On Friday February 3, 2011 My magic friends Shinnosuke, Masashi and Kinnikun performed at Hakubi Fruits Cafe and Bar in Takamatsu, Kagawa prefecture. It was a great show with awesome magic friends. The audience was also awesome and they really enjoyed the show and were fun to perform to. The venue itself was excellent. We did a stage show, a close-up show then table hopping after. I hope to get the chance to perform there again very soon! Thanks everyone!
Aaron
Aaron
Luis de Matos, Rudy Coby, William Kalush, and David Copperfield only at EMC!
The second Essential Magic Conference was held July 7, 8, and 9 2011. And wow it was another great year. Here is my review from last years event. Again this year the event was 3 days packed with great speakers. There were some returnees from last year like Eric Mead and Max Maven who are always great to watch and hear, but also some new presenters like Rudy Coby, David Kaye (Silly Billy), Fuji Akira, David Berglas and a whole lot more. The event and the content was excellent and was equal to if not better than last year. Both events had very high quality performances and talks that all magicians should see. One of the best parts of this years event was the tour David Copperfield gave of his magic museum.
On the technical side there were a few updates to the viewing system like the ability to now watch the event from an iOS device like an iPad. They also seemed to move the live chat which I believe was under the video feed last year to the side bar which I think was better. There were some technical glitches this year especially during session 7 which was the first session on the third day. From the EMC staff explanation it was a problem with their provider’s stream leaving Portugal. This caused session 7 to be unwatchable. However by session 8 the problem seemed to have been solved and during that time they created an backup stream to help those that where still having issues through another provider. I know some people where upset by this but the EMC staff was working hard to resolve this issue and they did. Sometimes problems happen unexpectedly and there is nothing you can do about it. However I applaud the EMC staff who got things back on track.
One sad point was that the live chat seemed to be a place this year from a lot of complainers which caused me not to want to use the chat. Most of the event seemed fine for me except the one session where they had big issed but other times it was working great. People who had difficulties at really brought the feeling down with what I think where complaints there we too strong. Such as this is a rip off etc. EMC is far from that. Anyways such is the net.
Overall I loved this years event and I applaud Luis de Matos, Marco Tempest, and David Britland from another great event and I look forward to next year event.
Aaron
AHHHHHHHHHH!
Today I would like to share another stupid magic story of mine. I have shared parts of this story in a post from over a year ago but today it gets it’s own post. My story has to do with forgetting what language I have to perform in. When I went to Japan in the summer of 2001 I performed my regular show except for one effect that I worked on just for Japan and of course in Japanese. I put the effect together and rehearsed before going to Japan in Japanese so I had only ever performed this effect in Japanese. In Japan the effect went over well and I still perform this effect to this day. Well, after I came home from my 2 month trip to Japan I had a stage show the next evening in my hometown in Victoria. This show was at a restaurant near my home and seemed like an easy event to do while still jet lagged. So I arrived at the venue set my stage show and then started the show. Everything was going well until I got to my final effect and this was the effect that I had performed only in Japanese. Now of course I was in Victoria BC Canada now and performing in English not Japanese. It was at this moment that I realized I had never performed this effect in English. All the timing, jokes etc. were written in Japanese for a Japanese audience. Lucky I was able to pull the effect off in English but man did I sweat. Luckily I had rehearsed the technical parts and performed it enough that this part was automatic and I just had to quickly stumble creating an English script as I performed it. As far as I know the audience didn’t notice anything but I was sure happy when I finished that effect. Lesson I learned from this is be careful if you are a bilingual performer and performing in different countries and in different language while suffering from jet lag.
Aaron
Well the Essential Magic Conference is getting close to its second conference this July. This year it will be held July 7,8,9, 2011. I attended last year and I will attend this year. You can click here to read my review of the 2010 Conference. It looks like thay have a great line up this year. Some of the presenters from last year are back with a new ones for this year. There will be 33 presenters at this event. The surprise for me this year is that David Copperfield will participating. For the list of all the presenters for this year you can check here. The nice thing out this conference as it is an internet conference you have access to the content after the live event and the DVD’s that come after. There were a few technical issues last year and I hope that they will be solved. Also, last year it took some time after the live sessions before the replay feed was available to watch. This year it would be nice to see them be uploaded faster after the event than last year.
I am really looking forward to this year and I hope to see you there as well.
Below is a video highlighting last years conference.
Aaron
It has been two years since I have been able to attend a Hanami party. Hanami is the Japanese tradition in that take place in the spring when Japanese cherry blossoms boom. People take to the parks to sit under the Sakura eat and drink. This year I went with some magic friends, Shinosuke and Maji Nishida. We had the party with people from a resultant that we use to alway go to when Maji Nishida and I lived in Sakaide. It was a great time and I need to attend more events like this.
Aaron
Yesterday the Shikoku Magic Friends Club held is 5th annual show. However this year we changed the event to raise money for the horrible quake and tsunami that hit Japan on Match 11, 2011. This year we performed only close-up and there was a great turnout. After the close-up show we headed to the Marugame Shopping Arcade in Takamatsu to continue to raise money. In cooperation with the Marugame Shopping District association we where able to put this event on. We don’t know how much money we raised yesterday bit we should know soon. It was a great event and I hope that with the money we raised us magicians can help out in the tragic event.
Aaron
Magicians In Japan 2011 Quake
I want to thank Dodd Vickers the producer of The Magic Newswire for covering this this tragic event. On this special episode Dodd has James L. Clark and myself on to talk about the quake here in Japan. You can find the podcast here.
Aaron
Last night was the 5th Bar Magician Competition was held at Bar Intiki Magician. It was a long but good night. Sixteen magic competitors competed for the top prize. Jack Amano came out the clear winner last night. It has been a while since I have been able to go to the magic bar so I was happy to be a part of the event. The next magic competition that will be held at Bar Intiki Magician will be in October to celebrate the bars 4th year anniversary. I look forward to a great time then!
Aaron