YouTube, just Instagram. The comments are almost always super short. Yes, some are ridiculously long, but the majority of ones I've seen are akin to "this is great 🔥" or "not worth the money, don't buy this trick 👎". I've seen a handful of the latter type, which I found to be odd since the tutorial's free and buying the trick just gets you the tutorial (which you already have) and maybe a PDF that you could've made yourself. None of the comments, or the way users are commenting, are the platform's fault -- it's human nature.

However, Ellusionist could attempt to lead the comments into something more constructive by changing the placeholder text from "Write a comment on this collection" to something like:

Sure, folks could always still say "Cool tutorial💪💪", but with a better lead prompt, they'd be more likely to post something useful instead.

Feature Wishlist

Magic Stream launched, officially, in April 2017. I don't know how far it has evolved in that time though. Did it launch with all of the features it currently has, or have they continued making updates? Either way, I have a list of feature-desires when it comes to the site. Things that would bump up the user experience and overall quality of the platform.

• The ability to add videos to a Watch Later playlist.
• Closed Captions!
• Links to where to buy the product the tutorial's for, if applicable.
• An indicator that lets you know a specific tutorial is for a product that is no longer available.
• An indicator that I have watched a specific video or collection.
• A "light mode" version of the site. The high-contrast white text on black background kills my eyes.
• A "related videos" or "recommended for you" feature, which is pretty common in video platforms these days.

There isn't a "feature request" ... feature, but they do have a Contact Us form. I used it to submit the above list to them and they got back to me pretty quickly and mentioned that they do have a few things on their roadmap, so that's a plus!

Conclusion

One thing I didn't do in this review is to compare Magic Stream to competitors; or, "other magic streaming platforms." There are several, but I don't think that that comparison fits into this specific review. I will -- and have already started -- writing a post to give overviews and comparisons of several though. If you know of any other platforms too, please let me know about them so I can make sure to include them!

But yeah, Magic Stream.

Is it really The Future of Learning Magic? I can't say. However, I can say that at present, it's the way that I'm learning magic.

If you don't already subscribe, I recommend giving it a shot. Heck, by not buying a single deck of cards this month you can get a month's subscription and check it out. If you want to save more in the long-run though, my personal suggestion is the annual subscription. Either way, check it out:

Sign up for Magic Stream

On that note, I'm going to go find a new trick to learn!

I was watching the first video in the Malone Meets Marlo set and towards the end is the trick called The Devilish Miracle. I've never heard of this trick before watching it, though I am familiar with Marlo's "miracle change" theme, so as it started I figured it had something to do with a color change or transposition. Spoiler alert: it's the latter. Kind of.

As the performance of the trick went on, I started noticing similarities between Malone's performance and another trick that I do, one that I've always just called The Biddle Trick. I want to say that it's fairly identical to the trick I do, except one or two slight differences. The first and most noticeable difference is that Marlo's trick has two spectator selections and Biddle's has only one.

My first thought was that a modern-day magician miscredited the routine. Why would I think that? Well, because I myself learned The Biddle Trick on YouTube maybe 5 or 6 years ago and I've seen plenty of miscredited things taught there. I figured, a trick this "simple" and yet fooling would become pretty popular, so it would be easy to spread incorrectly. I also saw it performed by a magician at last year's Magifest and he had no idea what the name of it was, but claimed that he learned it on YouTube. Go figure!

I decided that, since The Biddle Trick has been in my personal repertoire for years and I want to add The Devilish Miracle to it, it's right time to do some research and get to the bottom of it.

Elmer Biddle and the "Biddle Steal"

In the April, 1947 issue of Genii, Elmer Biddle shared a new sleight that he named Transcendent:

The Transcendent sleight is known today simply as the Biddle Steal. The name change happened shortly after the publication in Genii, but I'm not sure what caused the change or where it first occurred.

In Transcendent, or in the Genii article, the sleight itself was explained in detail during the source of a routine where the spectator's card appeared in the performer's pocket. This is different than The Biddle Trick where the card appears face up in the middle of the deck. The rest of the routine is pretty much identical though.

In June, 1948, in an issue of Hugard's Magic Monthly (which I don't have a copy of for confirmation), Biddle published the sleight again, this time under the name of The Biddle Card Vanish. Shortly after this publication, and for all publications thereafter, it's published once more under the name Biddle Steal. I would need to get a copy of Hugard's Magic Monthly to know whether The Biddle Card Vanish is just the sleight, or a routine where "the card vanishes" though. Per the categorization on Conjuring Archive, it's the sleight. I will confirm this at a later date when I purchase the set though.

A Devilish Miracle

Also in 1948, Marlo published A Devilish Miracle which utilizes the Biddle Steal.

I don't have a copy of A Devilish Miracle, but I do have a copy of Compleat Devilish Miracle. Unfortunately, even though this book contains everything from A Devilish Miracle, I don't know if the text is true to the original, or a Racherbaumer rewrite. It has what appears to be updated formatting, and notes directly from Racherbaumer, so without confirmation from the author (or... a copy of the original), I'm stuck with assumptions.

That said, in the book that I have, it does directly call for a Biddle Grip by name. Now, this isn't anything special, the Biddle Grip isn't the sleight itself, just how the deck is held. However, shortly after this, the sleight that is described is in fact the Biddle Steal, even though the name is never mentioned and credit doesn't appear to be given.

I've read through a handful of the different Devilish Miracle handlings and none appear to directly say "Biddle Steal" or "Transcendent" or anything like it. Given that it was published the year after Elmer Biddle published his sleight in Genii and, assuming this was in the original text, Marlo did in fact reference the Biddle Grip, I would have to say that A Devilish Miracle is a different handling of The Biddle Trick -- utilizing two spectator selections!

Conclusion

You may have read the above and asked: "so what?" And that's valid. It's a pretty brief amount of research. I found a new (or... really old) trick that was very similar to another trick that I've been doing and it wasn't credited. So, I was curious and did some research. Luckily, I have access to a few of the sources that can point me in the right direction -- but even with this small amount of research I still hit a block of not having access to Hugard's Magic Monthly.

I do find it odd that Marlo's book didn't credit the Biddle Steal; given the timing, I am really against the idea that this would've been the case of independent invention. That, and I haven't seen any arguments saying that it was. But hey, maybe one of Marlo's later books, that offers alternative handlings for the routine, do the whole credit dance. We'll see!

Ah, so yeah, all of that said: I really love this routine. I haven't had a chance to perform it yet, or practice it much given I went straight to research and writing, but I'm definitely going to be giving it some love soon!

It's Saturday, February 3rd. Almost a week since I came home from Magifest. I'm sitting at my desk, feverishly writing this review. And I mean that both literally and figuratively because upon returning home I almost immediately got sick. It turns out that I picked up both the flu and COVID during my trip to Columbus, Ohio this year.

I don't recall a time in my life when I've been more sick, which I think can be twisted into a positive statement if you try hard enough. The illness has not skewed my opinion of anything from the convention though, my only hope is that all of the other attendees are healthy and it wasn't a super-spreader type of event.

Magifest was January 25th through the 28th, if you count the final "workshop" day. I flew home that day myself, so I only count it as part of the "travel". There were a bunch of performances and lectures, and the Gala show was really neat. Unfortunately, this year's Magifest left me wanting more... and it's not just because Joshua Jay was absent the entire conference (he was stuck in his room sick).

Venue

The conference was held at the Renaissance, Columbus Downtown hotel in Columbus, Ohio. This was my second year attending, but speaking with some long-time-attendees, it's been at this location for a long time. In my opinion, this convention has well-outgrown the venue because wow was it tight.

The dealer's room was shoulder-to-shoulder crowded. They recommend you have a backpack to put things, but wearing one was only inconvenient to everyone else around you. I did get to see a lot of tricks performed at the different tables, but if there were just more space, things would have been so much nicer.

The large common area, where everyone gathers in-between lectures, was standard. Tables were everywhere, and thankfully this year the water jugs were constantly full. They even had a food area open this year! I didn't buy food, and not just because the hot dogs were $8, but I just never needed any. I did, however, shell out $4 for a coffee rather than walk across the street to the Starbucks and pay the same. Convenience is a huge plus!

Downstairs, at the hotel, there's a bar where last year I noticed a lot of folks would hang out at night. This year, and maybe it was all about timing, but this year I felt like it was a lot emptier. In fact, I felt like the entire convention was missing a solid one to two hundred people. But, who knows.

Performances & Lectures

I took a lot of notes during this year's convention. I also sat through a couple of lectures and took zero notes. Here's a quick overview of what the lectures where; which ones do you think you would have taken notes in?

Thursday

• Peter Samelson Lecture. The first lecture of the convention, we got to see a handful of effects from card magic to napkins being burnt!
• Michael Feldman Lecture. Feldman took us on a comedic journey of some killer card magic.
• Dan Harlan Show and Lecture. Yes, that Dan Harlan! During this late-night lecture, he showed off a handful of simple, but really amazing effects.

Friday

• Arthur Benjamin Lecture. A 10am lecture all about "mathemagic". As a math person myself, I'm embarrassed to say that I almost skipped this one. As a math person myself, I'm super happy to say that I didn't! Not that I can any-more-easily square 3 or 4 digit numbers, but still.
• Blaise Serra Lecture. Blaise discussed his "magic formula" for creating a magic show, and blew some minds with finger-numbing sleight of hand.
• Magifest Live. Hosted by Randy Shine, we had lectures and, well, lectures by Lance Rich, Jason Suran, Tim Hill, Rich Hatch, Harrison Greenbaum, and Randy Shine too!
• Juliana Chen Lecture. I had to miss this talk, so I'm not sure what was covered =[
• Allan Ackerman Lecture. Ackerman took us on a journey through card magic history while showing us some awesome tricks and giving decades-worth of credits in the process!
• Jason Suran Show. Jason performed, I'm assuming a full show, for us. During Magifest Live, he discussed how he performs the mentalism effects, so this was neat to see them "in action."
• Richard Turner: Dealt. The final performance of Dealt, live and in-person at Magifest! If you've seen it before, it's the same -- except, in person, it's pretty amazing!
• Richard Turner: Interview. Immediately following his Dealt performance, Turner answered a ton of questions.
• Bar Magic with Blaise Serra. Blaise performed in the commons area the routine he lectured on previously. Even when you know what's happening, those sleights are still impossible!

Saturday

• John Guastaferro's One Degree. A morning of Music, Magic, and Motivation. If I can say I took away a single thing from this Magifest, it would be the concept of a "one degree change." John played his guitar, he performed magic, and showed that even though he's busy with both of these things, he still also has a full career that impacts the lives of so many others!
• Asi Wind and John Graham: Magic Between Friends. Asi and John performed a few routines, and in between the performances and explanations, they explained their methods of how they create their tricks.
• Jay Sankey Lecture. Jay Sankey took the stage with a ton of energy, though he said he wasn't feeling well, and crushed a handful of really great magic tricks, all while showing off his comedian chops!
• Gala Show. MC'd by Andi Gladwin himself, this year's Gala Show featured Juliana Chen, Trigg Watson, Alexander Kolikov, Montreal Trio, and Art Benjamin. It had digital magic, production and manipulation magic, juggling, comedy, and more math than you'd think possible, but oh so worth it!
• State of the Magic Union: Harrison Greenbaum brought out his raunchy slides and roasted the current magic world.
• Bar Magic with Blaise Serra. A repeat of the previous night.

Lecture Notes

I brought extra cash with me this year to buy some lecture notes. I remembered from last year that the line would move faster with cash, and not all of the folks took credit anyways. Sadly, there weren't a lot of "lecture notes" to be had.

Everyone sold something afterwards, don't get me wrong. But, not really of the lecture-note variety. Feldman, for example, was selling an old video of his -- on a USB stick. Asi Wind and John Graham were selling a new booklet.  Arthur Benjamin was selling... DVDs.

I really wanted to get a book or set of notes from him too. I was super excited when he started talking about merch and then things kind of crashed when he said he has a set of DVDs for sale. People flocked to them too. I don't have a DVD player, and I'm confident I wouldn't watch them even if I did.

I bought things, don't get me wrong. But I dunno. Last year I came home with a stack of tiny booklets and spiral-bound notes. This year, well, it's mostly stuff from the dealer's room.

Basecamp

I had a lot of high expectations for Basecamp. I thought it was a great idea, one that I would've benefited from a lot. And I think I did, if I'm being honest. However, I have feedback.

The "basecamp" tables were hidden off to the back / side of the common area. When I was over there and it wasn't my turn to lead a table, there was a single table absolutely full of people, and people standing around it too. It was more packed than the tables out in the common area, so I would more frequently just go sit over there. It was a win-win though since it had the same effect that I was trying to get from the Basecamp table.

When it was my turn to lead a table, the area was actually pretty empty. There were 3 or 4 people "signed up" at once to lead, but it was usually just me or one other person. I always had one or two "basecampers" come hang out though, and I got in good 45-minute conversations with them all. We showed tricks, talked about random things, it was pretty great. I even traded contact info with some. Mission, accomplished!

However, in my opinion they should have dedicated one or two of the tables in the common area as "basecamp" tables. Why hide us off in the back room like you're embarrassed to be seen with us? The whole point of basecamp was to try to "break the ice" for people who don't know how to integrate with the conference. It's kind of difficult to do that if you remove them from the conference...

Swag

This is where I would typically write about the cool "free stuff", or swag, that was given out during the convention. Like last year's Magifest, they gave every attendee a deck of Magifest 2023 Playing Cards, so that was pretty cool.

Since last year was my first time attending, it set the bar of expectations going forward and when I walked up to the registration table with a big smile on my face and received just my name tag and flyer with the schedule on it, I'm not going to lie when I say I felt let down.

I didn't let it phase me too much, it's not like I needed more cards or anything. Just, expectations and all. However, I was still looking forward to an almost more-sure gift:

I signed up to be a volunteer and led a table all three days... and yet, no gift. Not even a "thank you to our Basecamp volunteers" during the Gala show. Ugh.

I'm used to tech conventions where you get tons of free little swag gifts. Everything from pencils to Yeti cups, beta hardware devices, free subscriptions to services, etc. Maybe the money's just too tight in the magic world and that's not possible?

Closing Thoughts

When I started writing this, it was February 3rd and I was still rocking a 103°F fever. I tried getting back to it a few times throughout the week, but today -- February 10th -- is when I was finally capable of doing just that. I'm still not at 100%, not even 80% if I'm able to accurately gauge, but it's time to get back into the swing of things so I'm trying.

I have a decent pile of goodies that I picked up at Magifest this year. I came home with 4 decks of "Gold Standards" - one of which cost me $20 at Richard Turner's table... the others were $7 each at Vanishing Inc's booth. I bought a few books, including All In and The Nth Degree, and I even picked up a non-card trick: Four Nightmares by Tenyo! I saw it performed in the dealer's room and just had to buy it. And then, John Guastaferro performed a version of it during his lecture and I just knew that I made the right decision! The only problem is, I can't understand the instructions sooooo, yeah.

Like I mentioned at the beginning of this page, this year's Magifest left me wanting more. I stand by that statement, but I can't exactly explain it. Well, I can, but each time I try, it comes out more as a complaint and that's not my goal. If I figure out a good way to provide the right feedback without accidentally offending anyone (I don't mind if I on-purpose offend them), I will share it. And if you're interested in hearing me ramble about it -- which will likely offend someone -- reach out and let's chat! =P