What is this "Magic History Conference."
I was recently researching about the mascot moth illusion and I think I saw something about Gaughan and Steinmeyer doing it at the Magic History Conference. Do they actually perform there?

The Los Angeles Conference on Magic History is a biennial event (every other year) put on by Jim Steinmeyer, Mike Caveney, John Gaughan, Frankie Glass, and Joan Lawton (the Conference organizers). This year's will be the 12th History Conference. It's a small conference due to the fact that attendance is by invitation only. Each time, one or several illusions from the past are recreated for attendees. Past conferences have featured The Hooker Card Rise, Antonio Diavolo, The Turk, The Mascot Moth, Will, The Witch, and the Watchman, the Jarrett Sawing, Goodbye Winter, and Well, I'm..!, just to name a few. Often times the pieces are the original apparatus (as in the case of the Hooker Card Rise and Antonio Diavolo).


Metempsychosis (The Blue Room) was also re-created for the History Conference several years ago.

"Chrusa,

You are almost as bad as Valentino. Many of your recent posts have discussed how much you hate exposure but your other posts talk of methods and ARE exposure. What is up with that? You should not be discussing such things in an open forum where posts turn up on web searches.

Please don't say its not exposure just because you used 4 stars in place of a certain word. Read your post again and you'll see its very telling of the method.

The Shadow Knows"


that's absurd. there are far more direct ways of finding out how these things are done than figuring out the clumsy codes people use here. and if a motivated person need only make 50 posts to gain access to that special inner sanctum, it creates a far greater risk of exposure insofar as candor is encouraged and the silly **** protocol is abandoned.

Lol... Oh, great... Sound like a massive rigging project for me in that Ballroom!

The Elevator is by far my favorite show opener. Back in the early years, I always opened with the Shadowbox. Something about the visible appearance of a shadow. The Elevator is an upscale version of the shadowbox, and makes more sense being an object we are in touch with, an elevator, not just a box.

My favorite show closer, for the same reason, is the Fan. Brilliant illusion, and once again uses the shadow. Im a firm believer that magicians should vanish and reappear in the audience to close the show. It puts them close and personal to the performer for the final bow. The Fan is one of the prettiest illusions ive seen, and once again, we can relate to a fan seeing its not just another box.

Videokideo,

I agree with you that it's great to have illusion props the audience can relate to. It has the advantage of not being another box pusher and it enhance the emotional impact to the audience.

Couriously David Copperfield never put "The Fan" illusion in his show as a closer. He seems to like the classical approach of closing the shows with a "production" effect.

Oliver.

He must have changed things around from city to city...the last two times (two separate cities) I saw his show, he closed both shows with The Fan. Reappeared in the audience and waived goodbye, much like he did with the motorcycle years back.

Then I saw him about 6 months later, and his second illusion after his appearance was the Fan...so seen it used both ways.

Ive always liked the idea of ending the show out in the middle of the audience. A amusement park magician once proved this fact to me. One week he ended the show on stage...the next week he ended the show out in the audience. They doubled after show photo sales in that second week...he really felt that by putting himself up close and personal and appearing in the audience induced that personalization with a bigger part of the audience. Of course it could have just been a week to week fluke in sales...but ive always stood by ending your show in the audience. Makes them feel like they are part of the final illusion.

To get back on track....SHADOWS ARE AWESOME! LOL