FISM 2022 Postscript

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CraigMitchell
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FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby CraigMitchell » August 1st, 2022, 6:05 am

FISM 2022 - postscript

With the mass exodus now taking place from Quebec City - and one being able to get a somewhat more normal dose of sleep … it’s time for a wrap up.

LOWLIGHTS ( and notes for the next FISM )

*Swag bag - besides the program, it was disappointing. Budget drawstring bags don’t cut it unfortunately.

*Convention 101 - there was no physical schedule in the name badge holder, no convention app nor a mobile-friendly web schedule. These are prerequisites for an event of this size. Wayfinding in the venue was sorely lacking until the last few days. The convention needed a face - a host to keep everyone uptodate as we embarked on our journey … a ‘cruise director’ if you will ( also known as Stan at Magic Live :-)

*Evening social sessions venue - the convention venue wasn’t ideally conducive to late night social mingling with its disjointed labyrinth setup. The “official” Delta hotel lacked any sort of bar, lobby or social area. The late night area needs to be well defined and known to all.

*Catering - Convention centre itself had very limited catering. If you have 2000 attendees - food, drinks and snacks should be plentiful and easily available ( even at premium prices )

*Dealers room - one of the most disappointing of any recent FISM. The dealers need to be supported by the event ( they spend a fortune to exhibit ) and should be a key highlight of the convention.

*Banquet - bland and average. No decor. No lights for the stage. Speeches were done in darkness. Alcohol was free yet soft drinks you had to pay for. Food luke warm. It’s nearly always far more hassle than it’s worth. Rather spend the money on a cocktail party ( note the word party ;-) with platters etc or have free snack and coffee stations dotted around the venue and in the dealers room over the course of the event. Give someone a cup of coffee free and they’ll probably remember it the most! I still remember Dresden Germany handing out FISM branded candy on arrival every day. Small touch but it stood out.

*Award show - it is beyond illogical to have the award show AFTER the Grand Prix contest robbing the audience and performers of the moment of suspense ( and having the actual results float on Facebook before those in the audience know is just crazy ) Correct order is award show - Grand Prix contest - Grand Prix winners reveal. FISM bizarrely continue to refuse to address this.

*Party - non-existent. You cannot advertise a closing event and then simply send everyone to a sparse dealers room with nothing else. You end your convention on a serious low.

*Extortionate pricing - charging the competitors $400 for video and photos of their acts is distasteful. They should have been gifted with copies as a thank you.

*Scheduling - having the first day completely empty was a poor use of time. Starting the contests at 8 am and last event finishing at 1 am is just brutal. Even more so when there were less contestants than normal. Contests need to be pushed back to no earlier than 9 am. The whole FISM schedule needs to be eased to avoid complete overload.

HIGHLIGHTS ( and things FISM Quebec did well )

*Quebec City - gorgeous choice of city with unbelievable charm

*Registration - quick and easy.

*Contests - bar the video glitch for the Grand Prix show which was unfortunate - the tech and overall management of the contests was incredibly smooth. Bravo to Gay Ljungberg, Mike Miller, Joan Caesar, Andrea Baioni and his hardworking jury members and one of the most diligent ( and what everyone tells me - nicest ) crews ever

*Opening Gala Show - this has set a new benchmark standard and will forever change what gala shows can look like.

*Competitors parade - a great touch. The competitors deserve our recognition.

*Grand Prix show - one of the strongest we’ve had in recent years

*Lecture Lineup - whilst I didn’t get to attend any lectures, the line up was impressive ( even with Covid cancellations ) The number of stars just attending FISM was remarkable.

*Award show - production value was high with trophy projections, winner reveals et al. A vast improvement from the Blackpool ‘podium’ from years gone by. Honoring Max Maven was something truly special.

*Grand Prix winners - seeing the raw emotion of Simon Coronel receive his trophy was incredible.

*Staff and organizing team - the entire organizing team and staff genuinely cared. There was a sense of passion and love for magic and their guests.

Overall, the history books will look kindly on FISM Quebec 2022. After an horrendous three years - FISM 2022 is what the magic world truly needed. We had the opportunity to come together as a family ( dysfunctional as it may be ) and celebrate our art - and most importantly those in it. Critically - we leave FISM 2022 inspired and motivated … ready to share with the world this special thing called magic.

To everyone who helped make that experience a reality - thank you.

Here’s to FISM Italy … salute!

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Tarotist » August 1st, 2022, 8:11 am

[quote="CraigMitchell"]FISM 2022 - postscript



*Extortionate pricing - charging the competitors $400 for video and photos of their acts is distasteful. They should have been gifted with copies as a thank you.

G


That does sound awful!

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Brad Henderson » August 1st, 2022, 10:06 am

The issue with the lack of hotel with gathering space, the sprawl, no reason to visit the dealers room after one pass. etc is that it created what I felt to be a very sterile environment. This is likely common at large events where people are spread among various hotels. While I got to see friends and made a couple more, I never felt as if I were part of a ‘thing’ while there. Plus, fism it appears, like Abbott’s, is likely a bit cliquey from people who attend every year, have the same seats, the same dinner partners etc. this is fabulous for those who have those connections. Easy to feel like an outsider if you don’t.

Second, is it correct to observe that other than Magicana, there were no books being offered for sale in the dealers room?

That’s something that I think we should all find concerning. (And on related note: the Dawes collection looks great. I think many will be sad they didn’t get on this when they had a chance.)

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Richard Kaufman » August 1st, 2022, 10:39 am

I agree with many of Craig's comments, and having run four successful conventions I have some actual experience and so can comment on these things with confidence.

The swag bag was skimpy, but I think this was due to low turnout. You can only spend as much as you have and there were lots of bills to be paid. The program was beautiful, and it cost them a lot. I would not have spent the money that way, but it's their choice.

Not having a pocket guide of the schedule, which was laid out in an extraordinarily confusing manner in the program, was a big mistake. I just tore out the pages with the schedule from my program and stuffed them in my back pocket. But I should not have to do that.

There were no decent places to eat at the venue or the Hilton a few steps away, other than grab-and-go. That gets pretty tedious after two days. (The restaurants in the hotels and the venue were closed, I assume due to lack of staff.) Lots of okay restaurants nearby, but extremely expensive and a long walk down a hill that even I found difficult to comfortably navigate. All of this was poorly planned.

The dealer's room was a catastrophe. Everybody should know that shipping merchandise into Canada costs a fortune, and the taxes and duties are grotesque. I heard that several dealers weren't informed by the producers that they need to do the CAN app stuff in advance, other people were felled by covid. So the fault does not lie entirely with the producers, but if it was me I would have been working the phones the week before and giving the dealer tables away for free for the benefit of the conventioneers. (BRAD: books are the heaviest things you can ship--too expensive.)

All of the items for sale by the lecturers were in a room off to the side that nobody seemed to know about. The layout of the convention center was a labyrinth and it was difficult to find things. It didn't help that the escalators functioned sporadically or not at all.

It has always struck me odd that the Winners are made known before the awards ceremony due to the strange scheduling of the shows. It has been this way for years and who the hell knows why. It should change.

Charging artists for video of their acts is not unreasonable, but the price should have been $75 to $100--just a small fee to cover some costs.

The schedule was crazy. Starting at 8am and ending after midnight almost every day was draining for people. Many of those events should have, as Craig noted, been held on the first day. But in general the scheduling was not great and many of the lectures were in big rooms that were only 20% filled. Can't generate any energy that way. Again, I think there were external forces working on the producers that dictated some of this (such as unions).

There was some incredibly inept camera work in both the winners gala and some of the lectures. Don't these people rehearse? Or make notes when they rehearse? FFS

There were, I've heard, 1,600 attendees at the convention. I also heard that there were over 500 registrations sitting behind the desk that were never picked up. While that's shocking, inflation, the cost of gas, and the exorbitant prices of food and everything else in Quebec City, and THE DAMN PANDEMIC likely account for that.

I DISagree with Craig's comments about the food at the banquet. While the room itself was dreary and there was no entertainment (really? they could have hired John Archer to do 40 minutes and everyone would have been thrilled), the food was MUCH better than most other convention banquets!

I also agree with him about the positive aspects. The talent line up, even with a bunch of no-shows such as Yann Frisch (covid) and Michael Weber, was strong. Also, some performers' luggage was lost, like Sos and Victoria Petrosyan. Again, a function of the pandemic.

Some of the evening galas were great, but there was a startling lack of magic in several of them. The variety acts were impressive, and entertaining, but there were too many of them. There was one night were the emcees, two TV hosts, blabbed so much that it was irritating.

I must single out two guys: Shawn Farquhar for performing an astoundingly entertaining routine: a Topsy Turvy Bottle with no gimmick. You can tell he's done it a million times and boy was it great. The other is Dani DaOrtiz, who just keeps getting better if such a thing is possible. His hour-long close-up show was overwhelmingly good. The audience went nuts for both of them.

There were repeated lengthy tributes to the long-deceased Gary Ouellet--one short tribute would have been sufficient. Those of us who knew him better could have done without any tribute.

I agreed with the winner of the Grand Prix for stage magic. The act was amazing and charming. But the Russian manipulator who came in second (they went to pains to point out that he now lives in the USA) was unbelievable. Incredibly talented and with great character.

I disagreed with the winner of the Grand Prix for close up. Simon Coronel did two tricks. One was a bill switch (no tip, and it changed three times) and he flashed in both the competition (I was told) and in the winners gala. The two laypeople who were my guests asked me what the hell was all that fiddling going behind one corner of the bill. His other trick was a linking card with a spectator's finger ring, which magicians went nuts for. It was obvious that the card was hugely gimmicked. The trick is the gimmick. It almost seemed like a well-done dealer demo of items to eventually be marketed. No, my choice would have been the incredibly artful Luis Olemedo. What incredible coin work! Now there was an artist!

I spent most of my time socializing, watching the gala shows and lectures. But the best part was seeing lots of friends for the first time in way too long.

I am on the advisory committee for the next FISM to take place in Turin, Italy, in 2025. Hopefully we will be able to fix some of the thngs that didn't work so well this time. Wish us luck!
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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby CraigMitchell » August 1st, 2022, 7:59 pm

Just an update on charging the contestants for media for personal use. This is in fact against the FISM contest rules:

According to the FISM contest rules contestants are entitled to a FREE copy of their act ... and should not be required to pay.

"5.e Each competitor expressing the wish for it, will receive, free of charge, for his/her personal use only, the filmed images of his/her performance. Commercial use without prior approval of FISM is prohibited"

https://fism.org/mt-content/uploads/202 ... est-rp.pdf

I recommend contestants contact the organisers to arrange accordingly - info@fismquebec2021.com

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby DiegoNovati » August 2nd, 2022, 11:18 am

*Convention 101 - there was no physical schedule in the name badge holder, no convention app nor a mobile-friendly web schedule. These are prerequisites for an event of this size.


I developed the Apps for Fism 2015 in Rimini and I contacted the organisers twice proposing to create the official App for the event with the program and the notifications for any update, but unfortunately they never answer to my offer (the first time I received a standard reply promising a future email that I never received).

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Ian Kendall » August 2nd, 2022, 12:09 pm

According to the FISM contest rules contestants are entitled to a FREE copy of their act ... and should not be required to pay.

"5.e Each competitor expressing the wish for it, will receive, free of charge, for his/her personal use only, the filmed images of his/her performance. Commercial use without prior approval of FISM is prohibited"


I imagine a lot of them would want it for show reels, which would not be personal use...

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Bob Farmer » August 4th, 2022, 11:31 am

The FISM highlights for me were, in no order:

1. Seeing old friends and meeting new ones.

2. Dana DaOrtiz (lecture and show).

3. Richard Kaufman's tribute to Max Maven.

4. Marc DeSouza's lecture on the history of magic.

5. Michael Ammar's lecture.

6. Max Maven's interview with Luis De Matos.

One suggestion for all magic conventions: in guitar shops there is sometimes a sign that reads, "No Stairway To Heaven" because we've all heard that intro so many times we don't need to hear it again. For magic conventions, the sign should read, "No Cups and Balls, No Coin Assemblies." These effects haven't offered a surprise to a magic audience for decades so they are pointless for magicians.

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Leo Garet » August 4th, 2022, 11:47 am

Bob Farmer wrote:One suggestion for all magic conventions: in guitar shops there is sometimes a sign that reads, "No Stairway To Heaven" because we've all heard that intro so many times we don't need to hear it again.


I thought it was "Smoke On The Water".
;)

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Richard Kaufman » August 4th, 2022, 1:21 pm

Luis Olmedo did something new with the assembling of coins that I thought was exquisite, so there.
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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Bob Farmer » August 4th, 2022, 2:50 pm

Was that the guy that used the black art close-up mat? That's what I thought the method was. If I'm right, it's not a close-up trick it's a TV trick since close up the "secret" pockets would be obvious.

And "Smoke On The Water" is a definite no-no.

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Richard Kaufman » August 4th, 2022, 7:35 pm

No black art.
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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Robert77 » August 4th, 2022, 7:50 pm

Bob Farmer wrote:The FISM highlights for me were, in no order:

For magic conventions, the sign should read, "No Cups and Balls, No Coin Assemblies." These effects haven't offered a surprise to a magic audience for decades so they are pointless for magicians.


Well there was that verision with clear cups. And of course Paul Gertner with ball bearings. Those were new.

...though I guess Paul Gertner may indeed be "decades" ago. Time passes fast :(

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Re: FISM 2022 Postscript

Postby Andres Reynoso » August 5th, 2022, 7:35 pm

Bob Farmer wrote:Was that the guy that used the black art close-up mat?


When I saw him I thought in black art, but a friend told me no black art was used, just sleight of hand.
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