Magician blog category: Life updates
Here are the posts that I've written in the "Life updates" category:
The Inner Magic Circle
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
26
I was recently voted in by the committee of The Magic Circle as an “Associate of The Magic Circle with Silver Star.” That’s quite a mouthful, but also quite a compliment. I’ll break down what it means:
There are several levels of The Magic Circle. While most members stay at the default level, a few are granted access to the “Inner Magic Circle“. This can only be achieved through excellence in performance or for doing something very good for the club, or magic in general. The silver star aspect is because I received the award for my performance.
I became an Associate of The Inner Magic Circle for the lecture that I gave at the club last month. It was a lovely surprise and I’m honoured to have been granted it.
Given that there are only very few young magicians with this accolade, I am both very proud and honoured to have received it.
Review of my DVD
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
11
I released my DVD set for magicians last year. It’s called The Master Pushoff and on it, for the first time, I teach my secret sleight of hand technique. Since this is a blog for the public, I won’t explain what it is, but I would like to post a couple of snippets from two of the many positive reviews it received:
Filming new DVD for magicians
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
1
Part of my job with my publishing company, Vanishing Inc. Magic is to film and teach some of the great new magic that we release. It’s aimed purely at magicians, and is a good way of getting experience talking in front of a camera, and learning to teach magic clearly and concisely.
I spent the day yesterday filming the instructional DVD for a new trick called “Timeless,” which is a trick that I worked on with two other magicians. If you’ve seen me perform at an event recently and I performed a trick using a watch, it would have been “Timeless.” It’s an amazing trick with a very different surprise at the end.
Here’s a quick screen capture from the instructional DVD. We expect to release it by the end of September, hopefully just in time for my lecture at The Magic Circle:
Back from Las Vegas
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
23
Every other August, I travel to Las Vegas to attend a conference called MAGIC Live. It’s organised by the major magician trade journal, MAGIC Magazine and is attended by 1,500 magicians from across the world.
I’ve performed at the conference twice in the four times that I attended. This time, though, I was there to relax and enjoy the great magic. At events like this, magicians get to learn from other magicians and see performances and talks on all sorts of related subjects. One very interesting performance, this year, was a full show in the dark, designed to allow blind people to experience magic.
For the most part, though, these conferences are social conferences for me. I get to see friends that I rarely see (due to them living in other countries) and get to spend time sharing tricks and ideas with other magicians. In particular, this year, I attended a party held by Criss Angel (Las Vegas magician) and another small party that a certain David Copperfield was hanging out at. Both were a lot of fun!
This conference has a unique way of giving people their name badge: they print a photo of them. For fun, I’ve included a photo of my name badge in this blog post!
Now that I’m back, I get straight to work performing as a close-up magician throughout the country.
Penn & Teller: Fool Us
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
22
Over the past week, famous American magicians Penn & Teller have been secretly recording their series, Fool Us at the Fountain Studios in London. I have a number of friends who attempted to fool the duo so was invited along to the filming.
There were so many people trying to be part of the show that over 350 people each night were turned away from the audience. For those that did get in though, they got to see some excellent magic. For each show that will air, Penn & Teller will be performing one of their own illusions (including some magic that I haven’t seen them perform for a very long time). As always, Jonathan Ross was a great host and made his job look so easy! He’s a true professional and is the absolute perfect choice to host this show (BBC’s The Magicians, take note!).
The series will air on Saturday nights straight after this current run of Britain’s Got Talent ends. Some of my non-magician friends have asked about the two magicians who fooled Penn & Teller in the last show; I speak to them regularly and they’ll be going to Vegas in just a couple of weeks to perform in Penn & Teller’s show!
It’s great to see some excellent magic airing on TV. Congratulations to all involved!
New York Magician
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
2
I’m writing this blog post from New York. I spent a week here in Manhattan working on a number of projects relating to my magic book publishing business (Vanishing Inc. Magic) with my business partner, Joshua Jay (who is a professional magician in New York City).
After the week in Manhattan, we traveled to Batavia, New York (about six hours drive from New York City) where we attended an invitation only conference for the top 200 close-up magicians in the world. It’s attended by close-up magicians from almost every continent and has very stringent conditions for which you need to meet in order to be invited. Due to this, the convention is attended by many world champion close-up magicians, expert card magicians and performers that don’t travel to many other events of this nature.
I was asked to perform for the close-up magicians (photograph below … although for some reason, I look a little camp in that photo!), where I performed a few of my favourite tricks from my DVD set for magicians.
I’m in New York City for one more day and then fly home to the UK, where I’ll have a day or two off before getting straight back to performing close-up magic.
Magic for Tim Vine and friends
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
13
Last week, comedian Tim Vine was performing at the Cheltenham Town Hall. One of my friends, John Archer, is Tim’s opening act; he’s a fantastic magician and mind-reader who performs for thirty minutes before Tim comes on stage (he’s also one of the two magicians who fooled Penn & Teller on their TV show). John really is a fantastic performer and I’m pleased to be working with him on a couple of fun projects.
John invited me to see the show and then to spend some time with him and Tim afterwards. Also joining us was Emma Samms (of Dynasty fame) who asked to see me perform a few tricks.To make it an even stranger experience, Craig Revel Horwood and Brian Connolly turned up later too.
The highlight of the evening, for me though, was discussing my show with Tim Vine and then him writing some jokes for me! Tim is one of the quickest comedians in the business and within a second or two of telling him about my style, he immediately came up with some great jokes specific to my magic.
It was a fun evening and I was glad to have the opportunity to perform for, and meet some great people! Tim is coming towards the end of his tour now, but if you get a chance to see it, I’d urge you to do so.
Denmark Magic Tour
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
9
I’ve recently returned from a brief tour of Denmark, where I was the guest of a magician called Rune Klan. Rune is a close friend and Denmark’s most famous magician and comedian. Each night, he performed for several thousand people in packed theatres and received wonderful reactions. It was a real treat to see just how much the Danish audiences loved him.
Rune’s theatre show is unlike magic shows that I’ve seen anywhere else. His magic is incredibly original (for his opening trick, he swallows a bicycle!), very funny and not to mention exceptionally skillful. I don’t think I’ve seen any other stage magician use so many difficult tricks in one show, including amazing sleight of hand magic, dice stacking, contact juggling and more.
Not speaking Danish, I didn’t understand much of what Rune talked about in the show, but as the tour progressed I started to understand things a little more.
So, thanks to Rune and his great team for a fun-filled, interesting few days! It was eye-opening to see just how successful a magician could be if they don’t compromise and work as hard as Rune. I’m excited to return to Denmark next year, where I’ll be giving a lecture and performance to Danish magicians.
Social Magician
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
28
Having a marketing background presents me with a small addiction to social media. Feel free to add, follow or stalk me on any of the following:
Twitter – WhoIsAndi
Facebook – magician Andi Gladwin
LinkedIn – professional magician Andi Gladwin
My Twitter posts normally consist of anecdotes and jokes for other professional magicians, loads of magicians who I don’t know add me to Facebook page and I’m not very good at using LinkedIn. However, if you can get past all that; feel free to take a look!
Magician’s Christmas Party
0 Comments | Posted by Andi Gladwin in Life updates
4
December is the busiest month for entertainers. Between us, we’ve covered every area of the country, performing at thousands of Christmas parties. Performing magic is a lot of fun, but it’s still a job. When do magicians get a Christmas party?!
The answer: last night.
Just over thirty close-up magicians, mind readers caricaturists, silhouette cutters traveled from across the UK to have our own Christmas party in London. We ate, drank and talked shop all evening. Well, not all evening as we also hired an incredibly funny improvisational poet who makes up poems on the spot about any subject you give him.
I’m on the train back now. It was a lot of fun and a nice way to wind down after an incredibly busy Christmas period!
