Tim Ellis and Sue-Anne’s Letter from Down-UnderInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

What A Tour

Tim,

You wrote earlier asking us for an update of what we’ve been doing since we toured the USA earlier this year.

Well… after traveling the USA from January to March 2003 (see
attached map) (You can see reviews of our ‘Driving U.S. Insane’ lecture tour here.) we got back into our usual routine of corporate gigs. Here in Australia, 95% of our shows are for various company private events. Sometimes we just do close-up, sometimes stage shows of comedy magic, most often it’s a combination of both with one or two illusions thrown in for good measure.

We also run a ‘Magic Night’ here in Melbourne, Australia, once a month
where magicians get together to perform, workshop and learn from each other. It’s held in a typical Aussie ‘Pub’ called ‘Coopers’ and a
typical night’s program runs like this:

5.30-7.30pm – Magicians try out new effects on the public (and each
other) downstairs in the bar and restaurant area. Often we have over a
dozen magicians working the room.

7.30-7.45pm – Workshop. This is where a more experienced magician will give those who are interested a quick lesson on a requested technique or move like the top change, or dice stacking.

7.45-8.00pm – Competition Time. Just for fun we run technique based
competitions like: Card Estimation, Coin Rolling, Muscle Pass for height
etc. Obviously magic is not technique, but these events really seem to
encourage people to work harder on the technical aspect of their magic.

8.00-10.00pm…

What A Tour

5.30-7.30pm – Magicians try out new effects on the public (and each
other) downstairs in the bar and restaurant area. Often we have over a
dozen magicians working the room.

7.30-7.45pm – Workshop. This is where a more experienced magician will give those who are interested a quick lesson on a requested technique or move like the top change, or dice stacking.

8.00-10.00pm – The Magic Night. All of the magicians head upstairs to a private room where one of our team (assisted by the rest of the team) hosts the night. We have lots of short segments and it’s really like a mini-convention! Stage and close-up skills are demonstrated with
workshops offered at the end of the night, guest specialists give
presentations on costumes, make up, photography, lighting, sound… we even had a representative from the Police talk to us about the legality of using prop guns on stage. The night often includes the performance and critique of ‘works in progress’ as well as a round or two of MagicSports.

10.00-11.30pm – Mingle. After the formal part of the evening people set up ‘Buy, Swap and Sell Stands’, and they mingle, workshop and network, often until the early hours.

The nights have been a great success and you can read more about them here

Flicking Fingers, Tim and Sue-Anne

In April we brought The Flicking Fingers to Australia for special ‘Fingers Weekends’ in Melbourne and Sydney. These events were huge successes with people saying it was the best money they’d ever spent in magic (and that was only two hours after the weekend had started!)

The Fingers also had the debut of their DVD ‘The Movie’ which is an absolute MUST for every magician.

May was my 40th birthday and Sue-Anne organised a very unusual “present” for me. I was the only audience member at a show performed by my friends. Everyone, including Sue-Anne’s mum, did some magic that night.

Unforgettable.

In June, Sue-Anne was called in to act as model for a friend’s
photographic project. I’ve known Tashkah from my early days in magic,
and now she works professionally as an ‘Arts Photographer’. It just so
happened that she’d always wanted to do a series of shots of a cat
burglar, and Sue-Anne just happened to have the exact “look” she was
after. You can see the results here:

July saw us heading overseas again to present MagicSports at the SAM in Las Vegas, followed by a lecture in Houston, Texas. From there it was off to Munich to play MagicSports with The Flicking Fingers and then Den Haag, for FISM 2003. FISM was especially busy for us, in addition to perform the Six Card Rap on the gala show and presenting eight sessions of MagicSports with The Flicking Fingers, I was also on the Jury and had to judge every one of the 150 acts in the competition. As if that wasn’t enough, Sue-Anne also wrote a report on every single competitor for MAGIC Magazine (which can be found here)

It was an exhausting but, simultaneously, energising time. But it hasn’t
stopped since we got back.

The top rating TV show ‘Location Location’ came to our house as soon as we got back and shot a segment for it’s series on ‘Amazing Homes’ to be screened next year, and we had to fly off to Singapore to do a spot for Singtel Communications.

So, we are finally back, slowing down as we throw ourselves back into
rehearsals for our new shows for 2004. We’re also expanding the Magic
Nights for next year and planning a public tour with one of our new
shows. We’re helping several performers work on their acts, and we’ve
been booked as special guests at the New Zealand Magic Convention in
June.

Our next trip to the USA (as far as we know…) will be in April 2005
for FFFF, and possibly Hank Lees and the Battle of the Magicians. We
plan to have a brand new lecture and some new merchandise ready for you by then too!

Beyond that, it’s FISM 2006 in Sweden. Hope you’ve all registered and
are ready to go! I’ve got my seat reserved on the judging panel again
and I can’t wait!

Who says too much magic is a bad thing?

ALL THE BEST

TIM ELLIS and SUE-ANNE WEBSTER

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www.MagicUnlimited.com