Magic Stories

Reminiscing

I was thinking of some of the old ‘Magic Weeks’ we used to run back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Tom Ogden’s visit in 1987 stands out as a highlight. It was our second Magic Week and we brought Tom out as special guest. We arranged for him to do a lecture for the ASM, and later that week to perform at the ASM’s 80th Anniversary Dinner. Tom was our "representative" from Hollywood’s Magic Castle and hosted the ‘Houdini Award’ competition we ran at Westfield Doncaster. Ricky Ozimo was the winner and received a free trip to the USA to perform at The Castle for a week.

We also held ‘The Ultimate Magic Show 2’ at The Atheneaum Theatre in Collins St, managed by my good friend Glenn Elston, and it was a great success with performers including Ricky Ozimo, Terry Dansic, Harry Houdidn’t, Christine Hutchinson, and even a live band.

Use of The Atheneaum was such a success that we returned there and staged a whole week of different shows in their theatres in 1990. We even looked into staging a National Magic Convention at ‘The Ath’ combining it with The Regent Plaza Ballroom and The Melbourne Town Hall.

It’s interesting because, when you look at theatres that are suitable for magic performances in Melbourne, there are very few that offer good sightlines from every seat. We’d used The Palais Theatre the year before and it was just too big. The Princess, Her Majesty’s and The Comedy are better for magic performances, but very hard to book as they prefer seasons to "one-off" shows. The Capitol and The Forum are terrible for magic as people up the back simply can’t see. The Arts Centre has The Playhouse which is not too bad, but much more expensive with fewer seats than The Ath and the Concert Hall is simply too vast (as we discovered with The Mega-Magic Show in 1991). So we were glad to have "discovered" the Atheneaum. We really should try to use it more often.

I was thinking of some of the old ‘Magic Weeks’ we used to run back in the late 80’s and early 90’s.

Tom Ogden’s visit in 1987 stands out as a highlight. It was our second Magic Week and we brought Tom out as special guest. We arranged for him to do a lecture for the ASM, and later that week to perform at the ASM’s 80th Anniversary Dinner. Tom was our "representative" from Hollywood’s Magic Castle and hosted the ‘Houdini Award’ competition we ran at Westfield Doncaster. Ricky Ozimo was the winner and received a free trip to the USA to perform at The Castle for a week.

We also held ‘The Ultimate Magic Show 2’ at The Atheneaum Theatre in Collins St, managed by my good friend Glenn Elston, and it was a great success with performers including Ricky Ozimo, Terry Dansic, Harry Houdidn’t, Christine Hutchinson, and even a live band.

Use of The Atheneaum was such a success that we returned there and staged a whole week of different shows in their theatres in 1990. We even looked into staging a National Magic Convention at ‘The Ath’ combining it with The Regent Plaza Ballroom and The Melbourne Town Hall.

It’s interesting because, when you look at theatres that are suitable for magic performances in Melbourne, there are very few that offer good sightlines from every seat. We’d used The Palais Theatre the year before and it was just too big. The Princess, Her Majesty’s and The Comedy are better for magic performances, but very hard to book as they prefer seasons to "one-off" shows. The Capitol and The Forum are terrible for magic as people up the back simply can’t see. The Arts Centre has The Playhouse which is not too bad, but much more expensive with fewer seats than The Ath and the Concert Hall is simply too vast (as we discovered with The Mega-Magic Show in 1991). So we were glad to have "discovered" the Atheneaum. We really should try to use it more often.

Read More . . . http://magicunlimited.typepad.com/magic_unlimited_with_elli/2006/07/reminiscing.html.

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