There’s always a wealth of comedy magic at the Magic Castle any given week, but this week you can go check out John Carney’s inventive blend of comedy and sleight of hand in the Palace of Mystery, alongside Jay Johnson and Miss Katalin.

Performances take place every evening from May 21 – May 27 unless otherwise noted, and include:

Close-up Gallery

Norman Beck: 7:00, 7:45, 8:30, 9:15

Toto: 10:00, 10:45, 11:30, 12:30

David Stryker: 5:00 – 7:00 (Thursday – Sunday)

Parlour of Prestidigitation

Martin Lewis: 7:15, 8:15, 9:15

Wes Mathison: 10:15, 11:15, 12:30

Palace of Mystery

John Carney: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

Jay Johnson: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

Miss Katalin: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

W.C. Fields Bar

Ron Bell: 7:30 – 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

The Peller Theatre

Greg Otto: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

J. Neal: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

Members Only Friday Lunch

Norman Beck: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00

Saturday & Sunday Brunch

Parlour Kids’ Shows by The Amazing Geebo: 11:30a, 12:15, 1:00, 2:15

For more information on what’s in store at the Magic Castle this week, as well as details on how to become a member, be sure to visit the official site for the Academy of Magical Arts.

I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: I could listen to Hannibal talk about anything. If you’re going to the Magic Castle this week, you’ll be able to watch him work his “unique inspirational theater” in the W.C. Fields Bar. 

Performances take place every evening from May 14 – May 20 unless otherwise noted, and include:

Close-up Gallery

TC Tahoe: 7:00, 7:45, 8:30, 9:15

Jimmy Ichihana: 10:00, 10:45, 11:30, 12:30

Kayla Drescher: 5:00 – 7:00 (Thursday – Sunday)

Parlour of Prestidigitation

Dale Hindman: 7:15, 8:15, 9:15

Derek Hughes: 10:15, 11:15, 12:30

Palace of Mystery

The Evasons: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

Mondre: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

John Ferrentino: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

W.C. Fields Bar

Hannibal: 7:30 – 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

The Peller Theatre

Steve Hamilton: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

Alfonso: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

Members Only Friday Lunch

TC Tahoe: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00

Saturday & Sunday Brunch

Parlour Kids’ Shows by Steve Hamilton: 11:30a, 12:15, 1:00, 2:15

For more information on what’s in store at the Magic Castle this week, as well as details on how to become a member, be sure to visit the official site for the Academy of Magical Arts.

Back in 2015, Horret Wu and Shin Lim both took home first prize for their respective card magic routines, and you’ll be able to see Wu perform a the Magic Castle this week in the Close-up Gallery. Check out the video below for his incredible prize-winning routine:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYnmFWIK6AQ

Performances take place every evening from May 7 – May 13 unless otherwise noted, and include:

Close-up Gallery

Gianfranco Preverino: 7:00, 7:45, 8:30, 9:15

Horret Wu: 10:00, 10:45, 11:30, 12:30

Mark Furey: 5:00 – 7:00 (Thursday – Sunday)

Parlour of Prestidigitation

Aurelio Paviato: 7:15, 8:15, 9:15

Frank Deville: 10:15, 11:15, 12:30

Palace of Mystery

Joseph Gabriel: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

Anson Lee: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30

W.C. Fields Bar

Danny Magic: 7:30 – 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

The Peller Theatre

Joseph Tran: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

Scot Nery: 8:00, 10:00, 11:30 (Thursday – Sunday)

Members Only Friday Lunch

Gianfranco Preverino: 12:00, 1:00, 2:00

Saturday & Sunday Brunch

Parlour Kids’ Shows by Scott Green: 11:30a, 12:15, 1:00, 2:15

For more information on what’s in store at the Magic Castle this week, as well as details on how to become a member, be sure to visit the official site for the Academy of Magical Arts.

Attention South African families! On Saturday, June 2nd, over fifty illusionists, jugglers, mimes, clowns, and other magic-adjacent performers will fill the Artscape Theatre in Cape Town to perform in the Imagine!Family Magic Spectacular.

Organized by the College of Magic, the hour-and-a-half show sports a new environmentalist theme and asks its audience to Imagine a Magic Future. There’ll be two showings that Saturday, one at 12pm and the other at 2:30pm. If an hour-and-a-half with over 50 of the nation’s finest children’s entertainers isn’t enough for your eternally stimulus-hungry spawn, you should hang around for the 2018 Traditional Children’s Magic Festival that starts later in the month.

Running from June 27th to the June 30th, the festival offers the young and the young at heart the opportunity to tour the College of Magic Centre, (formerly the Bentley House, a double story Victorian homestead built in 1899), experience fantastical magic shows, take part in interactive workshops, thrilling games, magical photo opportunities and so on.

Tickets for the Imagine!Family Magic Spectacular are available right now, starting at just R165, with discounts for family bookings. Tickets for the Traditional Children’s Magic Festival will become available soon.          

Australian magician Matt Tarrant is one of several artists owed a collective AU$200,000 after event organizer, JumpClimb, folded unexpectedly. Tarrant is owed $30,000 for at least four months of work including weeks of shows at the 2018 Fringe World festival. He is, entirely understandably, not pleased. 

While Fringe World owns and operates its titular festival, it employs third party event companies like JumpClimb to provide nearly half its acts. Fringe World uses ticket revenue to pay these companies, who in turn are supposed to pay their artists. Fringe World claims it has paid “all owed ticket income” to JumpClimb for the 2018 festival. A company press release continues: 

It would seem that JumpClimb did not then use this money to pay the money owed to the artists who created the work. Event management companies have a (legal) responsibility to pay their creditors, in particular the artists they present. Fringe World is deeply troubled that JumpClimb has failed … (this responsibility) and that this will negatively impact on artists. In light of this incident and the impact on Fringe artists, Fringe World is meeting with key stakeholders including relevant government stakeholders about how relevant policies and procedures and contracted relationships with independent producers presenting at Fringe can be improved moving forward with an aim to better protect artists at all costs.

JumpClimb directors Aaron Rutter and Paul Fletcher have claimed they will be “reaching out and communicating to all artists and suppliers affected by our situation in the coming days with the intent of finding solutions.”

Hopefully they do find a solution – 200,000 of them to be exact. 

2018 isn’t even half over yet and here’s Magi-Fest coming up with even more reasons why you should register ASAP for the upcoming convention set to take place in Columbus, Ohio on January 17-19, 2019. Today, Magi-Fest announced the first three names slated to appear at the convention with performances and lectures.

First up, we have Yann Frisch, the 2012 FISM winner for close-up magic and creator of perhaps the greatest cup and ball routine ever devised. He’ll a part of the closing gala show, and will also present a brand new lecture.

Next, Nick Diffatte is the self-described “tannest magician” of Minnesota, and his comedy magic going to be part of the Friday Night Stage slot.

The last confirmation so far is a very special talk from Werner Reich, a 90 year old magician and Holocaust survivor, who discovered magic during his internment at Auschwitz. 

Registration for the event is still available at the $150 early bird rate, but that price goes up to $200 after May 15, so if you’re interested in attending, head over to magifest.org to secure your spot. Magi-Fest has teased that the headliner and Guest of Honor are both going to be “big, big, big news”, and if these early reveals are any indication, Magi-Fest 2019 is going to be an event to remember.

The Academy of Magical Arts is hosting its yearly bash to honor the best of the business in the magic world this weekend. The 50th annual AMA Awards Show is happening on Sunday, April 22 at the Orpheum Theater in Los Angeles. There will be an after-party at, where else, the Magic Castle following the ceremony. Although the event is open to the public, those tickets have already disappeared like a palmed coin. AMA members can still contact the Magic Castle for their tickets.

Larry Wilmore, who is a magician in addition to an actor, comedian, writer, and producer, will host the ceremony at the Orpheum. David Copperfield will be honored as Magician of the Decade in addition to receiving the AMA Masters Fellowship. David Williamson has been selected as Magician of the Year. Other awards for the best close-up magician, parlour magician, stage magician, and lecturer of the year will be announced at the event, and the nominees are quite the who’s who of contemporary performers:

Close-Up Magician of the Year Nominees:
Eric Jones
Armando Lucero
Garrett Thomas
Richard Turner
Andrew Goldenhersh
Bill Goodwin

Parlour Magician of the Year Nominees:
Woody Aragon
Chris Capehart
Handsome Jack
Johnny Ace Palmer
Arthur Trace

Stage Magician of the Year Nominees:
The Clairvoyants
Derek Hughes
Tina Lenert
Shoot Ogawa
Voronin

Lecturer of the Year Nominees:
John Carney
Pop Haydn
Joshua Jay
Eric Jones
Rob Zabrecky

She sounds like the superhero we need: mild-mannered nurse by day, brilliant stage magician by night. Fortunately for Canada, Pauline Kong isn’t the stuff of comic books.

She works as an ICU nurse, inspired to follow a career in health care after a serious illness as a child. But Kong is also a magician and event producer, and she’s combining those pastimes into a fundraiser for the Surrey Memorial Hospital ICU where she works.

The show is called FATE 2: The Dance and Illusions of Oslen. The event features illusionist Oslen Chang, who appeared on Canada’s Got Talent. Other guest performers include magician Will Tsai, close-up magician Rosalind Chan, tap dance ensemble Project X, and Kong herself, performing under her stage name Fate.

As you might guess from the name, FATE 2 isn’t Kong’s first rodeo. She held the first FATE benefit in 2014 for the BC Children’s Hospital, where she was treated as a child for a ruptured appendix.

“Some patients are lonely and sad, and some don’t have people who come visit them,” Kong told the Surrey Now-Leader, explaining how her nursing work sparked an interest in magic. “I went to the night market one night and saw a magician there, and I asked him to teach me magic, and I spent the next two years learning from him, so I could use some of those tricks for the patients, to brighten their mood.”

FATE 2 is happening at the River Rock Casino Resort in British Columbia on April 8. Even if you can’t attend, or if tickets do sell out, Kong has a related GoFundMe campaign as a second fundraiser for the department.

Many of us about the magical contributions of Harry Houdini or Dai Vernon; we know the famous posters for Charles Joseph Carter or Howard Thurston. But what about the women who have formed the backbone of magic history but always seem to end up in the background? Michigan native Jaina Taylor wants to shine a light on their lives with a free, public lecture in April.

The lecture, called “Those Magical Dames”, will take place on Tuesday, April 17 at 7pm at the North Central Michigan College Student and Community Resource Center gymnasium. Taylor, a graduate from the Chavez Studio of Magic, will discuss, according to the program description:

…six overlooked female magicians, starting with those that paved the way back in the 1800s, trouping shows by steamer ship and trains, then, as time went on, to those performing on modern-day stages. Audiences will get a peek at their trials and triumphs and will witness some of the magic that was performed in their shows. The lecture runs an hour with time for questions.  

Doors open for the lecture at 6pm. While admission is free, you’ll need to secure your spot with a quick email to willcall@ncmich.edu or a phone call to (231) 348-6600. 

If you want your magic convention experience to be a bit shorter and more intimate, you need to get your tickets for the Penguin Magic Experience and Expo (or MAXX) ASAP. The two-day event takes place on April 6-7 at the Doubletree Atlanta Airport Hotel in Atlanta, GA, and there are only about 100 tickets left for an event that is strictly limited to 300 people.

That level of intimacy ensures that everyone gets up-close and personal instruction from its variety of lecturers and performers. Michael Weber and Gazzo will kick off the convention on Friday evening, while Diamond Jim Tyler, Chad Long, and Dan Harlan will be giving full lectures on Saturday. And you’ll even get a chance to chat to chat with these magicians and many more special guests, as host Penguin Magic makes sure to mention that “hanging out is ON THE SCHEDULE” (emphasis theirs), in addition to the many mini-lectures on offer.

The full lineup of special guests includes:

• Dan Harlan
• Michael Weber
• Chad Long
• Diamond Jim Tyler
• Michael Kamiskas
• Brent Braun
• Losander
• Daniel Garcia
• Gazzo

Tickets are still available for $100 each at Penguin Magic, which includes admission to the Friday magic show, all of the lectures, access to the dealers hall, and a gift bag with $60 worth of goodies. Get in, learn a ton of new info, meets some great people, and head home before the weekend is over. Register now before they run out!