Got my set early last week. Just wanted to say that I've subscribed for both previous EMC sessions and will do so again in 2012. It's definitely been more than worth the money in my opinion.

Only negative thing about EMC 2011 IMO was the Buck Twins. Their presentations was them reading directly off an auto-cue about such intriguing things such as their suggestion to remove the cellophane and seal from card boxes before you approach a group to do magic etc.

Waste of time.

The rest was stellar.

I personally got fed up of all the talking. Just tons of theory and not enough tricks. And I'm not talking about presentations like Peter Wardalls salt or Marco Tempests Animated picture - this is suppose to be a lecture so I want to come away after watching it, having learnt a trick I can go away and perform.

So far, I have not done that. None of the performers have presented and explained any trick. All I get is there 'opinion' on one aspect of the magic world. Yes, its intresting hearing Paul Daniels talk about getting on TV, But not when its followed up with a talk about someone getting a show, then a talk about magic in the media, then another talk about kids show aspects. Too much talking for me and not enough action.

And a lot of what they said, cannot be taught through a video lecture, it can only be learnt through hands on experience.

But its still worth the cost of buying the DVD set, but please add more tricks in next time, if nothing else but to break up the talking and preaching to the camera in order to keep me at least intrested.

Steve

P.S. and I'm not allowing long, complicated card tricks into the argument either!

I like the EMC a lot, have joined for both years... but I don't disagree with the two above comments. Each year there have been good presentations and not so good presentations. You can tell the speakers who really prepared and thought out what they were going to say and the ones who didn't. As for the Bucks, I thought their first presentation, a crisp lecture detailing their overall philosophy towards invention, was very good. But their second, which was listed as a performance, was embarrassing. I'm not sure what happened here; from the hastily put together Powerpoint slides and condescending admonishments to card workers to wash their hands, it felt as if something else was planned and then dropped at the last moment. I know they don't bill themselves as performers these days, but to open their talk by saying, "We're not going to perform, but maybe later..." was weird. There was no "later" scheduled with them. Other less-than-overwhelming presentations were those that basically felt like infomercials. Jonathan Bayme's journey from kid show magic to Theory 11 was meant, he surely intended, as inspirational, but the uplift was both generic and self-promotional. Ditto Marvin Berglas's nervous presentation about his own career building a chain of magic shops. Bayme's second presentation, again billed as "performance," was a promo video of Theory 11's new partnership with Bicycle playing cards. Sure, it was cool to see the inside of the factory, but it did feel as much like advertising as anything else. (Maybe they should stop billing half of these talks as "performances" since there were others, like David Kaye's, that again were just further lecture talks.) And, a final little quibble -- I think many of us were hoping for some real behind-the-scenes footage on the DVDs, perhaps of the participants sessioning or just performing to camera. The DVDs came out earlier this year, and there is some additional material (explanations by Caveney and Lamont), but there still isn't anything shot outside of the lecture format.

Don't get me wrong -- there was a lot of great stuff here. I was surprised to really like the presentations by the veterans -- Copperfield and Paul Daniels. Mike Caveney on the Million Dollar Mystery, Luis de Mato on vanishing a spec's car, Dani DaOrtiz on his own brand of card magic (in which he did actually teach a trick), Richard Wiseman on spectator psychology, Peter Lamont on framing an effect, David Britland on Chan Canasta all were great. I also found myself oddly moved by a strange little Christian Engbloom storytelling routine involving matches. I'll be joining again for next year, but I just hope that some of the less interesting presentations can get vetted out before the event is actually locked.

EMC is one of the best things to happen in magic.

Thank you Louis and team.

Guys you pay 100 dollars for a 3 DVD set.

Here you pay 90 and you get 8 DVD'S including post!

BUT! its not the amount of DVD'S the real value.

Its all top class quality.

GREAT lectures.

Great discussions, interviews.

Celebrity magicians like David Copperfield, Paul Daniels, Louis De Matos, Lu Chen, Cyril where you would't see them in DVD sets and rarely in conventions!
You get interviews with them, Q&A, discussion panels, among other well respected magicians.

You get really interesting talks. some of the best talks I have ever seen.

and you also get the chance to watch all these live!! if you cant you get the DVD's later.

Its one of the best things in magic.

I wish it will continue not only next year, but also the years to come!!

Thank you again EMC team!