It has been quite a while since Hans Klok has appeared on the Vegas strip. The last time he did he brought along Baywatch star Pamela Anderson to be his special VIP assistant at the Planet Hollywood casino in 2007 for "The Beauty of Magic". Unfortunately, nothing people found no beauty or magic to the show (unless you count the Striptease illusion Pamela is involved in during the show) and the show closed quickly and was regarded as a bomb. Large scale production magic shows are becoming a lost art and sadly Hans and his show was a victim of the changing trends. I was unable to attend the show as I was young and had no money but I love large production shows and I believed I would have loved the show.

After the big flop, Hans took his act back to Europe where he dazzled crowds and performed in large venues across Europe performing his "Houdini" and "House of Horrors" shows to many crowds. He has also put a select number of his past shows on YouTube for free so big ups to him for doing that as I believe many magicians should use the platform to get out old material to preserve it. He took the failure pretty well, saying that it was a bad move to rely on Anderson to sell tickets and expecting to pack a 5000 seat showroom. Now, Hans is back in Vegas and performing at the Thunderland showroom at the Excalibur hotel.

I have admitted to being a fan of large scale magic productions so I have been following Hans and his team since I first heard of his Vegas show and I was hoping to get a taste of that with his new show since I have been unable to see his larger shows because they are all overseas and money is still tight. But being in such a small showroom means having to scale down the show, and while the illusions and dancers were great, I could not shake the feeling that if the stage was bigger and he could do his longer show, he would feel more comfortable and I'd be more happy.

The illusions were as followed (in no particular order):
Suspended Animation
Knife levitation
Eclipse
Annabelle routine (a mix of the seance illusion and de kolta chair)
Sword box
Spiker (with no fire which surprised me as it was a staple of his act for so long)
Impaled
Origami
Card manipulation
2 quick change acts
metamorphosis
wine bottle and glass trick
Shroud metamorphosis
crystal casket
needle through glass
girl without a middle

A very scaled down version of his longer shows that ran in Europe and in Vegas (The show only lasts an hour) in a small theater that was half to 75% full at one of the less glamorous hotels on the strip could spell doom for Hans. The audience I saw his show with were not that loud but he did get some standing ovations from certain members of the audience. I do not see him reaching the major production heights he had in Europe as it is my opinion that American audiences favor small, close up acts like Matt Franco and Shin Lim, and see performers like Hans as a relic of magic's past that best suit a a mid afternoon show. My hopes are that Hans is able to reach the headliner heights that he has in Europe and bring the large scale magic shows back to prominence but it will be a uphill battle to say the least and I wish Hans and his team all the luck in the world, he may need it.

I remember seeing Klok on one of the World's Greatest Magic shows on TV back in the 90's. He was pretty good, but if he's performing in the same style today, it may have a dated feel to it. I don't know as I haven't really heard anything about him in a long time.

The last years he has regulary participated to « le plus grand cabaret du monde » a great popular french TV show with a lot of magicians.
Here is a link:
https://www.musicme.com/Patrick-Sebastie......755.html
You can find a few more on YouTube.

His show is more scaled down as he uses less dancers and does feel a tad dated as its these grand illusions in a small theater with tables and booths, a real cheap feel for someone who is used to large theaters. I'm surprised you forgot about his time with Pamela Anderson as they were doing arguably the biggest magic PR run since David Blaine for their show at Planet Hollywood back in 2007.

I watch a ton of magic on youtube daily and have come across his performances on this show and think they are very good. I'm always looking forward to see if there are any new videos of my favorite performers

I'll be there the 19th, I believe, while I'm in Vegas to lecture

The economy and trends shift like a roller coaster, but I am glad to know he is keeping illusion shows alive. Hans has plenty of charisma to make his show succeed. The best of luck to him.