Escape Artist Mark Webber Hopes to be Free of Red TapeInside MagicMagic News Updated Daily for the Professional Magician

He is known around St. John, Newfoundland as The Magic Man, the guy who freaks people out.

Mark Webber wants to escape from "a coffin-shaped box that
will be dangling by a burning rope and about to drop in St. John?s
harbour."

That’s just half of the trick, though.

He hopes to perform the stunt during the town’s Aliant Downtown Busker Festival this August. He knows he needs to prepare physically and mentally for the escape. But Mr. Webber is learning escaping from a coffin dangling from a burning rope is not as easy as it used to be.

Enter the lawyers and the insurance companies.

Approaching that event?s organizers as well as city officials,
insurance companies and potential sponsors will consume a lot of
Webber?s time between now and then as he tries to get the green light
for the trick.

Gaylynne Lambert of the Downtown Development Commission suspects it will be challenging for Webber to get the thumbs up.
It’s her experience that even for non-risky events, insurance is needed
to cover every single thing that could possibly go wrong.
"So when you are looking at a death-defying act like this, I would say
that it is going to take some convincing to get everybody on board,"
Lambert says.

Mr. Webber is in the unenviable position of putting on a death-defying act that is not death-defying or even risky.

He is known around St. John, Newfoundland as The Magic Man, the guy who freaks people out.

Mark Webber wants to escape from "a coffin-shaped box that
will be dangling by a burning rope and about to drop in St. John?s
harbour."

That’s just half of the trick, though.

He
hopes to perform the stunt during the town’s Aliant Downtown Busker
Festival this August. He knows he needs to prepare physically and
mentally for the escape. But Mr. Webber is learning escaping from a
coffin dangling from a burning rope is not as easy as it used to be.

Enter the lawyers and the insurance companies.

Approaching that event?s organizers as well as city officials,
insurance companies and potential sponsors will consume a lot of
Webber?s time between now and then as he tries to get the green light
for the trick.

Gaylynne Lambert of the Downtown Development Commission suspects it will be challenging for Webber to get the thumbs up.
It?s her experience that even for non-risky events, insurance is needed
to cover every single thing that could possibly go wrong.

?So when you are looking at a death-defying act like this, I would say
that it is going to take some convincing to get everybody on board,?
Lambert says.

Mr. Webber is in the unenviable position of putting on a death-defying act that is not death-defying or even risky.

So,
if Mr. Webber can prove to the insurance companies, town officials, and
lawyers that while he will be risking his life, he will be doing it in
a safe manner, he may be able to perform his dream stunt.

Inspired by the success of Criss Angel, Mr. Webber hopes to use the escape as a entree to bigger spectacles.

Down the road, he sees himself levitating between downtown buildings and making a bus full of people appear in an empty field.

Until then, however, he will continue performing children shows and parties.

Webber has freed himself from boxes, ropes, chains, handcuffs and duct
tape in the past, but has never done an escape on the scale of what
he?s planning for this summer.

He intends on having it down pat long before his hocus pocus over the harbour.

"You’ve really got to practice it," he says. "You just can?t go do an escape."

Check out the full article in the St. John’s Telegraph here.