Archive for June 2010
Bristol Magician – Student Ball
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
27
T’is the season for student balls. On Friday night I performed close-up magic in Bristol for a student leaving event.
Taking inspiration from our American friends, these balls have become incredibly lavish. Posh meals, stretched limos, ridiculously expensive dresses and most importantly … close-up magicians! They’re a little manic, but at the same time a lot of fun.
This was the first student ball of the season for me and I was exhausted by the end of it! When performing magic for a table of students, you have to have incredibly high energy, be very funny and be in complete control else pandemonium will break lose. It’s similar to performing for adults, but you have no idea what’s going to happen next! One girl at the party had seen me perform before at another event in Bristol about a year or two ago so it was incredibly nice that she still remembered me!
I’m performing at my next student ball in Cheltenham next weekend so fingers crossed I have just as much fun at that one too. Tomorrow though, I get a nice day off, spending the day with a bunch of other professional magicians at Alton Towers. Where else would you be on one of the hottest days of the year?!
Staines Magician
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
25
This weekend I performed at a 50th birthday party in Staines. Another close-up magician recommended me for the party, which is always a nice compliment.
Dave (the man celebrating his birthday) and his friends were a lot of fun to perform for. They were extremely complimentary and really enjoyed getting involved in the magic. They were seated on very long tables, which some magicians will tell you isn’t a great environment for magic. However, I used my usual tactic of performing a trick for the entire table, then walked around performing close-up magic for three or four people at a time, finishing off with having everyone on the table pick a card … and then finding everyone’s card in rapid succession! It worked a treat, everyone got to see a lot of close-up magic and we all had a lot of fun!
Here’s what Dave posted on my website after the show:
—Dave Wilson
Unique Experience
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in About magic
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Magic is a unique experience. Having seen hundreds of shows over the years (from comedy to Riverdance, to circus, music and so much more) I can honestly say that I’ve never found anything that even comes close to the experience of seeing something truly magical. Even the most expensive Broadway show cannot compare to that raw feeling of wonder created by a close-up magician just inches away from you.
That isn’t to say that those high-budget theatre shows aren’t great; in fact quite the opposite—I love theatre and most performance art. However, it does illustrate exactly why so many companies hire close-up magicians when looking to impress their clients: a great close-up magician can perform for just a few minutes and create a memory that lasts forever. That’s why magic is so unique and that’s why I feel as though being a magician is the best job in the world.
Three Card Monte
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in About magic
22
Every now and again, audiences ask about the classic game of Three Card Monte. I always start by telling them the same thing: it’s called a game, but is really a con.
This game is illegal but is sometimes played on the streets (it has been spotted in London, New York, Las Vegas and many European cities); the dealer mixes up three cards (normally a Queen and two indifferent cards) and the player bets on where he thinks the Queen is. While it looks incredibly fair, the player is always cheated into losing when the stakes are high.
I was lucky enough to see a version of this game played on the streets for real. It sounds weird to say, but it’s so rare to get up close to a real Monte gang so it was one of the highlights of my life in magic (I also proposed to my girlfriend that day, so it was a great day all round!). The gang consisted of four or five people and the game was played with bottle caps, which I hadn’t seen before.
A few years ago, I spent a couple of weeks in Boston and was taught how to deal Three Card Monte by a professional “tosser” (that’s the technical term) who used to be part of a genuine underground Monte gang. It’s very, very rare to be let into their secrets so I consider myself to be very fortunate.
To deal the game takes a lot of practice as it is technically very difficult sleight of hand, but what people don’t expect is that it also requires a lot of psychology to second guess where the player will place his bet. While I now only perform it once or twice a month, I sometimes play this game in my show when I have audience members who I know will enjoy it (normally groups of lads or card players). It’s a lot of fun and is surprisingly magical as by the end of it, players are one-hundred percent convinced that they know where the Queen is … but they’re always wrong!
It occurred to me recently that having a Monte dealer would be a great addition to parties for card players etc, so see my sleight of hand magician page if you’d like to invite me along to challenge your friends to a game!
Wedding Entertainment Page
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Magical Weddings
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A lot of brides and grooms that I talk to often tell me that they hired me to perform at their wedding as they wanted different wedding entertainment to the norm. They didn’t just want a disco; instead they wanted something that stood out from the crowd and something that everyone would remember.
With that in mind, I put together a wedding entertainment page to describe why adding a magician to your wedding is such a great idea. I’m biased, of course, but truly believe that a close-up magician is the best wedding entertainment possible!
Hereford Magician Feedback
1 Comment | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
17
Here’s a nice snippet from an email that I received after entertaining at a birthday party in the Hereford area a couple of weeks ago. I performed close-up magic for a group of friends who were on holiday in the area, celebrating a birthday.
You can review more comments about my performances here and view more about me performing as a Hereford magician!
Magician in Reading
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
15
It felt like Groundhog Day driving down the same round for the fourth time this week yesterday. This time was more fun though as I spent the day in Reading with another professional magician discussing card magic.
In order to withstand the minor loneliness of spending all day answering phone calls and emails, followed by dozens of hours a week in the car, I try to meet up with likeminded magicians as much as possible. This magician in particular performs a similar style of close-up magic to me so it’s always great to meet up and discuss our latest ideas, experiments and new tricks. To me, that’s far more interesting than learning magic from a book or DVD.
Reading is a great place and I enjoyed spending the day there. Due to some shows near London later this week, I’ll be making that trip down the M4 a few more times!
Wedding Magician in the UK
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Magical Weddings
14
Something that you may not realise is that hiring wedding magicians is very much a British thing. Whereas a large number of couples hire a magician for weddings in the UK, the rest of the world haven’t caught on yet.
I have magician friends in many countries across the world and they tell me that it is extremely rare to hire a magician for your wedding in their countries. I did a little research on this and found that people in Canada, Australia and Japan sometimes hire wedding magicians but nothing compared to what we have in the UK.
In fact, after a little number crunching I found that more people in the UK search Google for “wedding magician” than the rest of the world put together … by a long way! In fact, roughly 88% of all people that look for a wedding magician online are from the UK.
So if you’re organising a typically British wedding and are looking for wedding entertainment ideas, why not try a wedding magician like me!
Manchester Magicians
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Performances
13
For the third time in the last few weeks, I returned to Manchester to perform close-up magic. Along with three other great close-up magicians (actually some of my favourite three magicians to work with!), I performed at the British Cardiovascular Society’s awards ceremony at the Manchester Town Hall.
The party was part of the British Cardiovascular Society’s annual conference and was attended by doctors, sales reps and more. At the start of the party, the magicians performed during the cocktail reception. This is always a nice way to introduce yourself as a magician and perform for lots of small groups for a few minutes each.
We then moved on to perform at the banquet where we performed close-up magic for each table, between courses. Everyone had a great time and I received some extremely positive reactions.
I love working alongside other magicians so if you ever need to hire more than one close-up magician for an event, let me know and I can arrange it very easily; not just magicians in Manchester but anywhere in the country!
DVD shoot for magicians
3 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
11
I spent the last two days in a studio in Newbury filming my first DVD for close-up magicians. If you’re not a magician, that may sound like a very strange thing so let me explain! If you are a magician, you can jump to the photographs below!
A very small number of close-up magicians (like me) create their own magic and therefore many magicians from all over the world learn that magic from DVDs. I have previously published about ten books on close-up magic but this is the first time I’ve ever stepped into the studio to record my magic on video.
The DVD focuses on a very specific sleight of hand technique. If you’ve ever seen me perform card magic, I would have definitely been secretly using this technique. It has taken me twelve years to develop it but now that I’m completely happy with it, I’m happy to teach it to other magicians.
Here are a few photographs that we snapped during the shoot:
