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!
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!
Last week I performed in the Moisture Festival in Seattle and had a blast. One of the acts that I worked with was Paul Draper. I didn’t know a ton about him, I think we both did a virtual magic convention together a couple of year ago.
It was a blast seeing him, he’s got a lot of energy onstage and is very likable! Being likeable is 99% of the game!
One night Paul hosted the show I was in and he’s also a solid host, who kept the show moving. This is an important skill when the show has 9 acts plus the emcee!
If Paul is performing near you, check him out, you can learn a lot by watching him!
-Louie PS I did interview Paul Draper for the Moisture Festival Podcast and you can listen to his episode here: http://www.magicshow.tips/moisture-festival-podcast/the-moisture-festival-podcast-paul-draper/
The Moisture Festival is proud to introduce Paul Draper to the Moisture Festival family! This will be Paul’s first year with us and we’re excited to have him!
In this episode we learn what a house magician is, the ins and outs of hosting a séance and even touch on Paul hanging out with cannibals! This is an enlightening and fun episode!
