I can’t believe I haven’t blogged since KGB10 back in January! I’ve forgotten how this site works and that’s compounded by the fact that they seem to have changed things round a little.
Never mind, I promised my friends on the TRIX IN THE STIX Facebook page that I would try to keep them updated with goings on at Kidabra, so here goes:
Not much to tell so far. Tamar and I finished our shows on Sunday, raced home, packed and set off for the Raddison at Heathrow, panicking as usual that we must have forgotten something. We always promise ourself that we’ll never work on the day we set off, but we always do.
We flew out yesterday at 8am UK time and arrived here by 2pm. It was the kind of flight I like – boring and uneventful. Interesting flights can be a little scary. After an hour’s drive in our rental car, we were checking in at the lovely Music Road Inn in Pigeon Forge and just a few short minutes later, we were sharing a relaxing Jacuzzi in our room. Then we made a huge mistake – we fell asleep for two hours and woke feeling like zombies!
Not much to report on the convention as yet. We dragged ourself down for dinner at the Bullfish Grill and then managed to catch John Carlson’s ‘Big Birthday Party Business’ lecture. What a great start! John is funny and incredibly generous with his advice. He spoke for over 90 minutes on promoting your business. He gave us a step-by-step guide to designing a great website, attracting customers, how to get great testimonials, where to advertise, phone technique , adding value to your show and following up after the booking. He also gave us a very detailed insight into how having your own app can increase your fanbase and send bookings through the roof. As always with John, I left feeling inspired and energised. It was a great start to our Kidabra experience.
As always, it was great to catch up with old friends. Our day ended in Ruby Tuesdays, having dessert with Jimbo, Sally Andrews, Kevin Doig, Ken Scott, Jolly Roger, Joe Romano and Shabum.
Anyway, it’s time for breakfast! – Long day ahead today!
John is an ex-cop from New Jersey and one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet!
Well, the last day of our little conference seemed to come round really quickly. Having a little lie in this morning before we get started!
Yesterday was a packed programme again. We began with a Skype chat with Doug Scheer about the KGB Website. We are hoping to have this up and running soon and Doug has done a great job in getting it all together.
Ken Scott treated us to a motivational lecture entitled ‘Why We Stay Busy. We Are F***ing Rock Stars.’ Ken is a very funny guy and despite the tongue in cheek title, his professionalism and passion for our art shone through in this great presentation.
Jozo Bozo gave an incredible lecture on how to entertain 2 year olds. We had all been skeptical about this but wow!! We were treated to a masterclass, packed with useful information and I am now determined to try and crack this untapped market in my area!
Jozo Bozo – Entertaining 2 year olds
Over lunch, we read out columns from Magic magazine by KGB members Mike, Payne and David.
I was next, giving my presentation on Edwin – ‘Meet Bideford’s Mr. Magic’. Edwin probably contributed more to the art of children’s magic than anyone else in the 20th Century and yet many younger entertainers no nothing about him due to the fact that he existed before the internet. I showed some video clips of behind the scenes of Supreme Magic and of Edwin performing back in 1977.
We had dinner at my favourite fast-food place, IN AND OUT BURGER, followed by middle eastern ice-cream (ginger and rose-water flavour!) , then staged an impromptu KGB show for the kids in the hotel. The kids were pretty much all Australian and aged 10 and over, but we had great fun.
Gary hosted and performed ‘Colin the Chicken’, I did a little baby cry routine and Knitty Bang Bang, David Kaye did three new tricks (I won’t give details as he may want to keep them under wraps) and Payne closed with a brilliant ropes through body where a child appeared to escape from a strait jacket!
Afterwards we had Show and Tell until the early hours of the morning, then retired to bed exhausted!
Today we are eating lunch at the Magic Castle and visiting the library, then we will exchange gifts before our Gala dinner at Yamashiro’s. then we will be discussing our plans for Saturday’s charity show.
I think I probably had one of the soundest night’s sleep I’ve ever had!
After a 10 hour flight with some incredibly scary turbulence over Greenland followed by a particularly confusing drive from LAX to the Magic Castle Hotel, we were hungry and looking not unlike the walking dead. I was also suffering from the worlds worse case of ear pressure pain after flying. I am not exaggerating in the slightest when I say that it was similar to a thousand knives of fire being plunged into each side of my head. Childbirth would have been a walk in the park compared to what I was suffering.
A late dinner of amazing burgers at 25 degrees (which looked like something off Man Vs Food) took us up to 11pm, then we all agreed it was time for bed.
It’s 8am here in Los Angeles and the view from our hotel window is absolutely stunning! This time round we are staying at the Hollywood Hills annex and looking out over the city.
We feel rested and raring to go. Lecturing today we have Joaquin Kotkin (on touring with a grand illusion show), Gary Dunn (entertaining with almost nothing), Payne and then Tamar Kimmons (on fun and games for birthday shows).
The programme is subject to change and it usually does.
I know, I know – in my last post I promised a full review of Kidabra 2012, then fell silent again. Well here it is! I hope it was worth waiting for! The 21st Kidabra conference – ‘The Year of Inspiration’ proved to be the best I’ve ever attended. Tamar and I began our long journey to Pigeon Forge, Tennesse on August the 12th, when we drove up to the Manchester Airport Hilton. We spent the evening watching the olympics closing ceremony and discussing the trip ahead, which was also going to serve as the second part of our honeymoon. To cut a long story short, we arrived in Knoxville at 5.30 the next evening, picked up the hire car and drove to the Music Road Hotel. Unfortunately, our luggage had failed to arrive on the same plane as us, deciding instead to stay in Philadelphia, so the first excursion was to the huge local Walmart to buy a few essentials. All this fuss almost made us decide not to attend Dave and Sally Andrews’ Brits party, but I was really glad we did. When we opened the door we were greeted by a Krispy Kreme donut wedding cake, complete with decorative trim and bride and groom! All this was courtesy of Gus and Monica Harvett – a great couple and two great friends. We were over the moon!
Gus and Monica’s delicious creation
It was great to see Gus and Monica again, along with GG and Charlie Siebert, Kevin Doig, Scott Thatcher and Sally and Dave, but jetlag soon got the better of us and it was time for bed. Tuesday started well, with the discovery that our luggage had been delivered to the hotel, and just got better and better. Gus and Monica had arranged for us Brits to spend the morning horseback riding, which was a first for me! I always love the first day of Biz Builders at Kidabra, because it’s fun to just sit in the hotel lobby and watch old friends and acquaintances arrive. By lunchtime we’d met up with my KGB brothers Ken Scott, Joe Romano and Mark Daniel and we were really starting to have fun. There was definitely a buzz in the air this year! The first lectures were from Kevin Heller and Brad Ross. Kevin dealt with the Pitch- selling your show. I’m no marketing expert and this proved really interesting.
Kevin Heller throwing out free stuff – I seem quite determined to catch that vanishing silk hanky!
Brad’s Facebook and social media lecture really struck a chord with me. Both Tamar and I are addicted to Facebook and there were so many good ideas in Brad’s talk that could be implemented right away. I got LOADS out of this lecture – thanks Brad!
Brad looks more like a Disney character every time I see him!
After the lectures it was time to head to Terry Evanswood’s theatre to watch a special one-off performance of ‘The War Wizard’ by Max Howard. Max is incredible! He is such a fine actor and consummate professional. Everything this man does oozes class. To see him transform into Gus Rich was pure magic. I am so thrilled to have had the chance to see this amazing one man play. What a great end to day one! Wednesday opened with the second round of Biz Builders sessions. Dal Sanders gave some great advice on turning a restaurant gig into a ‘dinner theatre’ show, along with lots of practical marketing ideas. I didn’t get a chance to attend the lecture by Tom Dowling AKA Tom Phoolery, but Tamar raved about the ideas and brought back a complete set of everything that was on sale at the lecture, so I guess that’s a vote of confidence!
Tamar was particularly impressed with Tom’s low-cost, mini backdrop!
During Tom’s lecture I had been discussing the opening ceremony video with Ken Scott, and on Tamar’s return we set about recording and editing it. This unfortunately meant that we both missed David Farr , Dave Risley, and Jason Hudy’s lectures, but Scott raved about them, and he’s a hard man to please! Here’s a clip of the opening ceremony – along with the video we made:
After the opening comes the auction, with Kidabra’s beloved auctioneer Gary Shelton. I’ll leave you with some photos of the first two days. Part 2 coming soon!
Gus and Monica’s delicious creation
Kevin Heller throwing out free stuff – I seem quite determined to catch that vanishing silk hanky!
Brad looks more like a Disney character every time I see him!
Tamar was particularly impressed with Tom’s low-cost, mini backdrop!
As I write this, Practical’s Fireside Chat number 13 is rendering on my iMac. I finally managed to grab a couple of spare hours to piece it together and it should be online tonight.
Tamar and I headed off in different directions this morning for our Jubilee Shows – this celebration has certainly been good for business! We actually got to see some of the TV footage of the flotilla yesterday and think I can say with some confidence that the Queen and Prince Phillip would probably rather have watched our magic shows than that never ending procession of rather dreary canal boats in the pouring rain.
Here are a couple of pics from where I performed my first show today in Dore. I was on an outdoor stage with no steps up to it, just a rickety old plastic chair. It was difficult to get kids up on stage, but not impossible. Halfway through performing ‘Knitty Knitty Bang Bang’, my young helper announced that he needed the toilet and I could sense by the look of panic in his eyes that it was a matter of some urgency. Luckily we managed to get him down from the stage without any further embarrassment for the poor lad.
Ok, the Fireside chat has rendered – gonna get it uploaded to YouTube.
For those of you still waiting for the Fireside Chat, I promise it’s coming soon. Fate seems to be conspiring to keep me away from the iMac, but I hopefully will get some editing done soon.
Had to drag myself out of bed this morning to take Chris to the Showroom Theatre in Sheffield for a film workshop he was attending. On arriving back home it was time to hoover up the balls.
This tiny cottage that I rent has a lot of quirks – the dodgy floorboards, the cooker on castors that you have to drag out of the way to get to the washing machine, the ever-flushing toilet (more on that later) and the polystyrene balls that ooze out of the air vent in the downstairs bathroom.
My landlord had cavity wall insulation installed late last year and since then every time we get a moderate gust of wind or a sparrow flaps its wing at the bottom of the garden, tiny little grey polystyrene balls cascade from the vent and scatter all over the floor. On some occasions they can be an inch deep and fill the sink. How they can still be coming out several months on is a mystery to me, but they do. Having said that, I’ve never actually SEEN any of these things emerging- you just get up in the morning to thousands of the things. They are a bit like the xenomorphs in ALIENS: ‘They mostly come out at night… mostly.’
Perhaps more important news, at least to me, is that Tamar and I have finally set a wedding date! We’ve decided to just go for it and get hitched at Chesterfield Registry Office, so that our families can attend. It will be the 9th July at 11.30. I really can’t wait.
Only one show today and that proved pretty stressful. This wasn’t because of the children, the audience were wonderful, but because I got stuck in traffic and ended up being ten minutes late. Ten minutes doesn’t sound a lot, but it is awful watching the start time of your show getting closer and closer and being in a stationary traffic jam. Luckily I was able to maintain contact with the school who had booked me right up until the moment I arrived, so everything went smoothly once I did get there. I had to be super nice though, so I cut the jokes I’d planned to do about the spelling mistakes on the school website.
We had another panic tonight when Tamar anxiously exclaimed that she thought she’d hoovered up her engagement ring! I took a knife to the dust bag and was up to my elbows in muck, dead skin and hair when she came out to sheepishly tell me she’d found it under the bed. For some strange reason I found it hard to stop what I was doing and actually carried on searching through the crap even when I knew it was safe. I found a hair clip and 20p so – result!
I’m signing off now. Going to go and check the toilet because it’s going through one of its non-stop flushing phases. Our toilet either flushes all the time or not at all. There are times when you have to stand pumping the handle in a demented fashion to coax a trickle of water out of it, then sometimes it just keeps filling up and flushing like crazy. I’m sure this house was designed by a practical joker.
For anyone who was waiting for Fireside Chat number 13 (ooooooh), I’ve been away from the computer all day. I was driven up to PBJ Engineering to film a demonstration of a new kind of circuit breaker. It’s my first commercial job and filming took a lot longer than anticipated. Perhaps I should stick to filming Magic tricks.
Tomorrow is my first Jubilee show, but I promise to get to work on the Practical stuff after that. Until then, here’s a slideshow of pics:
It was today that I made my monthly trip over to Shropshire and Gadlas Villa, home of Jeremy and Cheryl le Poidevin, A.K.A. Practical Magic. I rolled in at around 10 to 12, just in time for lunch. Jeremy tells me they had record sales in April and May and it certainly seems that way, judging by how busy they always are whenever I’m there. It seems we can barely start a conversation without the phone ringing and interrupting us as people place their orders. I’m always impressed by how quickly these are dealt with.
I took loads of pictures and we filmed a new fireside chat and some more demos, but I’ll have to upload those tomorrow. It’s nearly 1.30 am and I’m very tired…
…and Tamar just pointed out that I haven’t given her a proper cuddle yet since I got home.
Sheffield United just lost 7-8 to Huddersfield on Penalties. This must be the first and only football match I have ever taken an interest in and that’s because I had the promise of a really nice gig if they won.
Apparently if they won, they would be ‘going up’. Where they would be going up to is a mystery to me, but it is all incredibly important to a large number of people. Quite why, I have no idea.
I was told that should they win, I would be entertaining at a huge celebration for the players and their families – it sounded like an amazing gig, so I followed the game with interest. Apparently after 90 of the most boring minutes ever with no goals, they decided to run around for another 30 minutes and then gave up and had a quick fire round where they competed to see how many times they could kick the ball past the men in the goals. All riveting stuff, followed by crushing disappointment – which for once, I was a part of.
Wow, the weather has been amazingly hot lately! I finish each show looking like Meatloaf in concert back in the 70s. I’m going to have to carry a couple of changes of clothes with me if this carries on. I had a friend who used to say he took extra shirts with him, packed in ice. I’m not sure if this was really true, but it sure sounds like a nice idea on days like this.
The kids meet Jambo Bananas.
My wonderful wife to be Tamar, a.k.a. Barmy Bella, Children’s Entertainer has changed my life in many, many ways – perhaps the most surprising of all though is that I have lately started doing full two hour children’s party packages. The latest of these was today, for a charming little girl called Hollie. I managed to snap a couple of pictures during the show, although most of the boys seemed very camera shy for some reason. The boys were very shy throughout the party actually – it took a great deal of encouragement to get any to come out for my ‘Princess in a Pickle’ bit and I ended up using a little girl called Tia as my contestant for ‘Watch the Water’, which is a role I always give to a boy.
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