Last night I spent a few hours doing magic on a boat trip along the Thames. This was part of the Wargrave Festival and I'd been booked to entertain people on the MV Waterman (from Hobbs of Henley) from 7pm to 10.30pm as we sailed along the river. The original plan had been to book Paul Daniels, who lives in Wargrave, but as he was unavailable they had contacted me as a replacement!
The boat trip had a "Mad Hatter" theme so I wore my purple top hat with a Alice in Wonderland "In This Style 10/6" card stuck in the brim. Very stylish! As the boat set off the weather was very hot and I expected to get extremely sticky wearing my posh jacket and aforementioned hat. However it soon cooled down and by 8pm I was glad of the extra clothes as those people wearing Summer outfits started to shiver. The boat crew even handed out some blankets to keep people warm! It was a lovely relaxed evening and rather than constantly performing I ended up chatting with people and throwing in the magic and mind-reading at various points. So someone might mention where they had been on holiday and I'd tell them that, in that case, they were probably a Capricorn. Or they'd mention their new phone and I'd tell them what their secret lock code was! The whole evening flew by and it was a absolute pleasure to have been part of it. Many thanks to Caroline for arranging everything and to the Hobbs crew for providing such excellent service.
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Well, 2015 is proving to be my busiest year to date. So many parties and weddings! There is such a lot of magic on TV at the moment that everyone wants to have their own magician at their event. The only problem is that it doesn't leave much time to update this blog so, in the meantime, here are a few pictures from some of my recent performances...
On Saturday I spent the afternoon at Martina and Aaron's wedding at Oatlands Park in Weybridge. As I arrived I spotted a rather spectacular Ferrari parking by the hotel entrance. This turned out to be the wedding car and it made a nice change to the usual white Rolls-Royce!
The weather was lovely and warm so the drinks reception took place on the grass gardens outside the hotel. I spent a very enjoyable time talking with the guests and showing them various pieces of magic and mind-reading, alongside some special balloons for the youngsters. Most of my magic is aimed at an adult audience, but I always make sure to have a few things to entertain the children too (and for them nothing beats a good old balloon animal!) It was a great afternoon. Many congratulations to Martina and Aaron and all the best for your future together. Are you planning a wedding? You've probably arranged the venue, dress, cake, guest list and so on and now it's time to think about entertainment. Some music is a great idea - maybe a harpist or string quartet during the afternoon and a band or DJ during the evening. You could book a caricaturist, a photo booth, an ice cream stand or a chocolate fountain. All of these will add something nice to your Big Day but nothing quite beats having your very own wedding magician. Most people have seen magic on TV but very few have seen it happening for real right in front of them, so it's a great way to treat your guests to something unusual and amazing.
It's a very flexible form of entertainment. You can have a wedding magician entertaining your guests at any point during the day - at the afternoon drinks reception, alongside the wedding breakfast or into the evening. The only times to avoid are during those key moments such as the speeches or cake-cutting. My style of wedding magic is called "close-up" which means there's no need for a stage or any large props, instead I wander around mingling with your guests doing impossible things! Someone thinks of a word and I know what it is. Someone takes out a coin and I make it bend in their hands. All sorts of amazing things that people will remember and talk about long afterwards. I sometimes meet people months (or even years) later who still have a memento of the magic that they've seen! You probably haven't booked a magician before so it may be helpful to have a few pointers. First, make sure that they are a member of The Magic Circle, this is your guarantee of quality and means that you are booking a proper professional magician rather than an enthusiastic amateur. Second, make sure that they are insured, as many wedding venues insist on this these days. Third, have a good look at their website to see if they look busy. A good magician will be a busy magician and have a regularly updated blog and plenty of pictures of them performing at various events. Hope that helps - if you want more information or a quote please get in touch! I've done magic at a lot of prestigious venues - The Savoy, The Gherkin, Tower Bridge, Wembley Stadium - but this was my first time performing at The Ritz. I'd been booked for Chris and Michelle's wedding, the weather was glorious and the setting couldn't have been better. I arrived early and had an enjoyable chat with Ian Gomes who is the resident pianist for The Ritz. He has played for royalty and Hollywood stars and, as I discovered, is very interested in magic. In fact I'll be teaching him a few tricks in the near future!
Then Chris, Michelle and their guests arrived and I spent a couple of hours doing my repertoire of amazing things. The mind reading went down especially well and a couple of new routines that I have recently added worked perfectly and received an appreciative round of applause. The wedding was being held on May the 4th which is, of course, Star Wars day. This was no coincidence as Chris is a big fan and wedding cake was, appropriately, a unique design that featured Star Wars, Star Trek, Back to the Future, The Hobbit, Marvel superheroes and more - it was incredible, see the picture below! Well, it has been a very busy few weeks. My diary is fuller than ever and I'm getting phone calls and emails asking about my availability every hour or two! Luckily I managed to find a gap between bookings to fit in a short break in Venice during April, but no sooner had I arrived back in the UK then I was flying off again to Oslo in Norway, this time for work rather than a holiday. I'd been booked to appear at an international conference and was going to be doing magic for delegates from across Europe. The client paid for my flights and hotel and I was lucky enough to have some free time to explore Oslo before performing. It's a wonderful city and well worth a visit. I then got everything ready and spent a very enjoyable two hours amazing everyone during the evening drinks reception. Luckily everyone spoke good English - I've done card tricks in Italian and French while working at Heathrow Airport, but my Norwegian definitely isn't up to it! After a very late night I flew back to the UK with a lot of happy memories. Thank you to Iris for arranging everything and I look forward to going back to Oslo again soon!
On Easter Sunday I spent some time entertaining the customers at the Victory Chop & Ale House in the Village Urban Resort complex, Farnborough. The restaurant was very busy with families enjoying the food while I did table magic from 1pm to 4pm. There were a lot of great reactions and a frequent comment was "I've seen this sort of thing on TV, but never seen it live, how do you DO that without camera tricks?!?!"
Wedding season has definitely got going and I'm being kept busy performing at lots of wedding receptions. While the bride and groom are having the photos done I'm wandering around entertaining the guests. It's the perfect way to treat everyone to something special. The magic is a great ice breaker and gets people talking, laughing and mingling. It's ideal entertainment to fill that gap between the wedding ceremony and the wedding breakfast.
Many thanks to the couples who have booked me so far. Here are a few pictures of the magic "in action"... These days most communication is via email or text. When you get something through the post it's usually junk mail or a bill. However I had a nice surprise recently when a lovely "thank you" letter arrived. I had thoroughly enjoyed doing magic at Sarah and Jim's wedding and was delighted to hear how well it had been received by everyone. Many congratulations to the new Mr and Mrs Kerr!
I'm currently taking bookings for 2015/16 so if you are planning a wedding and would like to amaze your guests then get in touch! A lot of my magic is done at weddings and parties, but I also perform at corporate events. Recently I entertained staff from SONY and PANASONIC (at different events!) which was a lot of fun. I'd been booked to provide evening entertainment after training/team-building days, so people were a bit worn down by all of the work they had been doing but the magic got them all going again and went down really well. I did a lot of mind-reading including telling people their astrological sign, unlocking their iPhones, predicting an animal or country they were thinking of and lots more. The comment that kept on coming up was "If I'd seen this on TV I wouldn't have believed it was possible!" People always suspect camera tricks or that everyone is just playing along for the TV show, but when it happen right in front of you then you know it's real! At the Panasonic event there were people from a number of countries, so it's a good thing that I've learnt enough French and Italian to do magic in various languages. My experience performing regularly at Heathrow certainly helped here!
I've also been appearing at a number of wedding fairs recently. Yesterday I was at the Village Urban Resort in Farnborough and my stand was next to one that was advertising videography services. In my mind videoing a wedding makes me think of poor quality wobbly out-of-focus footage and unwieldy cameras getting in the way of everything - but things have certainly improved recently! The guys next to me were Richard and Trevor from http://creativecapturemedia.com/ and you can see lots of their videos here - https://vimeo.com/ajweddingfilms/videos They use state-of-the-art camera equipment including an amazing "steadicam" style rig like something straight out of Hollywood. The quality of their videos is incredible and if you're looking to have your wedding recorded then I highly recommend them! In fact I hope to be using them myself to record some live magic and mind-reading in London - look out for it soon. |
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