FISM 2006: Monday 31st


The first day of the actual convention marks the 6th Anniversary of this blog, and my 29th Birthday! And what a way to spend it… After working out a complicated system I figured I didn’t need to see Kevin James today, so I went for a wander round the dealers, picked up volume 2 of the Ascanio book, and headed for the close-up room.

Like last FISM I will try and give you a brief run down of all the contestants and a little of what they did.

Juan Carlos Rodarte – Parlour Magic – Mexico: Juan did a pirate themed cups and balls, with the balls representing ghosts and changing from red to white and back, finished with the production of a pirate ship.

Kristian Nivala – Card Magic – Finland: This guy was fantastic the best of today’s bunch, and a strong contender in the card section. Started off with an invisible deck, miming pulling out cards and spinning them through the air and they appeared at his fingertips. They were then signed and lost in the deck, he produced jumbo aces and found the signed aces one-at-a-time inside the empty card case, finished off producing a giant ace, jumbo coins and lots of dollar bills.

Mr Dannyman – Micro Magic – Sweden: Found the aces to rhyme, then changed them to jumbo aces, then a production of flags from a change bag, jumbo euro’s production, lots of small coins produced from a wand, and finished by lighting sparklers on a reproduction jumbo euro.

Morgan Strebler – Mentalism – USA: PK Coin bending in a wine glass, lots of loose change all bent at once. Bending fork and finished with pulling off the tines into a glass.

Rafael TUbino – Card Magic – Brazil: Changed indifferent cards to aces, found aces in a shuffled deck, selected card traveled from deck to the ace packet, then the deck changed from blue to red along with the aces and the selection.

Satoru – Micro Magic – Japan: A card prediction on a 20k note, gag toothpick prediction which turned magical when all the toothpicks changed to multi-coloured ones. Then another card prediction where they stamped on the three cards and they were revealed on the bottom of his shoes, socks and feet, with a final umbrella production with the last card written on.

Seth the sleight of hand artist – Card Magic – Sweden: Shuffled and cut the deck multiple times, produced 4 aces with hotshot cut and dribble productions, lost back in the deck he produced the aces by changing 4 indifferent cards, he then dealt the aces to him in a poker game, and finally seperated the deck into suits.

Pierric – Micro Magic/Invention – Switzerland: really visual change of apples to pears, a visual minting of some money, and a cup and ball routine where the ball and cup dissolve into dust at the end, finished with the production of a guinea pig from silks.

It was then time for the opening ceremony where we all marched into a big dark hall with lasers, projected images and a ballerina in a big transparent sphere, rolling around the crowd. The ceremony then transferred to the stage where the FISM president stepped out of a video to welcome us all, and with the parade of flags they officially opened the convention.

Had a coffee with Norwegian magician Hartvig from Oslo.

Then onto the Nordic show, with Johnny Lonn and his violin playing character with vanishing bow, and bits of string on his jacket, with a malfunctioning gramaphone which he tries to vanish, with his trousers round his ankles having produced his braces.

Kenny Quinn was performing as a pick-pocket and with his recreation of Viggo Jahn’s act of multiplying cane tops.

Jahnn Gallo and Gunn produced money from thin air, and spirit tie.

Robert Jagerhorn performed his airplane toilet act, where lots of changes and magic happen climaxing with a complete costume change.

Finn Jon closed the show with bubble magic and an animated tie.

Then we had to make our way to the city hall for the civic reception with the Mayor, in the same building as used for the Nobel Prize ceremony. As you will see from the photos the Gold Room was magnificent and the buffet equally so.

Bumped into Kevin Gallagher who is in the close-up on wednesday and Matthew Gore from South Africa who is in the Stage Competition and also young magician Matt from Cambridge.

We then made our way to the bar magic and waited in line for ages to see Juan Tamariz but what a way to finish my Birthday seeing a master at work with a deck of cards, changes, productions and predictions had the audience on their feet at the end of this mini-show.