Reviews
Below is an overview of the 2007 MAGIC Live! by Alan Howard from the October 2007 issue of MAGIC. Click here to view a slideshow of photographs from the event.
This year has been referred to in the media as “the summer of the threequel,” as some of the biggest movies at the box office were the third installment of popular franchises — Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 3, Shrek 3, a third Bourne flick, and even Rush Hour 3. August also saw the production of the third in a series of MAGIC Live! unconventional conventions. As with the films, the magic event played to a sold-out crowd, and was largely deemed a success, although not an unqualified one. Admittedly, sequels are rarely as good as the original…
As with summer cinema, MAGIC Live! saw its share of recognizable characters, well-known if not well-loved, dramatic highs and lows, plot points that were muddied and confusing, cameos by visiting celebrities, and plenty of surprises.
“Surprise” was a key element, one which many attendees felt may have been taken too far. Previous MAGIC Live! gatherings, in 2001 and 2004, brought people to The Orleans Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas out of curiosity and a trust that, whatever happened, it would be worth their while… but schedules and names were not announced until just before the individual events. This year, secrecy was stepped up, with nothing being leaked beforehand, and printed notes not being handed out until the end of each session. Despite their profession or avocation of fooling others, it seems that a lot of magicians don’t like not knowing what will be coming next. True, there were times when it would have been nice to know what was upcoming, to gauge whether or not to flee a less-than-stellar presentation on a subject that was of no personal interest. When something great came along, however, it usually proved to have been worth the wait.
Many people were waiting in anticipation long before they set foot in Las Vegas; the convention was sold out six months in advance, even at the relatively high early-bird price of $320 per person. One registrant who found himself having to cancel put his registration up on eBay, where the winning bidder paid $1,225 for a chance to attend! (This means that at least one other person thought the experience would be worth $1,200, but was outbid.)
As the saying goes, you can’t please everyone, especially with over 900 individuals in attendance. While many people mentioned not liking the lack of information prior to events, others cited that as an exciting, fun aspect to the convention; some people detested certain sessions or shows, and others raved about those same moments as their absolute highlights.
Not all surprises were good. One aspect of the week unexpected by the organizers was the technical problems from The Orleans audio-visual department. A multitude of missed cues, malfunctioning microphones, and video projections that were not only useless but distractingly bad plagued all four days. Some aspects were gradually smoothed out, while others were a constant source of irritation. Previous Live! conventions at The Orleans did not suffer so.
As for the content of the presentations, Stan Allen, along with Rory Johnston and Rick Gerber, decided against simply playing it safe. Continuing in the tradition of past MAGIC Lives, they wanted to try some new and different ideas and personalities, as well as names seldom seen at other magic conventions around the world. And the success of the previous Lives set a high standard to live up to, lofty goals that may be impossible to beat.
The concept behind the gathering is that all attendees are of equal standing and share the same experience. Audiences may be broken into smaller groups to make for manageable size and better viewing of the shows, but everyone sees the same productions on the same nights — no hearing about the acts second-hand before getting to see them in a repeat performance the next evening. Where other conventions have lectures designated for special interests — kid shows, mentalists, historians, etc. — Live! pulls everyone into one large session hall, mixing talks for a variety of tastes, and often showing how different genres of magic can cross-pollinate with each other. One example this year featured Gregory Wilson performing in a comedy club setting, Bob Sheets in a bar scene, and Paul Gertner in a trade show, each doing tricks that were later revealed to have come from David Kaye’s kid-show column, “Turn It Around.”
The desire to bring a printed magazine to life is what drives Live! Other popular MAGIC columns, such as Mike Caveney’s “Classic Correspondence,” Joshua Jay’s “Talk About Tricks,” “Bloomerangs” by Gaetan Bloom, and even a letter to “Mail” from Rick Merrill about his winning FISM act, were presented in person for the assembled audience. These living columns reprised favorites from the past or previewed articles to appear in future issues. Guests at the Finally Party were able to actively participate in this process, coming up with potential captions for future “Finally” pages by writing their lines on poster boards throughout the room. [See one such caption this month, on page 130.] It is one thing to read John Fisher’s life of Cardini in an issue of the magazine, and an altogether different experience to hear Fisher speak at Live!, along with video of the master manipulator, and a chance to chat with Cardini’s daughter, sitting in the audience.
The twice-daily sessions were more than just lectures on history, business, and tricks. This more standard fare was interspersed with videos, such as the comic film Loaded, and live presentations like Kerry Pollock emceeing his comedy game show, Bonk, and Eric Buss with the world’s largest collection of trained peanut-can-snakes.
Those who came to Vegas this summer received the perks they have come to expect from this convention, such as a free set of lecture notes and show programs collected in a binder, becoming a 100-page book; the rapidly produced photo name badges depicting the bearer on a MAGIC cover; special Live! hotel room keys; a quality padfolio with the MAGIC logo, in which to take notes and carry assorted items; and even a staple remover. The latter was provided to take the fasteners out of the sets of lecture notes each day, which were speedily handed out (thanks to the pages being stapled) to attendees at the end of each session.
Marc Summers — comedy magician, game show host, and Food Network producer — brought in his production crew for an episode of Dinner: Impossible at the opening night party. Chef Robert Irvine was given the challenge to create a meal to fool magicians, which was served to sixteen of MAGIC’s past cover personalities, each of whom drew a name at random for a lucky conventioneer to accompany them at the meal. Those not chosen for the meal in front of the cameras did not go hungry, as the Cover Party provided plenty of food for everyone, and the 24-hour Hospitality “Sweet” always had bowls of candy available. “Sweet” was one of the themes of the year, with the dealers’ room being dubbed Candy Land; the opening of the sales room merged with the adjacent Cover Party, with more advertisers and more extensive displays than ever before.
The Food Network’s Chef Irvine was aided both onstage and in the kitchen by television star and magic fan Neil Patrick Harris, who was not the only sitcom star to grace the MAGIC Live! stage. In an “In His Words” interview on Monday with Associate Editor John Lovick, Jason Alexander gave an entertaining and engaging look at his non-Seinfeld life, which as most attendees were aware includes a strong proclivity toward magic and mentalism. A television star of a different sort, Cyril Takayama, who has done thirteen magic specials in Japan, flew in to be interviewed onstage by Michael Weber. While hosting that afternoon, Michael also taught several tricks of his own and opened the session with a no-holds barred “MAGIC Update Updated,” a take-off on the “MAGIC Update” news presentation given by Shawn McMaster in the morning session. Other notable session moments included Johnny Thompson reflecting on Charlie Miller, a succession of conjurors taking the stage to relate some of the now-comic misfortunes that have befallen them in their years on the road, and Max Maven given free reign onstage to sum up the convention in any way he saw fit.
Evenings were filled with entertainments in close-up, parlor, and stage formats — more magical moments that ranged from the familiar to the never-before-seen. While the stage show was seen by all the attendees at 8:30 Wednesday night, locals and guests were able to see a preview show at 5:00, letting the acts and crew do a full dress rehearsal for a live audience. On Monday, parlor settings featured both Dana Daniels’ No Show upstairs and The Flicking Fingers in a reconfigured Orleans Theatre, with the sides of the house brought in and a thrust stage built out to facilitate a more intimate performance space. The Close-up Experience on Tuesday had the toughest reputation to live up to, following what has largely been hailed as the best magic convention close-up setting ever at the 2004 Live! Three years ago, performers worked in individually themed venues, with the audience shifting from room to room. This time, the audience stayed in the same place, but the unique backgrounds morphed from one look to another, the set changes becoming another act in the show. Even though the eighty-minute close-up shows ran continuously from 4:30 to 1:00 a.m., the eighty-seat venues necessitated that not one but two identical theaters and sets be built, with the magicians hopping back and forth between them.
In-between the structured stage events, in-depth breakout sessions were scheduled and, of course, casual gatherings took place as well, with magicians swapping tricks and stories as they do.
Spider-Man, Shrek, and other names from this summer are almost certain to appear in future sequels. What about MAGIC Live? Well, it’s just possible that Part Four may one day be coming to a Las Vegas near you. In the meantime, the following sixteen pages present an overview of the sweet sixteenth anniversary party thrown by MAGIC.