Best Vegas Magic Shows #181

They're guys. They do magic. They are the magic guys. I thought it was Nick. I couldn't see your face. I could be Nick. I could just do the episode like this. Technically, I could be Nick, too. That's true. We're all Nicks in spirit. We're going to pull one out for Nick, but I'll drink it, basically. I've been talking with Josh for 15 minutes before the pod starts. I call him Nick. Short-term memory loss. We are after this, Marvita. What's up, everyone? Welcome to episode 181 of The Magic Guys.

Today, I'll be Josh. I could be Nick, but I'll be Josh today. And to my side here, we've got Doug Kahn. You don't know. It's not up and down anymore. It's sideways and left. Now, it's all horizontal today. Imagine the listeners at home.

They have no relevance to any direction. direction no but we're glad they're here i can see already our friends in the live chat caden what's up scotty p what's up y'all love it a bit of southern accent there even though you're from australia drago tear it's been a couple of weeks hasn't it i totally forgot time is weird thank you i love that you know i don't know do you watch kill tony the podcast at all doug uh often off and on i watch it when my stepson says it's an exceptional

episode i I tune in because after this, I go to the discord, but I do know that we are the pre-show for. Yes. That's what I was going to say. We, I'm so glad that we're exactly an hour behind that. One of the biggest podcasts in the world. That's live. So thank you for being here, but they, and they've had some bangers lately. So yes, I can see why. I was having dinner with the wife, looking at what's on Netflix. The Joe Rogan special is on. Apparently it's a stinker.

Like has anyone seen the joe rogan podcast have you seen the the comedy special on netflix. I haven't watched it yet i've seen little clips coming up and yeah a little too cutting edge and not enough funny but true what when you have 300 million dollars from a you know spotify deal what you know what do you do, It can't be, it's, it can't be easy to still, you know, work that material. I mean, I'm a fan, right? I love, I listen to his podcast all the time.

It's a good, but you go upsetting a bunch of people, maybe not the best move. Right. Right. And I can see, you know, we're losing viewers from talking about him. So we'll move on. Oh, David Ong. Thanks for joining us. Three instead of four. Yeah. That, you know, no, no, we, well, we must be up then if we're on four.

So that's what we'll be. been hey obviously you guys know mr nick k is not here because he is being awesome and he's in the place that we all were meant to be in and he sent through a speak pipe which i encourage all of you to do speakpipe.com forward slash the magic guys we can let us know what you're up to it's much it's so much fun to hear you guys in in your voice rather than text your story i genuinely get excited when we have speak pipes it's awesome yeah but

listening to nicks that he sent in really hurt because of how awesome the pre-magic live has been for him so i'm going to play this message for you guys and you'll understand how i feel all right this is what nick k is up to at the moment hello friends nick k here at magic live it is effectively day one of everything kind of beginning the lectures and so forth. And just in this morning alone, we've hung out with Dynamo and had a nice little brunch with him, Dan White.

And I had the pleasure earlier this week of hanging out with Teller at his home, and that was quite an experience. You know, everything leading up to Magic Light today has been awesome. And as great as the convention is, a lot of the fun is to be had just by hanging out at the bar. I met an amazing magician who specializes in indexes called Don Wand.

That gentleman blew my mind we look forward to actually sharing some more ideas tonight but ultimately it's a wonderful time and of course if anyone else is listening to this and is a magic guy or a girl don't be afraid to come over and say hi it'd be great to meet you all hope you enjoy the show oh my it's our own fault norbita we're not there man i don't want to swear this early in the podcast but man i'm glad he's living it up and that's awesome Awesome.

And holy crap, that's hard to hear. Every day I convince myself I'm doing exactly what I'm meant to be doing and the world is all right in this universe. But I must say, you know, hearing that and then, you know, the Facebook feed, I just, I can't look at Facebook for the next couple of days. I just have to stay the course. I literally couldn't go. Work is work. You know, sometimes you have to work to do things. And even I just have to be working right now. That's all. Sorry.

Yeah, it happens. You know, it'll, it's life. Right. But you know, glad you're killing it, Nick. That's right. Talk about doing it right. Day one. It's like, I'm at Teller's house. How y'all doing? I, I can't believe he specifically said Dan White as well, because a little thing with Dan White, you know, so we had Dennis Kim on the podcast, which is, you know, one of his main men in consulting for his shows, but Dan White started following me on Instagram a few months ago.

And I know we both have an appreciation for stack work. And I was like, if I was to meet anyone, I've never met him before. So it would be cool to have that experience. And fucking Nick had it and I'm here. So, but he doesn't get to hang out with you guys on this podcast. Certainly one of, you know, one of the more successful Magi over the last 10 years, Dan White, even over the last five years and really carved himself just a unique, great niche.

Yeah. And I think he has taken the new, he's taken the new name as number one show to see in New York city. Right. How cool is that? If he hasn't, that's what popped in my mind and his marketing spot on and working great. But you know, how many regular magicians do you see on the, you know, the top name late night television shows? You know, he's a regular on, he's on Fallon all the time, isn't he? Yeah.

Yeah. He's a beast. And the spots are killer always. No, no wonder he has them back again and again. And then, yeah. And then as Dennis was telling us, you know, they had their killer virtual shows during the pandemic. Yeah. Just are those still going on? I think that might, is that still happening? I mean, if they aren't, they should be. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, and someone is actually at magic live. Who's is this, is this what's happening?

Andy wish you were here. I thought you guys were going to do the podcast from magic live this year, maybe next year. Andy, are you at magic live right now? Because that is awesome. Please go up to Nick and ask him if he was in a band, because that would be great. And if you film it, you get extra points instead. Hey, Hey, a fellow, a fellow skinhead like us. So that's awesome. That is, where's my air horn? There we go.

Hell yeah. Look, all right. Let me, let me lay it out. So David asks, why couldn't you make it to Magic Live, Josh? All right. I'll just give it to you. Okay. So I, at this part of the year, I'm usually, let's just, I usually have like a surplus of money from doing a bunch of events and it's like, it's, it always fluctuates through the year, right? You get heaps of corporate gigs at the end of the year. You feel amazing.

Then you hit January, you have no events, you feel like an idiot and it, you know, and then it builds back up and it's all great. And it's all this wonderful world that we live in. And particularly last year, it was slower than usual. So I got to this part of the year when I would normally go to Magic Live and I'm like, oh, I have a little bit less gold in the, in the kingdom to go and I could go. However, my lovely fiance doesn't want to miss out on the Las Vegas experience.

So there's no, there was no version of this where I go by myself, which would be the more affordable way like Nick has done very smart. So for us to both go and have our dogs watched and our horse looked after and not be working and stuff, we were looking at around $15,000 US, uh, sorry, Australian, not US, Australian, which is like, I don't know, $10 American. And anyway, so we looked at that and we're like, no, no, exactly.

I was like, so yeah, I could spend that. I could, but then I would come back and be like, you idiot. But then it turned out as soon as I made the choice to not go and then Magic Live got full with their registrations, I got a ton of bookings for like the moment I would have come back from Magic Live. So it actually worked out that I probably could have gone, but I just had to make a smart choice anyway.

But my fiance has assured me that we are going to pre-buy our flights this year so that there's no having to question, you know, is there money in the bank to, to put towards some fun stuff. We're just going to be going. But I said that last year, so don't take my word for it yet until I show you the plane ticket, but that's just how it goes. You know, it gives me another year to to try and get known a little bit more online to maybe make it a more fun experience next year.

Maybe a few more doors will open up between now and then to make it easier to introduce myself to fellow Magi friends and all that good stuff. That's my story. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk. All right.

How about a speak pipe, Doug? What do you think? Bring it. And then we'll go into the title of this, which is Best Vegas Magic Shows. All right. We've got Scotty P here. He's in the chat and he's in our hearts. And today he's on our speak pipes. Let's hear from Scotty P. What's up, magic guys? Scotty P, the Mid-Strength Magician here.

Self-plug first. I've taken the leap and I'll be doing my first real gig performing close-up strolling magic at a charity cocktail gala event in Brisbane city in September. Now I've created four groups of effects, each group having an opener, two fillers and a closer and running about five to 10 minutes each. My concern is how do I keep track of who has seen what in what will be a moving crowd of about 500 people? Tips? Lovely. First of all, well done, Scotty P.

It's pretty exciting. Scotty, let me know that he'd reached out to a charity event, like a nice black tie one. And then he mentioned that he got it. And then he sent me a photo of, and maybe I can bring it up here. I'm sure he won't mind. He sent me a photo of the suit that he bought to go to, to go to this event. Very impressed. Here it is. Boom. Look at this sexy man right here. I'm sure it'll show up. Bam.

Well, that is a magician if I ever seen one. so he's gonna rock it for sure my initial thoughts is i can't wait for you just to experience how planned you think you'll be going into this and then to see what actually happens once you get there because the moment people start you know chirping and reacting to magic and it all sort of, you know i like the planning he's done like the the what what you laid out scotty sounds good you got your openers middles closers you got that figured out you

know like you want to have some battle plans going in. Absolutely. You got a good start already. Yeah. The, I, the idea is solid. You just try to stick to that and for sure. But I would say in a room of 500 people, like it's very unlikely you'll come across the same people again. Yeah. Unless it's a group that has gone and grabbed their friends to pull them in to specifically see you again.

And those people normally say that they go, Hey, can you guys, can you show my friends something awesome as well? And then, you know, okay, I'm going to show them something else. And you could just ask them, what did you see me do? I want to show you something different. And you can work with that. If you got 500 people, you're going to need three or four hours to have everyone see it once at least. Right. When you say that's a, that's a light estimate.

Absolutely. And I, and I know at, at these kinds of events, there's so much happening on stage in terms of silent auctions and speeches and things like that. There's, there's only pockets of time you can perform to people. So I don't, I think you're going to have a ball and you're going to get a lot of like stage time and even as close at the beginning, a lot of like stage time work in your magic is going to be great for you. But yeah, I don't think repeating people is really much of a worry.

It's going to be a good time to test out material and like what works for you. Hey, you know, I do have a good recommendation for people who might be working events, maybe not as much to be worried about repeat viewing, but certainly covers this aspect. It's an opener that Steve Mayhew would use where you would produce carnations. And he did this with flash paper. So he'd come to the table. Did you get your free gift yet?

Oh, no, here it is. and he'd hand a piece of flash paper to someone. He goes, there you go. What, you don't like it? And it's just a piece of paper. He goes, oh, here, it's not done yet. And he lights it up. The flower appears. He splits the flower in two. And now he puts the flowers on the table. So two things happen when he does that. He knows that he's been to this table because there's flowers on the table. Or maybe sometimes the ladies put the flowers in their hair.

And then the event organizer knows you've been working because by the end of the night, they go around and all these carnations have appeared.

Ladies got the flowers in their hair. they're all over the table and you could consider that avenue if not this exact flower production some kind of little magic giveaway that you leave on the table or with the people to let them know you've been there that's pretty clever i'm glad you said that there was a time when i would produce like a fake rose or a real rose but i found i just was able to get a hold of fake ones and i would yeah i'd leave them on the banquet table so

but i did it so that i could remember which ones i'd gone to yeah these days i just make sure i you know kind of stick to a line of tables that do each row yeah but that's that's awesome too but i like what you're saying you do it so the client can see that's the big one with this approach yeah yeah you know you go buy a bouquet of carnations you know put a bunch in your pocket a couple of 20 30 of them yeah it's so easy

too i mean i would just do it i don't know about you but i would do it david stone style where you tuck the rose under your belt, like under your jacket behind you. Like this is just literally just the butt of the flower, just a little, it's this much. Oh, even easier, right? Yeah. It's super small. Yeah. Great. Great. Excellent. I look, good luck, Scotty. Keep us updated and reach out if you have any other questions on it. Cause it's going to be fun, man.

Make sure you've got some business cards, you know, just take advantage of it. Hell yeah. Hell yeah. Right. Speaking of shows, we titled this best Vegas magic shows.

Now you put best does it have to be the best can we do like card tricks where we do the worst vegas shows yeah yeah yeah absolutely look we just titled it it's just clickbait really i mean we're gonna just talk about different types of vegas magic shows and we'd love to hear what ones maybe you've seen or uh underrated or off the beaten path ones or what i'm thinking about let me start this with one off that's off the beaten path what about just going

down to fremont street and watching the street magicians that are working there. I know there's one there now that's exceptional, and I'm hoping some of the Magic Live people get out to Fremont to see the street magic. Although I imagine all the street magicians are probably in Magic Live. Never mind. I take back that. Any week but Magic Live. Right. How far away is Fremont Street from? It's there. It's right there. Where the new Orleans is really.

Yeah, it's, it's all, oh, wait, no, it's Orleans is not on. Is it on Fremont? It's not, it's not. I don't think so, but it's gotta be close. I'm yeah. I'm disappointed. I didn't go there and check that out the last time I was there, but I will make sure. Oh, I made sure to go down there and see it there. I didn't see any magicians working, but I know there's two or three there right now. And you probably have to go nighttime to catch them. Right. Right.

Cause they call Fremont street. The, is it the old Vegas strip that they call it? Yeah, right. Old Vegas. And then they covered it up. They put a roof on it. I added a light show and some music. And so now it's just kind of like this big casino mall with shopping and food and music and local street performers. They have a nice street performing system and it's working. It's working for them there. Yeah. It sounds, it sounds very nice.

In the car. I loved it. Also, you go down there, you go to the Gambler's Warehouse when you're near Fremont. You go check out this wonderful emporium with all the Gambler's merchandise. That's what you do in Vegas. Go to the Gambler's Warehouse. Right. Gutbuster Mike's asking or saying, I've never seen a magic show other than street performers. Embarrassing. That's pretty cool, man. And that's so interesting. It's so different when you see a show in an orchestrated theater space where

they plan everything out and there's lighting. It is pretty different. That's what you're doing is street performing, so it's great that you're amongst all of that. You should definitely go and see a magic show. Dragotea says, I've never been to Vegas. How worth it is it if you don't have any plans to gamble? Well, that might be the smartest person to go to Vegas.

Because you'll much more worth it because then you'll have more money yeah i mean really if you're not gambling like the reason you go is you can watch unlimited shows every day like if you're someone who enjoys watching theater shows you can see like the you know what should be the best in the world like all in the same place i think my my friend joel fenton who's been on this podcast before stuntman joel on instagram after magic live i think he said he spent like three days

He's just watching back to back shows. Like he met him. I think he watched like 20, 15, 20 shows, like proper tea. If I was to try and do that in Australia, I'm getting to like one a month because only like one good one's coming through every so often, let alone a magic show, maybe once a year. That's why you go, I think. And it's pretty awesome. So let's, what shows have you seen in Vegas, Doug?

I the big shows only david copperfield and penn and teller and boy i wish i would have had more time to go see some other shows i i was looking up magic acts to see what i missed there's 13 or 14 major magic shows in that city that i'd love to see but i didn't want to do and boy those are great ones probably realizes that many well and these are just that like like there's more you know i was looking at this list and i know they're not listing the close-up shows like Like one of my,

one of my favorite, I've never seen this guy. One of the guys I'd like to see the most who does shows in Las Vegas is Paul Vigil, but he does a small closeup show. There's a few intimate theaters in Las Vegas where they do closeup theater. And I would pick Paul Vigil over say Matt Franco, who I would love to see the Matt Franco show. I'd love to see how he plays closeup to a big audience. If I want to go see closeup and I do, I'm going to pick Paul Vigil.

And if he's in, if he's doing a show and I'm in Vegas, I'm going, to paul viejo and that's not on the list you know but it's one of the vegas shows i'd go see and now i've named two of them oh good to know yeah i guess um who who does the ahern theater i'm trying to think of the gentleman's name he's kind of an old school fellow i'll come up with it before the end of the show i'll look it up there's the a the ahern theater host close-up magic shows.

You know who i hear if i if i may continue rambling dick losander has or had a intimate theater i think they're becoming more popular the small close-up theaters let me pop this on here for anyone who might be in vegas this is lorenzo clark's close-up magic every tuesday oh vita Bella, and he hosts a variety of local talent in these shows.

Let's see who's got Joshua and Bodine, Belasco. Holy cow. He's there on the 13th. Hey, if you're in Las Vegas, go see Bodine, Belasco. This guy basically does Del Rey's act and Del Rey's act. Yeah. Go see Bodine, Belasco. So there's an example of a Vegas show. You might not know about. Holy crap. Yeah. No idea. I would have had no idea. But you're over on the other side of the world too. So you got stuff going on in Australia. I don't know what's

going on. You talk about the magic festival. I don't know about that. I'm just, I'm just focused on the Brisbane theater of magic. Ha ha ha ha. Would you say that that has affected your livelihood as a professional? Are you turning down gigs to do the theater show or. We, we not yet. We have a, an arrangement that if we get a gig, we just aren't there. And it, and the other two guys look after it or we get in another magician. Yeah. So we forgot that you have the multiple guys working for you.

That has become a real asset. it so yeah it doesn't affect actual other gigs but what it does affect is my ability to like in a good way is to be able to try stage material like every week to get acts better and one of those routines that's really becoming very fun is i perform with henry harrius's cube buster which is a seven by seven cube. And I knew I wanted to find, cause I love Rubik's cubes, but I wanted to find a routine.

I could move away from doing a matching cube effect because I've done it for years and every other magician that does cube work does matching effects. So it's better for me and them if I can learn something that's not that. And I've been doing this routine that works in with this seven by seven. And when I first did it, it worked like, it worked, but it worked. It just got a reaction to the seven by seven, you know, being sold.

But then I figured out how to get like laugh beats throughout the routine and extra kickers to it.

And it's now evolving. And even just last weekend, cause like we do the show twice on a Saturday after those two shows, I now added a new beat in that gets an extra laugh that wasn't ever there before and so that's really awesome as i get to keep evolving these shows much faster having the other magi there too if you miss a beat and they pick up on it right you get that that post show you know you're like oh that moment with the thing you're gonna do that thing

again yeah 100 and i'll tell you a little detail because we film every show and i watch them back to pick up on nuances and and what you know what looks good and and things so we've added a a spirit bell into one of the amazing Nigel's routine. And the idea is that the hotel we're in, there was a murder in this hotel once back in the, you know, 80 years ago or something. So we talk about the room being haunted and for this one routine, he tries to summons this ghost.

And so we have a spirit bell. So he goes, you know, give me a sign if you're there, and this bell would go off. And then we thought one day, what if to keep it funny, you do like a code, you know how you go like, And then, yeah. Right. So the last two would be the bell. So he would knock on the wall and the bell. So now, so we tried that and we're like, okay, but I was watching back the footage and I saw that when he did that, and then there was a pause, the spectator that's on stage.

We didn't see this in real time, but the spectator turned around to, he thought he had to complete that. So for a second, you see him turn to go to the wall to do it, but the bell goes off first. So he stops and I caught that and I was like, ah, why don't you try that again? But we don't hit the bell and see if they do it. And so all of that stuff happens because where they're watching and we review it on camera.

So it's just so much fun to do that. So that's what's good about the theater is it just evolves like a magic. But I digress. I love doing that. And I think they're becoming more popular. I know there's, I can't remember the name of it, but there's already a show like that in Vegas now, a close-up theater parlor experience. But, you know, you just mentioned a few others as well. Oh, yeah. I like that. But it's amazing. So I've also seen Penn and Teller and Copperfield.

You've seen the alien version of Copperfield show or have you seen the one before it as well? Well, the alien one with the dinosaur same. So we've seen the same would go back in a heartbeat. It would probably be, I don't know. Would I go see that again before I saw all the other ones? Hmm, man, I'd love me some Copperfield. I mean, I would have liked, I would definitely like to have seen him flying.

Like when he did his, you know, the show before the aliens. I saw that too. I saw him like, I've seen him eight times in eight different cities. So I started watching Copperfield in the 90s in Cincinnati, Ohio. I've moved around a lot in my life and every city I've lived in, I've managed to see him in Atlanta, Charlotte, New Orleans, Dothan. A couple of times in Cincinnati, I saw him in Beaumont, Texas. Yeah. Oh, damn. All right. You know, back in the day, he was on the road 300 days a year.

Imagine that. Different city every night. My God. Unfathomable travel schedule. Like, I really, you would see what he was doing on the road, and it was unfathomable. That's crazy. Yeah. He's got two, at least one semi full of material. And from what I understand, it seems like this story is, I'm retelling it, but they actually developed a new load-in system for the way they load in the trucks. Was that story told on this podcast?

I don't believe so. So the staff that works for Copperfield orchestrated a system of unloading and reloading the illusions back into the trucks as they're being performed to prepare to pull out for the next city and kind of revolutionize the industry as to how music acts even would prepare for these kind of arena events. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. And he would do it. He did the same thing in China, you know, today I'm in Beijing, tomorrow I'm in blah, blah, you know, and he's just hopping the globe.

What a change of base to be in the same joint for how long has it been now 20 years oh my word yeah how could you go back to that after i don't know doing your own theater holy moly can you imagine working for him like the lords work chris kenner and homer lewag they were on the road for you know all that time i can't imagine yeah and i don't i imagine he is but i don't know for sure are his show's still active at the moment?

He's still doing shows except Copperfield himself, who is just on autopilot. Oh, right. Right. That's funny. David's become an automaton. Yeah. So for anyone who hasn't seen a Copperfield show, it is astounding what a tight ship and well-oiled machine it is. Like his staff are like ninjas dressed in black, moving around the theater, getting ready for the next thing that's going to involve a spectator. And they've cleared out that little space.

They've moved people so the cameras can see what, you know, just him when Copperfield eventually comes up. That show is like he's in your face the whole time he's in the crowd after the show it's not a big theater like the pennantella theater it's like a cabaret dinner theater style thing yeah.

Really incredible like it's such a tight ship it's ridiculous like even down to there's a little guard so you can't see copperfield putting hand sanitizer on him which he does every time he finishes in the the audience and comes back on stage. He grabs sanitizer and there's just like a little lip on this bench so that he can walk past. He's like, you know, everyone's applauding at the thing that just happened and he can do that as he comes back on stage.

And now he keeps going. Like there's so many little details, not to mention like the, the, the screen he has hidden in the corner to remember people's names and stuff. And like, Oh my God.

Anyway, but the magic itself is awesome. but yeah it's it's it's it's insane but then you go to pen and teller and it's like such an opposite they don't use screens to project what's happening on stage because they just want you to see it raw you know it's a massive theater and there's really i don't remember seeing any staff on stage moving things or whatever it's just them yeah that's a little more it's a different style show right you

know a little more would you call it like more vaudeville like it's more like old school.

Theater yeah just more is the word poignant i don't know more there's more substance in the penn and teller show you know the copperfield show is a bigger production value for sure but you come away from the penn and teller show kind of feeling like you've seen art like you've been changed not that copperfield show isn't that way you you feel like you've been through an amazing experience, but couldn't tell her going to make you think about your life,

you know, about your choices about, you know, your value systems. Copperfield maybe doesn't get that deep in his show. So that's a good way to put it. And you feel like they're actually there too, in the moment. And, and the fact that they'll come out after the show and just take photos with everyone for free. Let's speak on that though.

Cause Copperfield used to do that at every theater show he would do a 5 000 seat theater and then the line would be 400 people and he would sign autographs i don't know how long does it take i how long does it take to do hundreds of people hour now there's no 300 days a year for 10 years are you kidding me and he did that that's some serious commitment you sit your butt in the chair and say hello to anyone who wants to say hi to you after that kind of show. Wow.

Okay, well, I see why he doesn't do it now. I think he has the world's record for most autographs because of this. If you look up the Guinness book of world records, he's done more signatures because of those events than any. Yeah. Yeah. Holy moly. Okay. The goat. He is the goat. He's number one. You can't argue it really. Insane. So yeah, they just, you can't really rate the two of them. They're just so different, even though they're magic shows.

I just rated Copperfield number one. I did rate it. Okay. We did yeah yeah he's better number two there's two of them they can have two yeah all right then i've seen matt king's show in vegas of course okay if there was a regret is that he was not in town the week i was there he would have been number one for sure i would have gone to see him before copperfield might not have been a better show because of the production but i bet i bet, it's interesting yeah the production is way more raw it's

him with the suitcase case and you know him which is the main reason why people go to see it you know and then he has like he'll have like a camping tent on stage at one point and he does have some illusions built into what looks like ordinary objects which is very cool like cardboard boxes and such, but yeah it's just now that show you can tell he's in the moment 100 because all of his jokes and lines are based on what's happening with the spectator

and in the audience and different show because, you know, I watched it in the afternoon, like it's a, you know, it's a family affair, like there's families, there's kids there, but it's just a fun, such a fun, funny show to watch and, and crazy magic, you know, like the stuff with the bloody guinea pig and things like that.

The goldfish, like he's doing some crazy stuff that you just wouldn't go to the lengths to do in a normal show, but not to mention he's doing it multiple times a day, every day, it's insane. Master, a master. I wonder if he's accidentally ever swallowed a goldfish by accident, like just like burped or something. I bet he's got a couple of three fish stories. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. But his show, very enjoyable, very fun.

I'd go see it in a heartbeat. because it feels different every time because of the nature of his show i've seen mac live in the comedy club one of my all-time favorite magic experiences if you get a chance to go see mac king anywhere go see him now a show a show that i haven't seen but i've heard rivals like the entertainment value of mac king is mike hammer you know what josh i had just pulled up this website site, as we were talking about Mac and I was like, I didn't go see Mike either,

but apparently his show is just crazy. Good. Look, Chris Angel likes it. It must be good. Funniest show in Vegas. My camera. I, and I reckon he's not far off it because even just seeing his performance on Fool Us was hilarious. Yeah, for sure. This would be one of the first shows I would go see in Las Las Vegas on returning there. I'd go see this. My camera show. No doubt about it. Also, my good friend, Kevin, the pine works the same theater doing a hypnosis unleashed. He does.

I should get Kevin on here and have him talk about his magic show and hypnotist, Kevin, the pine. How about I reach out to Kevin? We'll have him talk about being a Vegas, Vegas show. Oh, that would be insane. That'd be amazing. Yeah. He's been out there. I don't know. He might be going on 15, 20 years working that same room with my camera.

Damn yeah well we've got to have him on it's said he's on freemont street so same area i was talking about before you go watch the street performers then go breeze in and see my my camera later you have a whole magic day here oh okay now someone mentioned let me see if i can backtrack someone mentioned just going to see a Cirque du Soleil show in vegas is worth the travel oh it was here we go Cirque du Soleil shows in vegas are worth the visit.

By itself. It's a non-magic show. Yeah. And I can, I can mention, I've seen Michael Jackson, the one by Cirque du Soleil and that show, if you guys have, if you guys are familiar with Xavier Mortimer, who we had on the podcast, you know, massive social media magician star and Vegas star and just amazing guy and fantastic magician.

He first got his start in Vegas by being one of the main characters in this Michael Jackson one show, because there's a character in there that does some magic amongst everything. So I saw that character when I went to see it and there, yeah, there's some magic that they've built custom stuff. I don't know. It's hard to talk. What about this show going on right now? The mad apple, this, this current show, which is a Cirque du Soleil production features magician.

Oh yeah. Nick defot is he's performing. Now, so if you're in Las Vegas for Magic Live, you want to go see a Cirque show. And let me tell you about Nick Defott. I got to enjoy this young man's comedy at the Winter Carnival of Magic last March. And wow, he's a riot. And I'm sure he's killing it in this room. So this one also is on my list. Mad Apple. If I was in Vegas this week, that would be one of the tickets I'd buy. Go see that show.

100%. I've seen a few magicians raving about it. Adam Trent has been raving about it being in the show. The fantastic UK magician that I'm so annoyed I can't remember his name of is in the show. Great stuff. He was an emcee at Magic Live the year I went. Harrison Greenbaum did it for a while. Hell yeah. More of an adult theme show from my understanding, you know, so it's a little more edgy, which I love.

Right. And just to speak on the Cirque du Soleil that I did get to see, what's so crazy about it is there's, it's, it's so much more of a grand production than any magic show I've ever seen. They had led screens built into the walls of the theater. So at one point you're seeing i feel like it was digital birds or something or or fireworks or.

Stars or something and it would start on the stage and it just went and it would just go all around the room because the walls are led panels and then you've got like people up on the freaking roof doing stunts then you've got people on the ground the whole time there's this opera singer that's just floating on like a ring she's like sitting on this ring like sort of halfway way to the side of the theater and then the the weirdest thing i saw which i've never seen in

my life is i had what i can only call a sandwich trampoline and it's like a trampoline on the ground and then there's a trampoline on the roof and this guy was bouncing between, the two trampolines so weird that sounds like a lot of fun though and what he was doing was he was bouncing on his back on the one on the ground and then he'd bounce up and he would use his feet to jump on the one that's on the roof so he's pushing himself down coming back up and it's so

weird to watch but so amazing and then they had magic in the show and then not to mention they had michael jackson michael jackson i objection no they had michael jackson appear as a hologram and they had like what i would call a ghost screen so it looks like he's standing with the dancers. And that was just such a crazy production to watch, but the mad apple, I'd love to see Adonis is also mentioning piff. Piff the magic dragon. That would also be a great show to go and watch.

And, uh, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, Who else is out there? What about Chris Angel? Would you go see that show? I think I have to, just for the sake of, you know, you got to see it. I would love to see Blaine's show as well. If I was ever there. Yeah, you're right. The same, you know, time of the month that he's doing that show. Obviously that's. Who would you pick between the two? If you could go see Blaine or Angel, who gets the pick?

Well, Blaine's show has a higher probability of seeing some action, like seeing something go wrong or a celebrity turn up and being involved in the thing or whatever. But I feel like Criss Angel, you're going to get more entertainment value out of it, right? I agree. So it's so tough but I feel like, yeah, I might pick Criss Angel just for curiosity. Yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you on that.

I'd love to see David Blaine, but I feel I feel like I'd be not quite as exciting as watching Chris Angel's LED screens. He got me all excited when you're talking about that Cirque experience. I'm not expecting Chris Angel to be good. I'm just expecting the production to be good. Yeah. Yeah. Well, he talked about it on his interview. Was it with Penguin that did it? I think it was Penguin.

They interviewed him and he basically taught. I think they used the theater of magic live during one of the times there was no seminar in there. And he talked about how he would go to the big tech conferences in Vegas, talk to those guys and say, Hey, you can put all your stuff in my theater and I'll promote it. And he got all the new age technology for free as a, you know, contra thing where now it's crazy. So smart. Yeah. This is, this is Mike points out 10, 10 minutes of silence as he holds

his breath. It's like, oh, yeah, David Blaine, Joel floating around the stage or something, you know?

That's a good point yeah yeah i mean yeah is that the interval is that what he does for the interval is he holds his breath while everyone takes a break i don't know i would think you're done after that after you're soaking wet and you've held your breath for 10 minutes you're probably not doing much for the rest of the night i mean you'd also say that if you stabbed your hand with a bloody ice pick but there's so many parts in there you'd think he wouldn't do anything thing afterwards.

Right? Like he puts the ice pick through his bicep in every show. What a crazy person. He jumps off the 20 foot story thing, which is proven to be dangerous. Yeah. Then he's holding his breath for far too long than a human should. All those three things should be closes where you don't do anything after it, but he, he does, I think he's got a residency going on either now or soon. So he might be there now.

Yeah. And then of course you've got, uh, Shin Lim's going to be in a new show, rather at a new casino. Colin Cloud has his own one man show now instead of the double show he did with Shin Lim. You know, I don't, I don't know. There's just too many. There's, you know, which is a great thing. Amazing. We didn't talk about Jen Kramer. She was on this list too. Apparently you're the great show. A female magician been holding down court for, I don't know, a couple of five years, maybe longer.

Wow. Nice to know that's happening in Las Vegas and successfully in extended time. Let's go women. We need, yeah, we need a trip just to go and see all the shows, let alone magic life, and then you've got the wonder ground, right?

Coming back McBride show at the area 15. is that where it's at now love that yeah yeah crazy stuff crazy stuff well hey we caden is in the chat right now he sent through a speak pipe just this morning thank you caden what's up caden let's get on to what our fellow listener is up to hey guys it's caden from minnesota so i have a gig story and a question for you guys based off of that story so i've been doing some close-up performing mainly

at some of the college groups i'm a part of and one of the tricks i've been doing is lucky Ladybug from Duskala, which I actually heard about from when Nick reviewed that trick on the pod. So thanks for putting me onto it. Anyway, I do the whole part after Ladybug disappears and tell them it takes a very special or a very lucky person to make it come back. And I was doing it for this girl.

And when the girl waved her hand over the card, she saw the little bug on her hand and she freaked out like she was smacking her hand and ended up throwing it on the ground. It's because unbeknownst to me, she was actually afraid of bugs and thought the ladybug was real. It was definitely an unexpected moment because, as you know, the trick is supposed to leave a good feeling for the person. I talked to her and showed her it was fake. She actually has it in her car now as a travel buddy.

But that actually leads to my question. Have you guys ever had a trick that the spectator has had a different reaction than you were expecting or maybe had in mind for the trick? Thanks, guys. Love the pod. Keep it up. Yo, thank you, Caden. Much love right back. Guys, this is so, please send in more of these because they're just such a joy to hear what you guys are up to and working in the real world for muggles. Yeah, there's a place in my world for Lucky Ladybug where I use it.

Is this something you indulge in? You know, I've been meaning to get that out and test drive it, haven't yet. Like I literally haven't done a show since I've had that trick in my universe. Gotcha. I have performed the precursor to that, the web by Jim Pace, worked in a magic shop and it was very popular effect. The spider appears on the back of someone's hand and you want to talk about people freaking out. It's a problem. It's too scary. So I do have experience and do not do that trick.

But the web is not in my repertoire. It's too scary for me. I reckon Lucky Ladybug would be perfect for your grandchildren.

It's the perfect kids, like wonderful. For sure. That's going to be awesome. And my computer's doing something weird. But for Caden's point, Nick K busts out this trick a lot. And when he visited us in Brisbane, performed at the Theatre of Magic, after the show, he performed it for a kid that I filmed, and it's on his Instagram. And he has a line, a very simple disarming line to check that they're not afraid of ladybugs.

So I'm going to play, I've got to, you can watch it on his Instagram, but I'll just play it so you hear the audio and you can hear what he says when he starts the trick. So this is... I got these three little logs from my garden. Yeah. Log number one has a ladybug. You cool with ladybugs? Yeah. You bet. Log number two. Did that come through on the audio? You cool with ladybugs? You bet. Yeah. You cool with ladybugs? Yeah. And that's it. And so I've adapted that straight away.

I'm like. It's not even a question. He's just doing positive affirmation on the moment. So he's reinforcing that they're cool ladybugs. He's not asking them. He's telling. Yeah. And that's even actually better. Yeah. I mean. I mean, so I, I just, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you like them? Oh, that's what I say. Do you like ladybugs? Yeah. Yeah. Okay, great. Who says no to that? Yeah, exactly. I hate ladybugs.

And they, and they, yeah, but, but it will help you in case someone is like, oh, I get so freaked out by them or whatever. Then, you know, okay, I might just, you know, take that back and it'd be fine. But yeah, Caden, awesome, man. He says, I'm going to try that line out. So go for it. It's such a disarming line and it's wonderful. I was just listening to Derren Brown's interview with the Penguin Magic podcast last week. It's very much worth watching.

And he talks about in their show, in his later show, Showman, there's a routine that they had to alter because of how people reacted in a way he didn't think would happen. And some people listening to me talk about this might already start remembering what I'm saying, but basically there's a routine in his show where he takes away people's memory, like a temporary memory. Like extraction, I guess. And he does it on stage first with a spectator, right?

The spectator has a card under their hand and there's a box on the stage. And the first, and Derren Brown talks about all this, so I'm not revealing anything in the show, but he says, so the spectator has a card under their hand. Okay. Then the lights go out and the lights come back on and the card has gone from their hand and now it's in the box. And everyone thinks, well, when the light was off, you must have taken it.

But Darren says, no, you don't remember this, but when the lights went out, you put the card in the box yourself and then you forgot that you did it. So then he goes, let's do it again, but without the lights going off. And no kidding. You see, once he starts, the spectator is hypnotized. They put the card in the box themselves, put their hand back down and they can't believe that it's gone. And they're able to play back the footage for that person. Wow.

Watching That sounds so good. It's crazy. Right. And they're like, oh my God. But then they do it a third time. Wow. And on the third time, there's a weird glitch in the room. Like there's a little, the lights don't go off, but there's a little like, and a chair that is in one spot is now over here. And the card is in the box again. But this time he explains that he, he made the whole audience forget that that just happened.

And at the end of the show, they play the footage of them moving the chair from one stage to the other, that spectator that you're seeing on stage, put the thing in the box again.

And Darren Brown moved from like one side of the stage to the other to, to confirm that you actually just experienced what you experienced. It's so insane. He's so next level. It's insane, right? Like, imagine that as a premise for a magic show. It's ridiculous. But he's freaking doing it. So he started getting real complaints about people not being cool with him, taking away their memory without their like agreeing to it so much.

So like enough people that they had to put a disclaimer in the show. Like, if you are not cool with me doing this, now's the time to leave the theater, like to like have a break for five minutes and the ushers will let you know when to come back in.

But imagine doing an effect so strong that they're not okay with you having that power to do that on them. Like I'm assuming there's no actual hypnotism being used, right? It's all magic methods and hokum. There's no actual harm to be had by the spectators, right? Yeah. I think no harm to be had is for sure. True. Unlike if you're in a Copperfield show and he asked you to vanish, you might end up in court. Oh man.

Hey, you know what? Or, or if you go to dinner with him, you might end up in court. Yeah. Yeah, guys, I'll give you a little inside scoop here too. I don't know if I should even, I don't like touching on this stuff, but the wife of that guy that ended up in the lawsuit reached out to this show to be on it. And I had to like through different social media platform and I had to shut that shit down so quick because I want to be welcomed back in Vegas one day.

You know, I can't be involved in that, but, but that person actually reached out to talk to her. You can take the week off. Give me her number. Set up a pod. I'll chat with this lady. Yeah. She's looking to milk this for every last. Let me squeeze out every bit of celebrity I can from this debacle. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. But yeah, that was a bit, that was a bit dicey. I yeah. Anyway, cause I don't think you're even allowed to talk about an ongoing lawsuit.

Like if you're involved in it and, but, but she was like, she was so keen, but hey, I wish you all the best, but you know, it's we try to. Interview magicians, unfortunately. Really? Call me. I'll talk to you. Yeah. Boy, you just wait for the can you've just opened. But yeah, so yeah, I mean, that's the only story I could think of where an effect has caused a reaction you didn't expect.

My buddy, Christopher Wayne, he was telling me that when he hung out with Darren Brown, post-show, I think this might've been when they were in the UK doing the Edinburgh Fringe shows, he was in Darren Brown's dressing room with him and the staff came in to ask Darren a question and Darren's like oh not no no not not today and Chris is like huh and what happens is after every show there's a always a certain amount of people that are knocking on the backstage

to get in contact with Darren because they feel like they're still hypnotized after his show and they're worried that they'll react to things and like they're still under the influence and he gets like five people or so knocking to like get unhypnotized like every time and so much so that he knows when he sees uh someone come in he's like no not now not again like imagine having that effect like imagine you do the coin matrix and people are like i'm

not okay with you stopping time to move that coin from one hand to the other i want that time back or you know like something. Crazy it's a hot night tonight or good morning exactly yeah i'm trying to think if i've done anything that's ever like i guess when you do any mind reading effect like sometimes you get the people that really want to believe in psychics and stuff like that and they will We'll maybe go a little overboard. One year at Thanksgiving, I produced the turkey carcass itself.

That was a questionable moment that I'm not sure everyone appreciated the same way that I envisioned it. Very Mulaney-esque. Jeez. Well, okay. And there's one other story and I'll leave it. There's a hypnotist that does cruise ships and I was talking to him and he told me how there's a big rule on cruise ships. The only real rule is if you're an entertainer on a cruise ship, you can't sleep with the patrons on the cruise ship. Is that an official rule?

It's like a very big no-no. Like you, if you, if you get caught, like if you get caught because they don't want the look of entertainers or staff floating with patrons on the ship, right? Right.

What they say, what they say is you're welcome to exchange numbers and do whatever you want off the ship, like after your contract. Yeah. They really, it's really, really frowned upon, but this guy's been doing cruises for like months. 20, 30 years. And he said back in the day, like everyone would do it. It's just that you would really, you know, you just wouldn't make it and you do it, you know, discreetly. Yeah.

But he was telling me once he broke the rule, right. And he got with this woman and he's a hypnotist on the show. And then it turned out that this woman was an absolute nutter. And she was one night saying, come back to my room. He's like, no. And she went manic. She was like, come back to my room now, blah, blah, blah. And he didn't. And then she decided to tell everyone that he hypnotized her to sleep with him. To the point where he was, they don't have like a jail in cruise ships,

but he was like cordoned off. In the brig? To this area. Oh my. So that, so that when they docked, police came to actually interview him because that, that would be classified as the big R, right? If you really have been made to do something you didn't know. Anyway, when the cops came and she said, I was hypnotized to sleep with him. They just laughed their asses off. They're like, you expect us to believe that is true. And everything was dismissed.

But what a scary thing. And they, yeah, they just didn't believe. Talk about your gig stories. Word of it. That is a true gig story. Yeah. Scott Link says the love boat. Yeah. Literally. Literally. Yeah. Crazy stuff. Look, I think, oh, we're not out of time yet. We're getting there. But man, yeah, I haven't had any crazy stuff like that, fortunately. But man, that's some crazy stuff. That is crazy. I can't wait to go to Magic Live next year. You know what I mean?

But hopefully we get some more updates from Nick as we go. I know if you keep an eye on his Instagram, he's putting up some pretty cool stuff. Like the photo with Teller that Doug showed us. And it's crazy. But you know what we haven't talked about is, Doug, what is the latest with your Learn Sleight of Hand site? As a node. Yeah, I've been building the new university to learn sleight of hand. Last couple of weeks, I've just been being a business person. Yeah.

Dealing with banking issues. I'm actually buying new membership software tomorrow to fill in some gaps and things that have been causing me problems. So we're staying in beta month for another month in August and building the site. But let me tell you, I'm off to a great start.

We've got, I think I've got 100 plus members on the site already. Our first two live events have gone off to great success. We're getting great feedback and interest from the students that are there. The Discord is more popular than ever. And I really feel like we have a community of like-minded individuals that are coming together to enjoy this art. So I couldn't be happier with the way things are. It's a lot of work.

But literally as of today, I don't have to wake up and think about banking problems, which is something I've had to do every day for weeks. It's unbelievable how companies that manage business money don't have phone numbers where you can talk to humans to handle your banking issues. So yeah, how's it been challenging, but wonderful. That's amazing. Nick has been around for just about everything, but a joy it is to have him in my multiverse.

Yeah, yeah, we got, yeah, Nick and Scott are both raving in the class. Fast study, fast studies around. Sheesh. That's awesome, man. That's freaking great. So yeah, as I continue to fill it out and blow it up more, I will be talking more and more about it. I'm still in the building phase. You know, I don't think this site's going to be really ready to, to like trumpet the horns probably till October, November.

I'll have all the courses flushed out all the bugs squashed and just looking forward to making good magic every day and something for the listeners we have planned already to have nick and i teach some of our magic on doug's platform at some point i was actually going to reach out to you guys for august but because of you know nick's running around half the country and i really want to do something on my own for this next event i had a guest on the first one just

to keep it like super manageable for this month. Just it's going to be solo flying, but yeah, magic guys teach and that's happening. I've already locked you guys down for that. You said yes already. Oh yeah. Yeah. So stay, it's, you know, it's bound to be fire in there even more so than it is crazy. Right. Well, look, we're at the end. Let me think really quick.

Cause we just had a bunch of shows and I'm sure I have some kind of word of the day and I'm sure I'll, I'll think, but guys, thanks for watching. We're going to go with the final word and look, let's just keep watching Nick and live vicariously through him until next week. Let's go. So we come to the end of another week and slowly, but surely we hear you guys giving us stories of the first gigs you're starting to do the start, the first like real performance is just starting to do.

And, you know, it just makes me think of that's where it's at. That's why we do what we do, because it's fun to perform on the internet, but it's even more funner, which is not a word, to perform to real people and get the real reactions to things that it deserves. And it makes you feel good and it gets you more obsessed with doing magic. So please reach out anytime you have questions of performing in the wild, as we say, in the trenches.

And success is on the other side of fear. So it feels pretty scary to go and perform, but you do it and you'll feel amazing. Thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear now but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.