Blackpool 2009 Comedy Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=46R_B-NI-hE

Final Thoughts - Text & Video

Matt Parro's Comments: So the convention is over for another year, and it was a great one yet again this year! So a big thank you to everyone organising the convention.

Now let’s get onto what exactly I thought. Best lectures for me were Rudy and Garcia. Dealers were good again this year, although again how can loops range from £8-12?? I managed to haggle and get some packs for £6. This dollar conversion is doing us no favours either! Plus I think some dealers don’t bother to change their price from dollars! … Oh and another thing 1 item I wanted to buy, Mr Blaine bought them all! So thanks for that! When it comes to buying the latest magic items, it appears that people forget to take their manners with them.

Was good to catch up with old friends and make new ones, thank you for all the comments keep them coming. I hope you’ve enjoyed the blog and thank you to Stuart, Geoff, Max, Andy and Natalie for their contributions.
I’ll see you next year!
8.5/10

Stuart's Comments: Fab convention, see the video for the main highlights, but for me the Rudy Cody lecture, anything by Jeff & Eugene.

Geoff’s Comments: Well now spoilt for choice what to say & what to leave out. My outstanding Magician was Rick Merrill, closely followed by Etienne & Jeff McBride. The competitions were to a very high standard. I conquered with the judges on who were the winners. My only criticism is in the VIP lounge, unable to see the magician perform, a screen is required, other than that its plus plus plus. 9.75/10

Max's Comments: So overall the convention was my first time and I thought it was amazing seriously great. Seeing all the magic dealers and a load for Magician's which are very well known. I will give it 100%. I am hoping to come back next year and I recommend it so so much. See you all next year for the BLACKPOOL MAGIC CONVENTION 2010.

Videos

Matt Parro Final Thoughts Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVJxVMBTTcA

Stuart Harley Final Thoughts Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7ZYwD95EC4

Geoff Hunt Final Thoughts Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nZndkBBpNVA

Max Curd Final Thoughts Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzMJ3r9tYdQ

International Gala

The points system G=Geoff, S=Stuart, M=Matt, MX=Max.

Ervan Bodiou. G/8. S/9. M/8. MX/8.
Arthur Trace. G/8. S/7. M/6. MX/9.
Rudy Cody. G/9. S/7. M/7. MX/7.
Jerome Murat. G/9. S/9. M/8.5. MX/6.
Tony Chapek. G/9. S/9. M/7.5. MX/8.
Jeff McBride. G/9. S/10. M/8. MX/10.

Murray awards to Duncan Trilo and Eric Eswin, comedy award to Russ
Brown.

An Ha-Lim. G/9. S/8. M/10. MX/10.
Tony Frebourg. G/9. S/9. M/8.5. MX/8.
Magic Unlimited. G/9.5. S/9. M/9. MX/9.

As much as I loved Rudy's lecture I was expecting so much more from his show, I was disapointed.

I was also suprized we had both Murat and Chapel again as we saw them so recently, don't get me wrong both fab acts but would have perfered a little more time to have passed.

My absolute best part of the evening was Jeff's misers dream which was awesome! Also must say the compere Derek Scott's kazoo routine was just about the most funny thing I've seen this for a long time.

The stage management was nice and slick tonight, well done Jamie, Russ & Juan.

Eugene Burger Lecture

Wasn't there but stu will review, I reckon gypsys were involved!
Chortle.
Matt

Thankfully Matt does magic and not comedy :)
Any hoo on to Mr Burger's lecture, in a word wonderfull, in more words he discussed effects taught routines and told us theory, Eugene & Jeff were worth the convention cost alone.
Stu

Michael Ammar Lecture

Michael started off by performing coin in bottle. He then moved in to a corner reversed card routine using a gaffed card.

By the way the majority of his routines where also demonstrated with DVD, which seemed a bit pointless as he was demonstrating as well and couldn’t keep up!

Ammar then went on to talk about what i thought was the best part of his lecture, ripped wallpaper and ripped cards that restore themselves. After fixing a broken Iphone screen he performed his cups and balls with a spectators note in the Lemon that he produced.

Rudy Coby Lecture

Excellent 9/10 full review to follow! You try blogging Blackpool convention! I'm not talking to you though Andrew ;)

And here is the full review...
Rudy's lecture apart from the technical difficulties was one of the best lectures I have seen. Not 1 magic trick was performed. Rudy spent most of his time talking about his past, showing clips on his TV tricks and how he came about to being a magician today. Rudy also explained how he makes his prototype illusions and how you can travel the world with a 3 minute act!

My fave lecture along with Garcia! 9.5/10

An audience with Jeff Mcbride and Eugene Burger

All the info coming soon! Sorry for the delay so much to type so
little time!

Etienne Pradier

He's usually a very busy close- up magician and rarely seen at conventions so it was a great pleasure to see his lecture, he is also one of my top five magicians’. I was a little bit late to his lecture but that wasn't a problem because he had some great routines and ideas. He is also a very funny guy I was laughing the whole way through. I bought 3 of his DVD's and hopefully I can learn some great tricks. 10/10

Max Curd

Sunday 22nd Feb Event List

Click to enlarge

David Penn Lecture and Beat the Wand Competition

We all attended the beat the wand competition but we want to know what you thought of this new event to the programme why not give us your out of ten?

Because we were at the BTW comp tell us what you thought about the David Penn Lecture.

Comment Now! ;)

$10,000 intercontinetal stage magic championships

Here are our scores and the actual results.

Kenris Murat S5 M6 G8
Kyoko S8 M8 G9
Rolf Reiner S6 M4 G7
Dirk Losander S9 M8.5 G8
Marc Oberon S9 M9 G9
Yumi S6 M7 G9
Adrian Soler S7 M6 G9
Han Seol-Hee S10 M9 G10

And the winners are:
3rd= Marc Oberon
2nd= Yumi
1st and originality= Han Seol-Hee

See what Stuart thought in this video
(link coming soon)

Garcia Lecture

Wow this was a fantastic lecture my fave so far. Daniel performed ALOT
of effects in a jam packed hour.

He started off with a 3 time bill changing effect called greed. Then
onto some card effects with some of Garcias created slights like the
dam good box steal. Earlier on Garcia Got a phone call from mr Blaine
and the gag was used throughout with david walking in with a strong
tequila, and then walking in with possibly the worst burger ever that
I have tasted and Garcia thought the same.

The next effects all went on to use every day objects such as paper
clips, ruberbands, straws and more.

Our scores M9.5 S10 MX10

Daryl Lecture

I was looking forward to Daryl as I had seen some of his DVD's and liked his style and he was exactly the same in real life!

Started off with a multicoloured knots off rope routine. A card revelation from an envelope. Then a couple of note effects 1 of which being Moola Money. Coins from body parts routine and then finally ending on a variation of Jay Sankeys Paperclipped routine.

Daryl was entertaining throughout and kept the attention of the audience and his lecture was presented perfectly 8/10.

Joshua Jay Lecture

Joshua started by performing charming chinese challenge, 6 card repeat to a story about travelling. Followed by an oil and water routine using jacks and aces. Then a coin under watch vanish finishing with a flipper coin and shell coins accross.

The lecture was as expected a very high quality, entertaining and informative. M9/10

As a non card guy I wasnt expected to enjoy it as much as I did. I also thought the routines would be difficult, but there were routines for all abilities, I even bought some stuff. A really good lecture. Stu 9/10

James Randi

Whilst I had a look around the dealers Geoff reviewed an audience with James Randi...

Interviewed by that evergreen magician micateer of "oh is it my turn" the one and only Terry Seabrook

Great stories of Uri Geller (very funny) and other magic characters he has known and met.

Numerous anecdotes about his life & times, tv series and exposure of fake mediums.

James Randi accepted questions from the floor Million dollar challenge was one of them. Also his views on the after life (He didn't believe in such without proof but stands ready to be correct!)

Jeff Mcbride Lecture

The atmosphere in the Spanish hall was electric the hall was packed
with magicians and antisipation did he deliver yes he did.

Dancing cane a new way of presenting this standard effect. Eyeball
contact was explained next and how important this is when doing magic.

Manipulation was next. Cards from mouth with spectator, card scaling
or throwing, bouncing cards off the floor. He also talked about the use of confetti and 2 rising card effects (Brilliant). Selling DVDs and Tricks.
-Geoff 11/10

Excellent lecture 1 I was really looking forward to and it did not
dissapoint well presented and kept everyones attention 9/10. -Matt

Fabulous 10/10 -Stu

Quite inspiring 9/10 - Max

Saturday 21st Feb Event List

Click to enlarge

Dan & Dave Video Review

Max Curd briefly talks about Dan & Dave:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upLBXK1a_68

Pizza and European Magical Close-Up Championships

After grabbing a pizza from pizza hut myself and geoff atended the competition whist max looked at the dealers spending more money and Stuart watched the mentalism session.

We came in late for the competition and were in the baronial room and missed the first 2 acts, Michael Jordan & Giacomo De Carlo. We just score the competitors so here are mine and geoff's out of ten scores (G=Geoff, M=Matt)

Gary Williams M5, G7
Marcus Taylor M3, G8
Craig Petty M8, G9
Jean Emma Nuel Franzis M5, G6
Rob James M8, G9
Dai Hewga M6, G8
Andrew James M7.5, G8

Geoff's winner = Rob James
Matt's winner = Rob James
But for me it was a close call between Craig and Rob.

3rd Place = Jean Emmanuel Franzis
2nd Place = Giacomo De Carlo
1st Place = Dai Hewga

These results to me are a complete shock and I don't agree but I'm not judging, do you agree?
Comment NOW!!!

Ian Keable Lecture

Geoff Reviews Ian

Stand up humour is what Ian specializes in quick wit and with dry
delivery times. I believe he was an accountant by proffesion,
something my accountant never had was humour.

Ian has this in abundance after his new book plug straight into a card routine (card to wallet)

Ian ran through a number of opening remarks by other magicians & he explained the importance of a good opening remark or trick.

Ians lecture was full of goodies and the best recomendation we can give is buy his book. If you like comedy its full of goodies. Recomemded! 8/10.

Marc Oberon Lecture

If you don't know who this guy is, his name is Marc Oberon, he was the close-up champion in Louisville at the joint IBM/SAM convention and his visual magic was the talk of the convention.

In his lecture he revealed some nice powerful tricks, many predictions and mentalism but with all very clever methods. He is one on my top 5 magicians and I was very excited to see his lecture. He also did an amazing floating wand which was so amazing and I bought it. 8/10

Max Curd

Andi Gladwin does it again!

Mr Gladwin was on fire again this year entertaining everyone with his
demonstration of his brand spanking new stage illusion in the dealers
room. Unfortunatly for the people reading this the £1,500 illusion is
now sold out!

Latko from Argentina

Latko was our first lecturer, he needed a translator to explain.
His lecture was mainly on structure of an act and all his acts were themed, he demonstrated but did not explain. There was a very good matrix coin effect ending up with aproximatly 20 coins and an large number of bank notes. Short and sweet, the whole lecture lasted 25mins. Looking forward to seeing him in the close-up.
Geoff.

Stu was still trying to beg/borrow/steal cash for the puppet.
Matt was last seen eating a huge cake.
Max was last seen with a huge bag full of Alakazam goodies.
Natalie has been to the Greggs.

Dealers - Friday

OMG, I've just seen what I want to save my pennies for, I love the animatronic dragon puppet at the Axtell stand, it's four grand but to be honest i think it's worth it. I've seen it on their website but didn't realize just how good it is, to be compleatly honest I doubt I could use it in my escapology act but I just want it :)

The first lecture is less than an hour away, it's Latko from Argentina who I'm told has a closeup routine based around chess which sounds interesting, we'll keep you posted.

(Photo received anonymously)

Friday 20th Feb Event List

Click to enlarge

Exploring Blackpool

Hi All, welcome to my first post, as you'll see by the photo we went exploring Blackpool yesterday, strangly is was mostly closed :(

Matt has come up with a scoring system this morning, he's going to mark the rest of us on our conduct over the weekend and deduct marks from us if we take the micky out of him, i'm back to zero now after being in minus figures for a while, but Max is at around -15.

Also I've just heard Matt has beaten Max at table tennis, it sounds like there may be a return grudge match later. I'm off to play the winner so more later...

Thursday afternoon and evening!

After arriving safley at the hotel the blogging 4 met up with andy and Natalie and took a walk around what can only be described as a ghostly half term town of Blackpool with the majority of places closed at 4 pm. A long walk we took to JB magic to get us in the mood for the dealers tomorrow.

After sitting down in a pub talking magic for a couple of hours we made our way to a steak house and met up with Stevie P and Lee, you guessed it we ate steak!

So now the real countdown has begun! The excitement of what possibly is the best line up of a magic convention I've attended is really starting to kick in. Will the weekend match the hype? Find out tomorrow!

Back on the road again!

Well Thursdays here, and the 4 hour and 50 minute journey is in progress. Geoff got back from his holiday in time to catch a lift in Stu's super swish car.

I seem to have more luggage than the others combined. Do I really need 5 T-shirts, well yes, yes I do!

Max says: "I've been counting down the days till Blackpool, can't wait to see the pink hotel. I'm in the back with Matt reading up on the latest Magic magazine installment, hope to see you there.

About The Blackpool Magic Convention Blog 2009

Hello and welcome to the Blackpool Magic Convention 2009 Blog! This Blog will officially start on Thursday 19th of February, and will contain reviews, news, photos and even VIDEOS.... yes i said videos, of this year's programme. Please leave comments and questions about the convention here (please not as anonymous) and we'll try and get back to you as soon as possible! Enjoy the Convention, and enjoy the Blog!