Hi everyone. It’s 8am in LA on the second day of KGB10 and what a great time we all had yesterday!

After some poolside reunions with old friends Payne, Mike Bent, Joaquin, and Jozo Bozo we kicked off at 11am with a talk by Joaquin Kotkin on his experiences on an arena tour with a grand illusion show. I’ve played one or two big venues in my time, but it’s hard to imagine what it must be like to play to crowds in excess of 5000 people. Amazing!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07dy0HYuunw

Joaquin is such a funny guy and a great performer (he invented tricks that are used by Copperfield and other greats in magic). It’s great to see him enjoying this level of success.

Dave Cox and Joaquin – Devil Beard meets Half-Beard.

Next up was Tamar, lecturing for the first time ever – what a baptism of fire that must have been! I know how nerve wracking it was the first time I came to talk to these guys and by that time I had quite a few lectures under my belt. All I can say is that if she was nervous, it didn’t show. She talked for just over an hour on the subject of games and the British-style two hour party, a subject quite alien to most of the crowd. It sparked a lot of great discussion!

Tamar preparing her lecture by the pool

Other newbie, Gary Dunn came next – lecturing on ‘How to entertain with almost nothing’. We had great fun with the ahh game and Gary’s cheeky persona was a big hit with the group. We ended the first session on a huge high!

Gary lecturing with nothing.

After dinner we reassembled for the official opening ceremony and that was followed by David Kaye’s lecture ‘Don’t do these Tricks’ or ‘Don’t be a Douche’. This was a fun Keynote presentation about the pitfalls of using tricks that ridicule the spectator, followed by a ‘twist’ ending – great.

Payne was up next with the a similarly themed talk on the use and mis-use of stock lines (Lectures have been paired together this year). Payne was hilarious as always and provided a lot of food for thought.

The evening ended with our first ‘show and tell’ session – I showed a couple of my new tricks from my ‘Trix in the Stix’ lecture. Other highlights included Jozo’s amazing new take on the colouring book and Gary’s ‘Janus’ bag.

What an amazing first day!

Today promises lectures by Payne (again), Buster Balloon, Dave Cox, Mike Bent, followed by an evening at the Magic Castle!

That’s it! – off for breakfast!

Shabum!

Gary and Mike

Phew – finally having a sit down after what must have been one of the most hectic Saturdays ever! Apart from doing our shows, Tamar and I were busy packing for our upcoming trip, preparing our presentations, assembling our presents and items for the show and tell sessions and generally trying to make sure we hadn’t forgotten anything. We were both up until 3am – Tamar proofing and tweaking her lecture notes and me adding new material to a powerpoint presentation I’ll be giving on Edwin’s Supreme years. We finally think we are ready, so just todays shows (1 each) to do and then we’re off to Heathrow to meet up with Gary Dunn.

I’ve known Gary for a while now, but only really got the opportunity to see him perform while filming and editing his ‘Keep Them Laughing’  DVD. Needless to say, I was blown away and have petitioned heavily for him to be invited to this year’s KGB meeting. My gift to the members last year was a copy of the DVD, so needless to say – not too much persuasion was necessary.

So what is KGB?

We are a group of children’s entertainers from all over the world who meet once a year to lecture, exchange ideas, try out new effects, perform together and generally hang out and have fun.

The group was started  10 years ago by DAVID KAYE and BRUCE BRAY – two giants in the field, who felt that children’s entertainers got a poor deal at most magic conventions and wanted to meet with like-minded individuals for an intensive 3 day workshop session. The name was a bit of a joke – the initials standing for Kidshow Guru Braintrust. Bruce thought it was hilarious to have such a fun group with a sinister sounding title. The KGB started with just 6 members, but now there are 22 worldwide, with new members being added each year. The aim is to keep the number of attendees at the annual meeting to around 12, so that the intimate nature of the gathering isn’t lost. Sadly, Bruce is no longer with us – he passed away in 2011, but his group carries on.

This year we will have 11 attending and will be spending 4 days at the Magic Castle hotel in L.A., then on Saturday we will all perform a theatre show in aid of a children’s charity.

Along the way I’ll try to make lots of little video clips, I’ll blog about what goes on each day – so if anyone is interested, you can follow me either on here or Facebook.

KGB7 – My first visit to the Magic Castle

Ok – gotta go and work. One more show and we’re done!