The final day of last week’s Portland Magic Jam had the Paul Draper lecture. He does a choose your own lecture where the audience asks him to talk about things and he talks about what the audience requests.
Then there was a panel Q and A with all the weekend’s headliners.
Then David Kaye and I snuck out so I could take him for the most Portland lunch, which was eating at a food truck pod!
Then the weekend for me ended with the magic contest.
Unfortunately, I forgot to take more pictures of the contest. There were a couple of extra charge workshops going on after the contest, but I had plans with my wife, so I couldn’t do any of them.
The weekend at the Portland Magic Jam was a ton of fun! I wish I could go to more of these, however, my performing schedule doesn’t let me.
The second day of the Portland Magic Jam (last weekend) was a lot of fun. The day started with Daniel Garcia‘s lecture, which was great! I’ve used his One Card index since I worked with him in November. It’s great, if you need a folded card index, it’s worth looking into!
The highlight of the convention for me was watching David Kay perform for a room of 75ish kids plus adults.
For someone that’s a “kids magician” his knowledge of comedy techniques goes way beyond 97% of children’s magicians that I’ve seen. There’s soo much that any performer can learn from watching his show!
Also, working with Paul Draper the night before was great, and Paul and I are working together this week in Seattle at the Moisture Festival.
The convention venue (Portland Airport Holiday Inn) was garbage. My room had blood on the blankets, which is great if you’re a vampire! They new a convention was coming in, but didn’t appropriately staff their restaurant for use. The first night the turn around time for food was crazy long. For the second night, I drove to Costco which was a couple miles down the street and bought a bunch of pizzas for all the hungry magicians!
Then the evening show was John Shyrock, Daniel Garcia, and Rhy Thomas. The show was great!
Last weekend, the Portland Magic Jam happened. This is a fun, local magic convention in Portland, OR, with around 75 attendees. For me, this was a working convention, not just for fun. I was the MC for the Friday evening show. My show set list for the show:
When you’re MC, these things are always in a state of flux, and they will change, and they sure did! The show went from four acts to two! That drastically changes what I need to do. I had a recurring gag that works when they see me 4 times, but not when they only see me twice.
In addition to the Friday night show, I also had a dealer booth.
I was selling the magic products that I make, along with some of the magic stuff I’ve accumulated over the years. Having a dealer table really makes for long days at a magic convention; you really don’t get any time off, unless you want to skip lectures or shows.
The first day of the Portland Magic Jam started with the registration and dealer room being open. Then, a bit later David Kaye did a pre-lecture about what to look for in the show he was going to do the next day, which then would be followed by a post show breakdown of what we just saw.
I think that’s a great format if you’re going to do a show and then talk about it. One thing that I noticed is how much David knows about comedy. He’s a kid show guy, but all of the principles he talked about are for any age group!
Next was John Shyrock who also did a show/lecture. He did a 20 min close up show and then talked about it.
John does some really strong magic, and there’s a lot to learn from his use of music (even in a close up show). He brings a lot of bigger theatrical techniques to close up magic!
Then it was the evening show which was just three acts. I was the MC and did a spot along with Paul Draper and Richard Turner.
It’s had to do an MC spot on a small stage with no curtain, where a lot of equipment is being moved around. The spot I did was kind of a hybrid MC filling time and a scheduled spot.
The closing spot was Richard Turner doing close up tabled card magic.
To be 100% honest, I’m not sure how I felt about Richard Turner’s show. The card magic is great, but to me (this is my opinion), he really came off as a dirty old man the way he interacted with the two people onstage. The card magic was amazing, but his patter is from a different era, that’s not a modern style, especially for a town like Portland.
After the show, it was hang out time!
The late-night stuff is where all of the fun, weird, amazing magic happens! Also with this convention taking place at an airport hotel, there were some people who missed a connection at the airport and ended seeing some crazy magic tricks! I think it made their delay much more fun!
The Portland Magic Jam in Portland, OR, is coming up, and it’s got a great lineup!
I just found out that I’ll be performing in the Friday night show! I’ll also have a dealer table with some vintage magic, as well as some of the magic tricks that I make.
You can register at https://pdxmagicjam.com/ They also have an amazing refund policy if you can’t make it, so register now if you’re on the fence about going!
In a couple of months, the Portland Magic Jam is happening. I’m not able to go to many magic conventions due to my performing schedule, but this one I’m currently available for! I just registered for it!
They’ve got a great mix of performers/lecturers for this convention. If you’re in the Portland OR area, or looking for a reason to visit, this is a convention worth checking out!
One of the cool thing they’re doing this year is having the presenters do a full show. It’s a great way to give context to the presenter and personally I think a lot more is learned from a full show than seeing an act.
Here’s info on the three presenters:
James Cielen is one of only eight magicians to win the Gold Medal for Excellence in Stage Performance from the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Even better proof of excellence is the successful career which has followed, including what may be the longest-running contract in the history of cruise ship magicians. We’ll get to see James on his home turf, thrilling audiences in the 890-seat World Stage theatre, plus a PCAM-exclusive talk where we can learn from his experience.
Louie Foxx never stops. He never stops moving, on the road as one of the busiest entertainers in the Pacific Northwest, delighting audiences of kids, families, adults, and seniors in every town along the way. He never stops learning, as an avid collector gaining hands-on insight to the history of magic and magicians through long-lost props. He never stops creating, inventing wildly original tricks grounded in the practical needs of a working pro. Louie will inspire you to get your magic moving!
On a recent Fool Us performance, Penn praises Peter Samelson as “one of the greatest living magicians,” and Jamy Ian Swiss writes “I used to say that Peter Samelson is the most influential magician you’ve never heard of.” Except the secret is now out. From his groundbreaking publication Theatrical Close-Up to producing the longest running Off-Broadway Magic Show in New York City, he shows his commitment to performing magic as an artist. He’ll be teaching us, by example, what it means to experience magic.
Being local takes out a lot of the travel burden as I don’t have to pay for travel. I would really like to go to more magic conventions, but it’s difficult in the summer as I’d have to turn down a 5-10 day gig to attend.
This should be a fun convention, and you can register at: https://www.magician.org/convention/online-registration-2024
It felt great getting some sleep on a bed after sleeping in my car the night before my flight so that I could make it to FISM. I also got to see how amazing Quebec City looked in the daylight!
In the picture above you’ll notice the barricades on the streets, that’s due to the pope being in town, and his route was on the same street as my hotel’s front door!
I’m up early today as the contest start at 8:15am, which is rough as I’m running on west coast time, which is 3 hours earlier!
After registering, you have to walk along the hall of masters or whatever they call it. I had to stop and take a pic with Michael Ammar‘s portrait! I’m convinced he’s a genius, of all the portraits, his is the only one that anyone talked about!
I had decided for this convention I was going to make attending the contests my priority and not lectures. Little did I know how much of a commitment this would be. I used to tell people I could watch magic shows all day…turns out I can’t…even with top level magicians!
The stage contest had multiple competitors have to cancel due to “flight delays, luggage delays, or visa issues“, so the contest ended early. This was great as I got to see Jim Steinmeyer‘s lecture! The room was pretty full, but I found a seat and got to watch about half of it. There were two people sitting behind me and they had the gnarliest coughs. Even if it wasn’t COVID, I didn’t want what it was, so I got up, but unfortunately by that point the room was packed, and there was nowhere to sit or stand, so I had to bail on his lecture.
On a side note, I decided for my personal health, I was going to wear a mask while at the shows and contests. I took a week off work to go to FISM, so that means a week of my busy season that I wasn’t working, I can’t afford to lose two weeks of work by getting sick with anything.
I ran into some people I knew and we sat down for lunch!
Left to Right: Louie, Topher, Payne, Mitch, Gwyn, Elliott, and Billy
For lunch today, I ate the convention center’s prepackaged egg salad sandwich, that was probably 93% bread and a beer, which is also essentially 93%bread as well. Then it was time to go to the other theater to see the close up contest!
This room was giant (for close up) and there was also a satellite room that had a live stream playing of the contest. There were a lot of acts, and most today were just OK.
I did get to see Dom Chambers who I had built some props for to use on AGT perform. I missed him a couple years ago in New York when he was performing with the Illusionists, so it was nice to get to see him live. He did a very funny and energetic card to mouth!
Between the close up contest and the evening show, I swung by the dealers room.
Jeff Prace demonstrates the Penrose Pendant
I was a bit underwhelmed by the amount of dealers, half of the room had empty booths. I had heard various reasons as to why it was empty, cancelled flights, inventory not showing up, etc. The quantity of dealers at FISM was probably the only thing that disappointed me. Sure, I’d rather have a small amount of quality dealers than a lot of lame ones, however I’ve been to local conventions that had more.
The evening show a ton of fun, it was great to see Greg Frewin do the dove act he did in the 1990’s on The Worlds Greatest Magic! The show was 90% solid, and there was a perfectly timed tech problem that occurred right after Greg praised the tech team for running the show flawlessly!
After the show I ran into Bob Fitch, who changed my life when I went to the first performance boot camp he put on about 25 years ago! He’s been one of my hero’s ever since!
Bob has always been insanely generous with his time and FISM was no exception! He would talk to anyone that approached him, and would hang out fairly late into the evenings. Fitch was also a fixture in Jeff McBride’s Magic and Mystery School room (more on that tomorrow).
I was a good kid tonight and walked back to my hotel not too long after the last show, as I knew I needed some sleep.
I’m working my way home to Seattle from FISM, and writing this during a 5 hour layover in Chicago. My plan heading there was for me to write these blog posts every morning, but the reality of the schedule there, that just wasn’t possible if I wanted to sleep. The schedule there ran from 8am to 11pm, most days, and some days the official schedule went to 1:30am, with your starting again at 8am the next day!
When I landed in Quebec City, it was 10pm and after a cab ride and loading into my hotel it was about 11pm when I began my 10 minute walk to the venue.
Quebec City is gorgeous and I want to be able to return sometime to explore the city. The picture above was taken from the door of my hotel!
Unfortunately, since I got in after registration had closed, I couldn’t attend the late night FISM events, but my buddy Clive who was already in Quebec City was willing to hang out with me! After a few attempts at finding a place still open that served food, we found Ninkasi, which turned out to be a place we be at almost every night. The staff there was super cool, and I think it was the closest place that had beer to the convention center.
While we were there, I had Clive show me some of the stuff he’s working on. One of which used a single sponge ball, and that caught the eyes of Pere Rafart and his friend whose name I don’t remember.
This convention is soo big compared to any other magic convention I’ve ever, there are people who I know were there, but never saw. Then Pere, who it felt like I was constantly passing in the halls. I later learned was a competing in the close up competition (he took 2nd place in close up card magic!)
Staying up way later than I should have, I said goodnight to everyone and took the short walk to my hotel.
I needed some sleep as it was going to be an early morning the next day! -Louie
