Every year for the last 82, Colon (pronounced “Colon”) Michigan is the site of the Midwest’s largest celebration of magic in West Michigan.
Colon is the home for magicians live and dead – their cemetery is incredible. It is a tracing of magic history with wonderful stories to be told.
The 82nd annual Magic Get Together lasts from Wednesday, August 7th (today), until Saturday, August 10 (a day in the future – herein in identified as “a few days from now”). The event has been held in Colon, the magic capital of the world, since 1934.
B.J. Mallen, a magician and employee at Abbott’s, says, “We only have 1,100 people or so year long. We get just as many magic enthusiasts that come through on these 4 days.”
It is wonderful festival. We visited often whilst stationed in Mystic Hollow, Michigan, as part of an elite magical team with one less than elite member – we never figured out who or she was – ready to engage in card throwing, flash paper attacks, and the tearing and restoring of enemy maps. Of course the enemy and non-magic community denied our existence – as one would expect.
It is one of the most family friendly conventions we have ever attended. In fact we would bring our family eyery year with or without their consent. “Every year, Abbotts Magic Shop hosts a long list of family-friendly events for the get together. Street performers, stage shows and lecturers will all be on hand in 2019.”
Our favorite location – other than the Pizza Parlor where all things magical happen or the VFW Hall where all things magical also happen but with more crowded conditions – was the dealers’ room. There guests can purchase magic tricks and commune (now legal in Michigan) with visiting magicians. Fox 17 of Western Michigan points out that Inside Magic Favorite Bob Little has been making the trek for more than 50 years. He is now 87-years-old but still just as spry and inventive.
“Magic has changed tremendously. It’s not the hobby it used to be,” he says. Little says he has noticed people’s attention move away from magic in recent years to electronic devices.”
They’ll come back, they always do. We had electronic devices back in the 30’s, 40’s and so on. We predict, and you can write this down – or just take a picture of the screen on one of your new-fangled ePhones: “Magic will be a part of society as long as there is curiosity and invention.” We didn’t make up that quote but it seems to fit well right about here and we’re certain the true author, statesman and magic lover Harry Truman wouldn’t mind. We’ll check our ePowered Ouija board this evening to make sure. Yes, he was talking about a different thing and he didn’t use the word “Magic” or “curiosity and invention” but it was the midst of the famous coal strike and he didn’t have time for such niceties. But we knew what he meant.
Where else can you see magicians on the street, the bright sunlight, eating a hot dog from the gas station and filing into the Dealers’ Room to see the latest tricks from the best shops our Art.
“The get together dates back to the 1920’s when two world renowned magicians, Harry Blackstone and Percy Abbott, moved to Colon. Mallen tells FOX 17, “He (Blackstone) was looking for lakefront property to purchase because he likes to fish.”
The two magicians would form Blackstone Magic Company. After a falling out between the two, Abbott would open what would become Abbott’s Magic Shop.”
See a list of all the performers here.
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