Archive for April 2010
Professional Professional Magician
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Hiring a magician
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I’m a professional magician, which by definition means that magic is my fulltime job. However, of even more benefit to you is that I’m a professional professional magician Here’s what I mean:
- I always arrive at all performances early
- I’m always dressed smartly, and for the occasion
- I act professionally around your guests
- I have a modern performance style suitable for even your most prized business contacts
- All the magic that I perform is well-rehearsed and has been performed thousands of times all over the world.
There are a lot of close-up magicians that advertise, but I hope that you choose a professional close-up magician like me!
An Evening of Deception
1 Comment | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
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Last night’s An Evening of Deception went amazingly well! The sellout crowd was fantastic and was treated to a great night of contemporary magic. People from as far as London came to see the show, which was a great honour!
Steve Knibbs (BBC News presenter and great magician) MCed the show and did a fantastic job introducing the acts (Rob James, me and Thom Peterson) and talking about Cheltenham’s rich history of magic.
I performed an entirely new act, which I was really happy about and received lots of positive praise from the crowd afterwards. In the act, I showed some interesting cheating techniques including naming cards that people had just looked at and showing how to win £200,000 on the roll of a die. Introducing a fully new act in this nature is nerve-wracking as I have to rely on all new tricks, script and jokes to go right first time! Luckily though, they all did!
Being a full time close-up magician meant that I was really out of my comfort zone performing to a large crowd, but I loved every minute of it and would like to think that this is the start of me performing on stage more often (but don’t worry; I’ll always be available to hire as a close-up magician!).
Here are a few photos from the event. We had the show filmed so I hope to post an extract of my act over the coming weeks:
I’ll check with the other magicians about posting photos of their performances too. It’s bad form to do that kind of thing without checking first, so I’ll keep you posted!
A Morning of Deception
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
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Tonight is An Evening of Deception; my first show at the Everyman Theatre in Cheltenham. Three magicians will be performing for a sold-out house.
We are set to arrive at the theatre at about 2pm, where we’ll get everything set up, arrange lighting and sound cues and then go through a technical rehearsal. As a close-up magician, I’m used to just rocking up with a pocket full of miracles and immediately starting my performance, so this is all a little alien to me. The cast of Nick Jr’s Peppa Pig show will also be milling around, so I hope to share a dressing room with Ms Peppa and her clan (I’ll be honest; I had to Google who that was, but it sounds cool nonetheless).
Anyway, I’m looking forward to the show and will report back tomorrow to let you know how it went, along with some photos and maybe even a little video.
London Magician – Part 2
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
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Me and the Gloucester to London Paddington train staff are becoming quite good friends! On my second trip to London this week, I performed as a close-up magician at 1&1′s PR event to celebrate their tenth anniversary.
1&1 Group (United Internet) are the world’s largest web host. How do I know? I used to work for one of the group companies as UK Product Manager before I took a career change as a professional close-up magician. This means that my usual company research before a show was a little easier than normal as it’s an industry that I know inside out. This was especially useful as with PR events, I’m working on behalf of the company and therefore really need to know my stuff when performing for magazine editors and suchlike (and to be honest, I relished the opportunity of whipping out my nerdy PHP and MySQL jokes for one night only).
I performed close-up magic for a few hours during the cocktails after the company speeches. This really helped break the ice with people who didn’t know many others at the event and more importantly, it allowed me to help other people network by enticing them into the performance. This is an important key to my performances that I think many other close-up magicians neglect to do.
The company wanted to book me tomorrow for their staff party too, but as I am performing at An Evening of Deception, I arranged for another fantastic London magician to perform at the event.
Afterwards, I was presented with a nice big gift bag of nerdy goods and branded 1&1 clothing. So if you see magician wearing a 1&1 tanktop, cap and shoes, you know it’s me!
Tomorrow is my show, An Evening of Deception and then over the weekend I’m back in Bristol to perform as a close-up magician for a private party … gasping for a rest!
London Magician – Part 1
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
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On the first of two scheduled trips to London this week, last night I was invited to perform at the exclusive Daisy Ball at the Grovesner House in Park Lane again (I performed for them last year too). This big bash was held in aid of the Anthony Nolan Trust; a charity that I wrote a magic book for three years ago (The Magician’s Ltd Cookbook, which featured over 30 tricks from different famous magicians).
With some tickets costing as much as £4,200, this event is extremely classy. There were almost thirty entertainers (including magicians, balloon artists, caricaturists and more) who performed during the meal, along with many other acts (including The Jersey Boys and some fabulous circus acts).
The highlight of the event, for me, was being noticed across the large room by the organiser of the event who complimented me on the particularly loud and astonished reactions that I was receiving from my audiences. He asked me to perform for the guests at his table, which consisted of some of the cast of Eastenders, along with other TV types. The fantastic reactions that I got from the organiser and his guests rounded off the amazing party perfectly for me!
While I don’t know the total figure, the amount that this great event earns for charity is in the hundred’s of thousands of pounds. It’s a fantastic event and was a pleasure to work it again this year.
Corporate Entertainment Ideas
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performance ideas
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Looking for some interesting ideas for corporate entertainment? Why not hire a close-up magician.
Here’s why hiring a close-up magician is a great corporate entertainment idea:
- It’s a great way to impress your clients.
- It’s something that you don’t see at every other corporate party.
- It’s something that everyone can enjoy including clients, employees, prospects and more.
- It’s inexpensive when compared to most other corporate entertainment ideas.
- It requires no additional space and can be performed in the smallest of venues.
- Your messaging can be integrated into the performance, if requested.
- It’s a great way to keep everyone entertained and chatting.
See my corporate entertainment page for more info on what I could offer at your party.
Las Vegas Magician
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
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“Have you ever performed as a magician in Las Vegas?”
That’s a question I get asked a lot. The answer is yes, I have performed in Las Vegas a number of times. Las Vegas is a mecca for magicians and one of my favourite places in the world. Even without all the fantastic magicians, it’s such a magical town and I have been there about a dozen times (sometimes for work, other times for pleasure!).
The first time I performed in Las Vegas was when I was 16 years old. I was flown over by master magician Lance Burton (a famous Las Vegas magician) to perform in his theatre for a television special. The television show has aired all over the world and was an amazing experience to film. It was my first time in America and my first time to perform for an international television show (before that I had performed on the Big Breakfast and a number of other shows, but never a show of this size and budget).
I was flown back to Las Vegas in 2004 to perform and teach my magic for over 1,000 magicians at a conference. I performed on the same stage as magicians such as Penn & Teller, David Blaine and more, which was an extremely nerve-wracking experience! Then, just last year, I was asked to perform at the conference again. After that conference, my girlfriend joined me and I proposed to her at the top of the Eiffel Tower.
So, Las Vegas is a pretty magical place for me … and an extremely fun place to perform magic in!
Hire a Card Shark
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performance ideas
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A card shark is someone who is highly skilled with a deck of cards and is able to cheat without being caught. Having played in most of the top Las Vegas casinos and performed magic all around the world, I am able to combine these skills to create an interesting fun show of magic and card sharkery.
My card shark performances are normally best suited for specific poker events, casinos or parties with fun casino tables (most fun casino companies will allow you to hire an extra table for me to perform on). This allows me to show actual techniques taught to me by genuine card cheats and to perform card magic with a gambling theme.
Ever seen someone cut to the four Aces from as shuffled deck, or deal himself a royal flush even though the cards were completely shuffled by the other players? Hire me as a card shark to see it up close and personal!
See my sleight of hand magician page for even more details about this kind of specialist magic and how to hire a card shark like me!
Bristol Magician
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
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This past couple of weeks I’ve been a particularly busy magician working in Bristol. It’s just a quick drive down the M5 for me so performing as a close-up magician in Bristol is always a pleasure.
First, I performed at a 40th birthday party at somebody’s house just outside of Bristol, where I performed magic between the courses of their meal. I performed in a marquee (with plenty of heating!) and everyone had a great time.
Then, this week, just a mile or two from the previous Bristol performance, I performed at a golf club in Clevedon. Having not been to Clevedon since a particularly eventful cub scout camp fifteen years ago (I don’t want to talk about it), I had forgotten how nice an area it was.
Both shows went incredibly well and I received lots of interest from people who wanted me to perform at their parties in Bristol from people at both parities. For me, getting bookings after people have seen me (as opposed to searching for Bristol magicians on the internet) is the ultimate compliment!
The 9 Faces of Britain’s Got Talent
1 Comment | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
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My favourite TV show, Britain’s Got Talent is back. Over the years, I’ve noticed that whether you’re watching America’s Got Talent, Sweden’s Got Talent or Uzbekistan’s Got Talent, the same personality types seem to apply on each show:
1. The Nutcase
Words can’t describe this type of act. Perhaps they’re doing animal impressions whilst standing on their head or making a musical instrument out of a teapot, but whatever they do they’re nuts … and they’ll never get through.
2. The Child Star
They can only ever sing or dance (luckily nobody has taught them to recite poetry yet) but they’re normally very good. The downside though is that they’re always ridiculously smug and they always cry at the end.
3. The Pet Act
All pet acts go wrong. The ones that don’t go wrong at the audition will eventually suffer in one of the latter shows.
4. The High School Musical Star
Muscly guy does something that he’s slightly embarrassed about (such as dancing). Normally starts with a sob story and always ends with three yeses and a comment that he’ll never get bullied again.
5. The singer
Why don’t they just enter X Factor or America’s Got Talent?!
6. The SuBo
This one’s the rarity. Every now and then you see someone who is going to be so successful that they’ll end up in therapy within a couple of weeks after the audition, sat next to SuBo talking about what it was like to come second.
7. The Family Members
There has never been a good family group and there never will be. They always make me cringe and there’s always a dad, granddad or kid that lets the team down.
8. The Irony-monger
This act is so bad it’s good. Unfortunately, they can’t ever seen the irony and therefore think that they’re a million times better than they actually are; especially when they get a standing ovation.
And most importantly …
9. The magician
These kind of talent shows are tough for magicians for many reasons. The good magicians are the ones that understand why the format doesn’t suit magic and therefore won’t enter. This unfortunately means that most magicians on such shows are terrible. Please don’t judge us all based on them, however.
I can’t wait to watch the rest of the series! I wonder whether we’ll see any close-up magicians on there?
