The Genii Forum

Any Blackpool highlights this year?

I take it you're not there?

>I take it you're not there?

As appealing as winter in Blackpool is - couldn't get the schedules to align this year

Interested if there were any standout performers or dealer items that had everyone abuzz ... ( besides the wristbands )

I made it down for Sunday only, which is a nice way to do things. I only saw two events; the talk by Tom Noddy was sublime, and he got a deserved standing ovation at the end. The other was Nick Deffette's late show which was hilarious, but possibly not for the reasons Nick wanted (which sounds bad, but it wasn't. He had a couple of less than helpful helpers, but he handled it brilliantly).

The dealers were a bit Meh. Nothing really jumped out, there were a fair number of obvious knock offs, and Rubik's Cubes have now supplanted hand tattoos as a good indicator of something I'm unlikely to watch. All the dealers from the Arena in years gone by had been moved to the Spanish Hall or half the Horseshoe, which caused some grumbling; traffic was significantly down in these areas and the Spanish Hall was very cold (in an ironic contrast to the Ball Room, which was like a large, sweaty steam bath as usual...)

Socially it was fun. I spent time with Charlie and Sherry Frye, which is always a treat, saw Angelo's new creation, which is one of his best, had a very brief chat about lock picking with John Thompson (a continuation of one from three years ago), and talked to Freddie 'ParrotFace' Davies.

One pleasant surprise is that the Ruskin bought the hotel next to it, and now there is a very large gathering room with aircon, so the late night session was significantly more comfortable.

I'm sure others will disagree with everything I've said in due course

Nice to hear of Fred Davies again. He turned out to be a fine actor latterly. Last I heard he lived in Perth.

Andrew

Thanks Ian!

Angelo's latest creation sounds intriguing!

Freddie lives in York. He's given a few masterclasses on basic stagecraft. I hope the convention will book him to give one. It's blatantly obvious that 99% of magicians don't even know that they don't know the most basics of stagecraft.

Stagecraft - isn’t that the new download from emagicnow.com?

The best new effect I saw at Blackpool was Christian Grace's disappearing deck LEVEL ONE.

It has many applications and I highly recommend it. It was released for Blackpool and isn't on the Vanishing Inc site yet.

CraigMitchell wrote:Thanks Ian!

Angelo's latest creation sounds intriguing!

Here it is Craig: https://youtu.be/e8w5Bzb3tUo

I did my house of cards effect a few times at the Ruskin.

Wow! That's great!

Unbelievable!

That's remarkable! Best Sunday morning viewing I've had in ages. Thank you, Angelo.

Really terrific, Angelo!

I'm thinking, "Yeah, so what.", and then BOOM, you blew my mind. Very cool!

Av

You are all so kind

@Angelo - thanks so much for sharing! That looks fantastic!