FISM 2025 has an Online Magic Category! #204

They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 204 of the Magic Guys, the 200th century of the podcast. To my left, we've got Nick Kay. Welcome to Magic Guys Live, Live, Live, Live.

I love it doug con as you know we talked about in the last episode that we were on not last week the week before doug has moved to las vegas which is insane he's living the dream and he's still setting up so he might be tuning in at some point to the episode but we just wish him well and he's just we've been seeing some sneak peeks nick and i of of his setup and what he has to work with now with this new magic store he's collaborating with

and bloody hell he's got all the toys so it's it's pretty exciting and nick great work by the way i heard such good things about the the magic discord jam that you guys did last week when we couldn't do an episode how was that jamming with all the.

It was unexpectedly awesome like the amount of fun we it ended up going for over three hours of just wildness for me i mean i i love i love catching up with all all our friends who come and listen to us live hanging out with bob bob possible for you don't know he's just one of the greatest minds to bounce off i love chatting to him i love being able to call him a friend along with everyone else that was there we actually worked on like full routines with some people

the funniest thing was that like every time it was about time to wrap up somebody else would would show up and like oh i just saw you guys were here i thought i'd pop in and then And a whole conversation would start. And then a whole conversation would start. We did a lot of stuff with tarot cards just because we were jamming. And that's what happened. It was really awesome. And they said, we got to do this frequently or often. And I'm like, I got to figure out a way to make that happen.

So I don't know if we team up with what we do on Doug's channel where after the pod, we have a session there or something. But it was totally freestyled and totally fun. Thank you all who came to participate. It was really fun. Wow. Who would have thought that magicians love jamming and learning magic? Yeah, holy moly. Well, yeah, I mean, it's been a great week. As you know, we didn't do the episode last week because I was...

Nervously preparing for Teller to join us at the Theatre of Magic. And so I was like, I should probably use that day just to, you know, polish off the things that I'm going to try and tweak and tailor for the show. But we'll get to that later. We saw a video come out. I think the whole Magic World saw the video come out. And it was by Chris Ramsey. And the title I thought was going to be clickbait, you know. Did you think that too, Nick?

You're like, oh, it is. I have thought it. But he hasn't posted anything magic orientated in so long. Like I don't dig his whole puzzle game thing going on that he has. You know, I've sort of shied away from his content as a result.

And then when I saw that it was something finally to do with magic, I was intrigued. And I watched the video and what unfolded could very much change a lot of things for a lot of creative magicians. Fizzin is what we're talking about, my friends. Now, we all know FISM as the Magic Olympics, and it was interesting to hear his stats about how the attendance each time now it's being ran every three years is slowly declining.

And it's fascinating because... Just for reference to fully educate you guys on this, for those of you who haven't watched the video, we'll set up a couple of key points into it.

What basically he identified as things are going on is the attendance at fism typically known as the i guess the olympics of magic the attendance is going down and atop of that the age of the attendees is going up kind of showing that there's a generational gap and the younger folks don't have the ability or just aren't coming to things like this and i think if we were to discuss this man we sort of got to be real about it and just take a moment and say how easy is

it for it for young people to afford to do anything is the first thing if you and i were going to go to turin in italy to be part of fism what would we have to budget out of australian dollars for our audience it would be flights and a com plus plus to actually pay for fism you'd want to have 10 grand on you. To ensure you could have a good time and not stress about money or getting a meal or buying Juan Tamariza beer or something of that nature.

Like, what opportunities do young people have to do that? Not much. No. And also there's something to be said about the young generation of magic, even thinking of putting together a magic act to perform on stage that, you know, these days, this is something I asked Teller as well. I was like, do you think this next generation can have a top magician that we all look up to like Penn and Teller, like David Copperfield, like Dynamo, because everyone's attention is so spread out.

And it seems to be, if you're good at social media, then you're good at getting the attention, but that doesn't necessarily marry up with you being a super skilled magician. It just means you've found a way to entertain people, but maybe it's not with like, you know, the best magic in the world.

So if people are watching this new variation of magic online, and they're probably learning a lot of close-up magic, I'm noticing, where is the motivation for them to see someone like a FISM act and go, oh, I want to do that too? That's a really good point. And I think that the motivation for the online component now that we're bringing up, for those of you that don't know, FISM has multiple categories in which you can perform in.

There is the close up, there's micro magic, there's all facets of them, probably too many to mention right here and not enough that I would know the top of my head in truth. But one of the most interesting ones now is that there is going to be an online category.

With some potential to expand upon that even more. Now, here's what we do know about the online category. And I'm reading this directly from the FISM Italy 2025.com website. So let's just get our heads around this so we can understand what's going on. So firstly, it's the participation requirements. So participants must submit a video, preferably in a vertical format, The duration of one minute, 30 seconds. The video can be filmed either in public or private setting.

No digital post-production editing. Every other trick is allowed. So I think that's pretty fair. So what I'm taking away from that line is that you could do like a forced perspective. You can do like a blackout type thing.

You could do camera tricks in a sense, but I don't imagine you can do digital blue, black background green screen none of that type of stuff masking no masking effects the way in chris's video and you should go and watch that video too he he's yeah he says no camera tricks and no like cgi editing basically basically it has to be something you could sit an iphone in front of you and just do and post like you can make it more cinematic than that but that's essentially it has to be a raw kind of.

It says here that teasers or promotional videos are not accepted. Participants might be asked to submit a separate explanation video detailing the method used. This is required to verify that no video special effects have been used. This video is strictly for the judges and will not be available to the public. To submit a video, you fill an application and you pay 20 euros as the fee. If the video includes music, the participant must hold all necessary rights on social media and worldwide.

In the case of a copyright dispute, the participant will be disqualified. So I guess if you're going to use music, make sure like you probably use something like Epidemic Sound. Is that what it's called? Yeah, yeah. Any copyright free licensing place. Yeah. Epidemic Sound is a great example. Make sure you purchase that, the subscription and have a license like we do for our stuff.

So yeah yeah or have yeah maybe just get like an instrument track playing like you could record someone playing the violin for example an acapella and then you craft your routine around that or just don't have music that might be a safe bet as well but yeah anything like epidemic sounds or art list or any you know copyright free yeah so it's exciting because now everyone this might be the first time that like anyone can enter their routine at fizzing like fizzing

is usually a pretty you know secretive club in a sense like i wouldn't like if i came up with a routine, i personally wouldn't know where the hell to put it or show it for it to be considered you know because but in this sense like everyone can enter for a fee yeah well it's probably just a minor fee to get experts to review it.

So for example, it says here that with the pre-selection details that submitted videos will be periodically published on the official platform. So I guess that we'll see.

These fism acts prior to the actual which i find very interesting non-compliant videos may be blocked which is due to the discretion of the judging panel the video that receives the most likes on social media will earn a wild card and automatically qualify as a finalist that's interesting because i guess that yeah and i guess there's something fair about that because you know it's the i don't know like how do you feel about that like it just means if you're like

if you're super popular you have like 3 million followers as a magician that you just go please like this so i can get a wild card hopefully it's good but i guess the judges this is why we have judges i suppose as well hey yeah i can see two things happening with that one is that will help drum up more attention to fism because if it's someone that just happens to have 10 million followers so therefore they get the most likes like what they're doing is showing fism to

10 million people like that's the benefit of that happening and then like you said that that just means they get through to the judges and then the judges are still going to just pick the best one anyway um so so who do you think off the top of your head would be a contender for what is essentially online magician of the year is what the award would be wow there's a few like what are some names that come to mind and in the chat as well like people that come to mind is jackie.

You like i saw him put out a video yeah about about this now i think he might be a judge no if. He's a judge that makes sense as well they did put up in the increases video. I'll see if i can just find the the visual of it but there was a line of judges i know dynamo's in there i know tom elderfield is in there and And obviously, Chris Ramsey as well. I can't remember. If Jackie's in there, then that makes perfect sense.

But the first person that comes to mind is somebody like Xavier Mortimer, because he does pretty gnarly effects in that 90-second gap. I also personally really enjoy like Chris Holcomb stuff. Oh, sorry to cut you off there, Nick. Okay, I found the list and you are right. Jackie Yu is a judge. So here are the judges. Chris Ramsey, Xavier Mortimer, you called him. Oh, there you go. E. Katerina, controversial. Tom Elderfield, Patrick Kuhn, Jackie Yu, and Dynamo.

And by the way the reason why i say ekaterina is controversial is not because she's a female judge or any of that nonsense people might think it's because for a lot of people that that know ekaterina has become very very popular on social media but a lot of the content she's been posting has been revealing magic tricks like she essentially has an e-learn social media and she puts up these one-minute clips of here's a thing you can learn and a lot of it was revealing magic

which is interesting that that should be a part of fism anyway anyway i mean that the same could be said with chris ramsey so who knows it's all at the end of the day it's still good for magic this whole setup okay well with regards to the videos that the top 20 videos including the wildcard winner will be selected by mid-April for the FISM WCM 2025 Online Magic, okay, which is a demonstration category, which is what they do when a category is new.

It's called a demonstration category, okay? As far as the timeline goes. The video submissions are open right now as of February 1st. It is happening. On April 1st is when the deadline is for your video submissions, And then by mid-April, there'll be a selection of 20 finalists. And the good thing is, this could be a video you have already made in the past.

Like, as long as you're not promoting yourself or you've got your website in the video or whatever, I believe from what I saw, like, it doesn't have to be like you saying, this is my FISM 2025, blah, blah, blah. Like, if you've made an awesome piece of artwork in video form that fits the requirements, it could be submitted. And the reason I say that is because, holy crap, there's only two months until they start considering these videos that that people are entering.

So in the chat, we've got. OK, so the obvious, a few people are mentioning our boy, Jason. If Jason Ma doesn't submit a video, then what the hell is going on? You know, we also we also have our boy from the UK. Whose name is our boy, the one that we interviewed just recently? Nope I'm just I'm drawing a blank right now Well Rick Holcomb Almost one Britain's Got Talent I think he's got An amazing skill set. Sam Osborne. Sam Osborne as well. He should definitely submit one.

Oh my God, I'm having the worst brain blank of my life. But the guys listening to this know who I'm talking about. So I'm sure they will. Thank you, Jack Rhodes. Jack Rhodes. Oh my word. If anyone can make amazing magic on video, it's Jack Rhodes. Scotty P says, Jess Eisenberg, his snap change. Well, he definitely did popularize a snap change in Now You See Me.

But you know Doug Conn if Doug Conn doesn't put up a video I don't know what's going on and Nick maybe like is this the perfect place to showcase your Lego routine like is this a good reason to like finish that routine and like showcase that in video or possibly but I am actually absent for the entire month of February and by the time I get back into the country and into magic I'm we'll see. We'll see. I don't see. Yeah. So you're not, you're not worried about entering this category.

I just don't consider myself a competition magician. I don't think that's how I made. I think I'm a different type of magician. I think the competition magicians are very unique and special and, I don't consider myself that. I consider myself more of the entertaining realm versus a competition realm. The competition realm is something that's very hyper-focused. It's kind of like building a Formula One car. It doesn't matter that there's

no glove box or heated seats or cruise control. It's built for one thing, winning competitions. And I think that routines need to be structured the same way. I just don't create that way. Sure. Or you could listen to Scotty P's recommendation and expand your KFC nugget routine to a full KC Family Feast. That's an interesting production. That would really go well with the Bogans of Australia. Like the never-ending KFC bucket.

So the other interesting thing that they put out is that I think Nick was mentioning, they're going to also test these other categories that won't officially get an award this time. But these other online things they're considering is awards like Best Online Magic Magazine, Best Magic Newsletter, Best Magician Communication Platform, Online Magician of the Year, which is the one they are doing, Breakout Online Magician of the Year, and Best Magic Podcaster slash Vlogger.

Which is very funny because nick and i were just talking beforehand imagine if like we've spent our whole lives learning magic and performing and doing our craft and then it's this podcast that wins us a fism award that would just be so poetic like you know we're we're all just misfits and and running around just you know we just hope this helps some people but like there are other magic podcasts that have been around longer,

but, you know, that would just be such a funny thing if we happen to get any notoriety from the podcast thing. That's so funny. Yeah. And we're not the self-proclaimed best one. We just, we just, what you guys tell us that, that you guys enjoy it. And that's why we do it. That's why we do it. But yeah, you know, the weirdest thing is that like the, the voting process now I'm trying to gauge how this all kind of works.

Right. Because I believe that they like, when, when do they show the, the, the videos? Like, are they showing them beforehand? Cause I think they actually show it during fism is like when you can see the videos.

Right um yeah like i'm trying to gauge whether it's done before because that means that it would be done in july if that's the case and between july 14 and 19 is when that would go down and then it says here with regards to voting that during fism the 20 selected videos will be shown at key moments throughout the event and the attendees will have the opportunity to vote for their favorite video through an official app right the audience vote will be considered alongside judges evaluations which

follow the official fism grading scale i did look up what the online point scoring system is problem is on the website it's a dead link like when you try to click on the button to see what the judging criteria is the link doesn't go anywhere so okay. Maybe with today being February 4th, that they're still sort of nutting it out. Just keep your eyes glued to the screen, if you will, and check out the link every now and again. Maybe it will rectify itself so that you can better do that.

And then it basically goes on to explain the award ceremonies and awards, which is kind of redundant at this point. But it's exciting, right? It's a movement in magic that hasn't happened before in FISM.

So it'll be exciting. it'll be a great way to capture the the you know next generation's attention and and keep that age of attendance at a you know a nice level not slowly getting older and older because no one new is coming so it's all good stuff and we'll yeah we'll stay tuned we'll keep you updated on the latest on that now oh did you have a last thought i was just wondering do you think that when as technology

evolves like do you think there was a point where magicians were like we shouldn't be doing this in the movies like we shouldn't be doing this on film do you reckon there was ever any pushback and do you think there's some people like oh magic shouldn't be done online it should be done in person like you know there are some people those let's say purists respectfully you know to that to that extent where it's like magic should only be done in person it should

be done live like yeah uh i mean yeah that's that's the age-old question isn't it like i wonder how much pushback happened throughout the evolving technological advances we've made. I wonder how many more we should be doing this on video and we shouldn't be doing this on, Look, if there was a, if I had Thor's glove and I could just snap my fingers and just erase all Thanos. Yeah. What did I say? Thor. He has a hammer. Holy shit. Oh, that's funny.

Oh yeah. I really am a magic nerd. I don't even know my Marvel proper references. So if I had Thanos's glove and I could just snap my finger and erase all magic online, would I do it? The answer is probably yes.

Because it is way it's just it's so beautiful in real life it can be entertaining online but it's just it hits so hard in real life so yeah i probably would but now that we're in this world like you know i don't hate it i don't hate it it does it certainly has helped introduce me to people and people love and watch and tune into my work that haven't seen me perform live yet that may end up seeing me perform live because they see my video so like there's good and bad

things but you know we're in this world now well there's two interesting comments here that just came through one from liam gordis which says that i feel that happened in every industry when it comes to technology especially creative industries and i think that's a very good point in fact if you look at something like a horror movie i think that is where movie magic is at its best because they're you know using fake legs and fake blood and fake things and you know the the

the whole movie magic realm is is most prominent in that genre but then on the other side of that scotty p makes an interesting comment saying that i've stopped doing magic on video because performing live is more rewarding for myself and that i can totally appreciate you know like if you were in a band and all you ever did was record studio albums like i was versus. Playing live.

Playing live is like the greatest and like when you've got people there like cheering you on and clapping along to your songs just the same as clapping along to your routines and so forth and going this is the greatest thing ever i watch this stuff on tv and this is so much better those types of things are interesting so it is it's by it is what we're getting at it's bias some people prefer it for whatever else some people just want to create it and that's cool too right yeah

i will say like magicians working with an online platform are getting very creative now where it really is a place where you can perform a different genre of magic that can be enjoyed that can't be enjoyed live like i think that's when magic online is good is when you can actually give someone an experience that they couldn't see live so that they're still separate like seeing magic live is amazing and it's different to this thing i think like brian saint did a great job at that

for example like he showed us in his interview on our show he even showed us a routine that that only looks good on.

Zoom and it was like when he's explaining like ah i've got this rubik's cube and you know if i do this put my hand away from the camera and come back you probably think there's someone to the side quickly giving me a solved cube and he's like but if i did it right in the open and just collapsed my hands and now the cube is gone well that's magic and and he explained that whole thing like that only works because of this framing and and this angle and you know so there's there's an adam axford

you know another another great guy he created some wonderful routines for zoom like just that you couldn't do live and so i think that's where it becomes kind of fun when you can play with it. But it'll never take away from the actual real experience you get when it's like right in front of you in person, but speaking of in person...

Well, I was going to say before you step onto this thing, man, like this is kind of an important thing to be talking about because it's the, it's the equivalent of sort of watching a movie and then seeing the, the, like a film adaptation. So like of a play. So right at the moment, like as, as it stands here on February 4th, 2025. Wicked is now a movie that was, you know, an adaptation of an amazing play, you know, and quite the other way around.

There is now a stage adaptation of the Back to the Future movie, and it's now going to plays. So I just think that there isn't particularly one better than the other, but it's just different mediums. And I think that's kind of important to understand. You know, this shouldn't be a definitive.

This should be like, oh, I've seen this on YouTube, but I much prefer sitting at the theater of magic in Brisbane, right up as a Josh Nabito, where I can smell him and, you know, see him do some awesome stack deck work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. I mean, some people in the comments on YouTube have specifically said, that's it. I'm going to make it a trip to visit Australia and come and see your show live. So that wouldn't have happened had I not put out those clips.

But... Yeah. And some people don't get it. I once had a friend go... So you have the musical album on your phone. I'm like, yes. He goes, then why go see the play? And I was just like, bro, have you been to a musical? He's like, no. And I'm like, then why are you opening your mouth? You idiot. It's like saying, you listen to the band on the CD? Yes. Then why go see them live? You've already heard them. It's just a different experience.

I dropped 400 bucks on tickets to go see The Offspring in May.

Like The Offspring. nothing any entirely amazing but you know to me they are and yeah and that's so live it's a spectacle it's awesome so what i yeah and you and you're seeing the you're seeing the artist like do the thing that you love but now you're in that atmosphere and you're seeing it live and it's real and it's and it's raw let me make this example fool us right and all the pen and teller stuff that we've seen okay great entertaining stuff really enjoyable i enjoyed that on youtube

or whatever format i watched it on then going and seeing it live last week bro the penn and teller.

Moving along let's talk about the penn and teller show yes all right dude what a show the the quick premise penn and teller are touring australia they were in melbourne first then Brisbane. So Nick experienced them and hung out with Teller. And then I had them in our city. We hosted them, saw their show, and now we can compare notes now that I've finally seen the show as well. Yeah. Where do we start? I mean, you brought it up. This is not their like Vegas show.

This is not like the classics of Penn and Teller because it's their 50th anniversary. Surprisingly, after performing for 50 years this is all like new material yeah it is all brand new material but for the opening routine which is that traditional uh cutting of the giant silk which i don't recall the exact name of that routine but it's a beautiful piece and it really celebrates teller as well which i think is it's it's a perfect tone setter for the routines that they perform there they're in,

Dude, I saw the show. I saw the show in Vegas and right alongside Morton Christensen and Javier Benitez and a whole bunch of other guys. And this show slayed that one. Like, it is phenomenal how good it is. And the fact that it's all brand new, crazy. Crazy.

Crazy but look as far as like you know look and here's the thing about the position that we're in and the friendships we've set up with awesome people like teller so while they were in melbourne we put on a little night for them where we i went and picked up teller from his accommodation we went to tim ellis's laneway theater which we've spoken about in his episode and if you look up tim ellis you'll hear all about that beautiful theater of his he came pen also joined us a little bit

later in the evening, we had a lovely meal, prior, everyone got to hang out and have a chat and we all got Christmas cards from him as a gift and then 13 magicians performed five minute sets, which was really great because I got to perform a piece of magic that I actually jammed with him at a bar, some years before on his previous tour and it was just this one thing that I didn't like about this particular production I was doing and I said what are your thoughts?

He goes, it's fine I go, it's not and here is why and then he was like, I can see it But I'm going to think about it. Anyway, as time went on, I just got on. I was the first performer that evening to set the tone. And I just said, this is a routine that you and I worked on, Taylor, at that bar. And he was like, I remember that. And I'm like, great. Well, here's how far it's come. And he said a lot of nice things about the routine on the drive home because

I dropped him back off. And he said it was astonishing. And then kindly said, you sleeve better than anyone because your technique is just like, I know you're doing it, but I can't see it. And I was like, Thank you. So in between that, super lovely. Well, he did his shows. He made time for the magic scene. He would hang out after his shows, come have dinner with us almost every night.

It's so lovely. I actually sent him a lovely thank you note email to say, every time you come and visit, it's wonderful because you inspire everyone so much. And it binds us all together. Like all the magicians get together in one place to see and celebrate you. You really help solidify what we are as a community. And I just extended a big thank you to him, to which he said some niceties back and so forth.

And I think that that is kind of nice in itself. And it's also a reminder that it shouldn't take a superstar, a master Jedi of our art form to bring us all together. We should be extending the hand of friendship to everyone else around us. So yeah, almost immediately the week after, I had a big dinner at my place, invited a bunch of people over.

Partly because i was not healthy enough to perform that weekend due to a bad back but that's a different story altogether but erroneous of that like any chance to bring us together should be a good one i think so that was great but then saw the show i don't know how much we could talk about the show without spoiling it for anyone who's yet to see it for example there's still shows going on on your side of the planet in the meantime but why don't you tell us josh about what the experience was

like when Teller came to visit the Theatre of Magic and what is it like to perform for him from your perspective? We found out, I mean, I feel like Chris and Nigel probably knew a little bit earlier than me, but I think I was informed like 10 days, maybe a week. It really was not long. It was like, yeah, I feel like it was like about a week.

And they're like, hey, in a week, how do you feel like doing a theater magic show on a tuesday like next week and i'm like that's weird and they're like yeah pen and teller are going to be in town and and they want to see magic while they're here like on their night off before they start their 10 show run and i'm like.

Holy crap we had a discussion to see because there's three of us in the theater magic and you know we all want to be a part of it but so that there was a good variety we agreed i would do the close-up show being in that i do a lot of technical stuff out of the three of us chris would host. With his, you know, he's such good ad lib skills and talking skills.

And he would do routines on either side to introduce us. And then the amazing Nigel would do his comedy stage show, which is just always hilarious to watch. World class. Yeah. And here's the thing. Because I knew that he had gone to Melbourne and he had seen magic in Melbourne and I knew he had seen Nick. Like I had an idea of like, you know, some pretty amazing magic he would have just watched.

So I was in a funny position where I knew I couldn't just do my normal magic because there's a good chance he just saw most of it like, you know, a week ago.

So I was in like a really funny spot. and the only thing i could do in my head was like okay don't worry about trying to like you know do the best you know ambitious card refly whatever let's just make it a show in a way that like he will enjoy because there's some funny jokes and premises and stuff that like he will appreciate so that's the angle i went for and for every routine i did i had some kind of like magician code joke layered into it so that it was like,

I know you know what's going on, but let me tell you some stuff that the rest of the audience doesn't know that's going on. That's how I kind of played it. But that does not help with the nerves because whenever you do something new in a show, it's nerve wracking anyway. But knowing you're doing a few little bits that are new and And, you know, one of the goats of magic is in the audience, really does a number on you. So I was pretty nervous.

Like, I'll be honest. I was like, I do not get nervous doing magic. But this is the time I was like, I had to like control my breathing and stuff, like before the show, like earlier in the night. But fortunately, Teller joined us for dinner first. So that let me get out my awkwardness and nerves and everything before the show. I'm so thankful we had dinner before the show because I could just be weird and awkward then. And then, you know, be cool, calm and collected. You like magic? Yeah.

It makes it pretty cool. Yeah, that's fine. Exactly. Well, Penn's pretty tall, huh? Yeah, he's taller than I am.

Yeah and uh so you speak when you hang out yes i just i don't speak when i'm performing magic oh that's pretty cool man yeah exactly that so you could get all that weird stuff out of the way and then so but yeah and then what happened was when he came in so we didn't tell anyone why the special occasion of a tuesday show was so everyone in the audience were people who had been to our shows before they're all sitting there and then teller

is the last person to be brought in and he's right at the front so all of a sudden everyone's here ready to enjoy magic and they look over and they see like the headliner of q pack with all these sold-out shows.

Just walk past them and sit down and everyone is freaking out like this one lady's like verbally just like oh my god gets out her phone is like filming him walking to his seat, And so we had to like calm everyone down for, you know, like 10 seconds and be like, all right, so we're going to do this show now. And the last thing I'll say is one of the routines I haven't, I don't know if there's a way I can frame this in video because I filmed my set, obviously with telewatching.

I wanted to do a routine talking about how Australians shorten their words. Like we abbreviate everything. A U-turn is what we call a Yui, a service station is what we call a servo, a sandwich is a sanger. And I wanted to have this funny play on words with Nutella. So I got a little sandwich portable pack of Nutella, a little spread, which is a chocolate hazelnut spread we put on our sandwich.

And so I set all those other examples and then I brought out the Nutella and I'm like, as a kid, we don't call this Nutella. We say, mom, can I have some Tella on my sandwich?

That gets a laugh and then i say and it's always been my dream to perform a routine with teller on stage and tonight that becomes a reality and it gets this applause because everyone knows i'm talking about teller but i'm directing my attention to this and then i say who else is a fan of teller as i'm opening up the teller spread everyone puts their hands up and then my favorite line that i'm glad teller laughed at quite a lot too because he knows it's true i was like

all right and you know you don't need a lot of teller because teller is very rich and i keep going with the routine and everyone just laughs so hard because it's like yeah this is an awkward moment we have this, goat of magic you know he's so successful and he even he even i will say teller even did like a rich person's laugh he was like yeah like that kind of a laugh so funny i'll see if there's a way i can edit it to to make it interesting to watch other than me just saying a joke but yeah

it's pretty cool he had really nice things to say afterwards as well like. You know, I keep something to me because, you know, I feel like he says nice things to a lot of people, but particularly about my sleight of hand, he was like really impressed. And he shared his coin production work with me as well. He said he doesn't do it too much anymore. Yeah. The tell a snatch and things that he doesn't do now because of his arthritis, but it was, it was just so cool to spend that time.

And he was, you know, he's, he's, he's the best. He took selfies with every single person that was at that theater of magic that night and yeah and then i went and saw the show which we'll talk about experience without exposing any tricks i went to the show and then after the show i walked him back to his hotel and we went up and chatted in his apartment for like half an hour about magic ideas and all that kind of stuff and i think nigel is about to have that experience tonight

to see the show and then probably have dinner with him or something afterwards it is i'll just i was reminded of something when you said that like when you just see this like awesome headliner just walk past you and just freak everyone out we took him to the hot springs here and we went and did like cold plunges and spas and like all these sort of sauna based things and and he was up for it the whole time he's just such a trooper and it was really funny because i got this one

photo i haven't i've never posted it it's just one of my little personal i'm just going to share it only here on the magic guys podcast youtube channel i will not share this anywhere else but there is this awesome photograph.

Of just all of us sitting in that's so funny there's me there's an amazing card magician called chian yio and just teller and we're just sitting in these buckets just like these hot buckets but yeah oh that's funny now gutbuster mike was talking about the teller snatch And it's effectively the way that he produces the coins for the miser's routine with the goldfish. So that's what that move is, where he reaches into thin air and just snaps.

And it's the handling on that. It's pretty awesome. Yeah. Pretty awesome. So the thing that I'll mention about the show, which I was super surprised about, is how in the moment Penn is. Like, I thought, you know, you've done these shows for 50 years.

You're just going to be reciting patter and going through the motions but he's so in the moment that he's coming up with all this great comedy material in real time that's by play with the audience and the thing that was impressive too is he's recalling every person's name that's helped out throughout the show yeah, Even towards the end, he's thanking the people that helped out at the very start. And this guy, and you think he's probably a plant because he doesn't even speak English well.

And all this kind of stuff was really impressive that that really shows you that, okay, they're here in this theater with us right now. Yeah. And full credit to Penn, for those of you that haven't seen the show yet. He's on stage the entire time. For the whole two, two and a half hours, however long the show was.

Yeah, it's like two hours, yeah. yeah like ordinarily it's like pen goes away teller does a routine by himself in dead silence with no music or anything like that he might do the the the rose shadows routine he might do his his red ball or whatever else nah man like pen is there from start to finish mouthing off the whole time and he is so engaging and so funny and so sharp yeah it killer absolutely i was so surprised because i've always been a teller fan and like

accepted pen as part of the routines you know like he's always like delivering the presentation of why they're doing this stuff but today i was super entertained by pen on his in his own right and then teller would come together and they'd do this amazing magic.

Bloody hell it was yeah it was fun and also the thing i noticed too is for every routine they did they had a big some kind of a backdrop like a you know something interesting to look at that filled up the stage did you notice that like they always had these big you know not canvases but like a big backdropy kind of a thing that would play into the routine the set design was really good there was a couple of uh like one of my personal there was

an effect they do which is like a gift shop and they fully emulate it yeah that is my that was probably my favorite routine and like the whole one of the favorites like i mean it's really hard to pull them apart they're like milliseconds apart as far as like which one wins the race but man that routine with with the trash cans and so forth it was just so good and it generally looks like a shop like it looks like the gift shop like where you buy your merchandise from it

was so well done i think this is we can tip off like the the beginning of that right because not not the effect but the this the the gift shop stuff right like the way he gets someone on stage is they're like now we think it's terrible to pitch your merchandise during the show and talk about the stuff you can buy after the show we would never do that so instead we brought the merchandise on stage and they and And they open it up and Teller's wearing all their merch.

But they're like, now who here was planning to buy some merchandise after the show? And they pick someone up and they're like, now what were you going to buy? And they say a shirt. And they're like, all right, you can buy it now. And they're like, get out your credit card. And the credit card is what they're going to use later in the routine. But they're like, now here's the funny part. This merchandise checkout is real. and he taps the card and they actually purchase a shirt on stage.

And like, here you go, until he gives it to them in the bag. Like the poetry, like the artistry on that is just so funny because it wouldn't be as funny if it wasn't really getting purchased. Yeah. And that's the thing. Penn has this ability to, like Penn can talk for a solid five minutes straight without doing a single magic trick. And I am hooked on every word he says.

Like i don't know if you recall the bit there's a bit in the show where you know that you have to address that there's going to be stooges at some point and and it's like and so what he does is it's this is like well towards the end of the show and he says who was involved in the show that tonight and then every person that was involved stands up at this point there's a dozen people he goes that means that all you guys would have been stooges now how many of you guys came with the people here

because you would have to be involved as well knowing that that person's a stooge. And before you know it, three quarters of the audience is standing up just through this whole rigmarole that he goes through. And if you think all these people are stooge, like. With everybody on payroll and benefits and this and this and that, like we would not make a single dollar. Like this is the dumbest thing you can think of.

And then everyone sits down and then he says, now if you still think the way of using stooges and you're a non-believer, stand up. And then like 20 people stand up, still not believing it. And he's like, these idiots, you know? Yeah. And he brings them all on stage and does a routine with them. He brings every, like, yeah, every non-believer on stage that puts their hand up and doesn't affect with them.

Yeah and yeah man it's so funny yeah so good and so entertaining and that whole thing we just spoke about in 30 seconds that's like a six seven minute process but it is a laugh it is impressive it's you're listening man like it is really good like it's a really good bit of kit their justification for getting into routines is amazing like the even like the the crushing your dreams premise i bloody love that like yeah yeah yeah there's just so many good things it's

what we're saying like it's worth you don't go and see it because you're like oh yeah i should go and see them because they're pen and teller like no no this is like a really entertaining.

Funny ass show that has been really sought out and it's just very funny to watch and great magic but yeah yeah good times good times it's inspiring it is now here's the thing after you watch a show like that and after the people after the the trucks are gone and they're off to the next city like this is what you're yet to experience like at what point are you kind of like i gotta do better i want to work harder or i want to you know like oh yeah bro absolutely like right absolutely i mean.

So for example the piece that I like tailored for Teller to come and see the show after that I thought. Why the hell aren't I doing that every week? Like this stuff that I made for him to enjoy, like I could be doing this stuff every week from moving forward because it's still funny for anyone who is half in the know of magic. They're going to enjoy the heck out of the extra bits I've added. So even that, I was like, why the hell haven't I been tailoring my stuff more in general?

But then, yeah, then seeing this show, you're like, god damn it there's just so much room for for you know lifting up the stuff that i'm doing already and i've been enjoying doing the theory of magic so much but it definitely has made me go okay there is a show that i've been wanting to write as a like a a one-man show for for a stage And now I'm like, yeah, this is, this is time. I should definitely be doing this as well as the stuff I enjoy doing.

But like, yeah, this is definitely needs to be done. I can agree with you on that. Because a lot of times when I think about what I do with myself and the one sort of mantra that I'm constantly telling myself, and it's very unhealthy, I actually been corrected on this. And it's, I always tell myself, you can always do more. You can do more. Right. You could read more. You can run more. You can exercise more. You can study more. You could also rest more. You could also spend time with

your family more. I just believe you can do more. You can always do more. And that's the type of thing. But what spins me out the most is that when you see these routines, these highly fooling routines, for those in the know, there's a routine using these balloons as they have three people on stage and they have this whole balloon process where all these balloons pop and it's a phenomenal, really, really cool routine.

And he's telling me it's based off a David Burglass idea. And I'm going, I do not remember reading that anywhere of Burglass's stuff. And he's like, oh, it's in this book. And I'm like, oh, you mean that book that were only 200 were printed? And it's like four grand to get a copy of that book. I was talking to a friend of mine, Bourdain Hatton yesterday, and we're talking about David P. Abbott, a famous magician from the US who was the creator of the floating ball,

as well as the talking tea kill and a couple of others. I'm putting together a history lesson on him. So we'll get to that at some point, but getting this information is quite difficult. And that's because the story of his book was super difficult to, to, to find and actually make. And that is a story in itself to get a copy of that book is 2000 Aussie dollars. Like that's what Bodane sold it for two grand.

And Teller was one of the people who developed that book, you know, I think 400 copies of it went out or something like that. The, the, the, the one thing that I love more than anything from hanging out with Teller is I just want to consume books. I just want to devour books and read and read and read. And I hate not reading magic. I can't, the TV doesn't entice me at all. Instagram doesn't entice me at all. None of it does, but you put, you put any, any magic book in front of me, good or bad.

And I just devour it. and I've never been a good reader my whole life. I'm not a bright kid, never have been. But reading, I was told a long time ago, it's like, no, no, no. Everyone knows how to read, you just haven't found the right books yet. Hand to God, magic books, I can devour them. I love reading magic books, but you give me anything else. You give me any sort of thing to do with fantasy. I'm like, realms, anything with realms, no.

Realms, Jesus Christ. nah can't do it but that's all it makes me want to do because you just keep hearing these stories of oh yeah this is from like the 1800s this trick and then i just remade it and no one knows the method because it's so old that's what that's what i that's what i'm inspired to do after watching something like that so after you sing the show you want to do your own thing and i just want to learn.

100 100 i have a cool name that i think i want to use for my show but i won't say it now because the show's not actually a thing yet so it'd be silly to drop a cool name that you know anyone could use really but definitely yeah it was also perfect too because only a couple of weeks before teller coming to brisbane adam shire came to brisbane the creator of of siri and he had really good notes on magic as well from a different perspective from someone who's just seen so

many magic shows and he was particularly saying like you should know who your character is as a magician and use that to your advantage and sort of like not limit the magic you do but it should all like fit the character like the magic you're doing in his opinion for and he gave the classic example of the illusionist you know being the most successful like theater.

Magic ensemble show in the world and it did so well because everyone was like a character like you know the mischief whatever the the escapist the da da da the sleight of hand you know and so he watched my show and was like he's like you're so good at magic and you it comes across that you're so technically versed and stuff but then all of a sudden you do this whimsical like drink prediction and it doesn't fit anything else you did and

so why did you do that routine and so it was really good so it made me like use these limits to to make myself a bit more memorable to the audience and have them feel like they learned more about me as a performer there's two things i'm taking away from that and i think that it's giving you direction.

That's and i could have summarized it with that yeah yeah probably yeah and well just for everyone out there that gives them direction you know like when you and the direction is interesting because for me it comes from something that bizarro said in his lectures where he said creating with restriction and i think that's a good place to be as well when i give examples of this i i just like if i just say vanish a coin you're like oh the list is this long and then it's like okay well

okay vanish a coin with one hand and then it's like half the list and then it's like vanish it with one hand and then show both the front and back you know and then vanish it with one hand and have it entirely vanish not to be found again ever and ever and ever and you got to do it naked then all of a sudden is like only one of three ways you can do that you know yeah and it's that type of thinking that whenever i'm creating i have to do it this way and i get stuck with stuff because if someone

comes to me with my restrictions and the way that i want to do magic if someone says something like just do a x just do a shuttle pass just use a change bag nick k doesn't use change bags right like it's just not my character no no no it's got to be smarter than that it's got to be cool than that i have something that's been on my mind for a long long time to uh. To distance myself with regards to this ringing bell effect that I've,

that I'm doing. And well, I'm say doing, I haven't done it public yet. I've done it once in public. I lie, but I'm trying to do it in such a way that like, I don't go near the thing at all. Like just, and I'm adding extra layers of stuff. I'm putting it on a steel tray so that people don't think I can load it from the bottom. I'm doing all this different stuff because that's the Nick K level of magic that I want to do. So, yeah, it's one of those things.

But again, I just consume magic, get the ideas.

Ben Hart's book, I don't love any of the effects. I don't want to do any of the effects, but I love the thinking behind it. And I love anything that provokes that. I was having coffees yesterday with my friend, Andy von Bibreiser. Someone who's well-versed in mentalism here. And he was showing me these books. Orion is a dual book series. I forget who's written it, a Greek magician.

But some of the thinking there is so genius it's so it's annoying like when you it's it's so simple like he's so clever that your brain goes why didn't i think of that that's freaking genius and so clever but you don't think of that and so you need to consume stuff all the time just to know how it's done like you know it's it's if you were a chef you'd be like do i salt my meat before or after I cook it. Like there's just all these nuances that work for certain aspects, but consume it.

And even William Fisher says here in our chat, he goes, I wish I was more like Nick in that aspect. I usually fall asleep within 10 to 20 minutes when reading, when you consume this type of thing. So highly caffeinated before cracking a magic book.

There's nothing wrong with that. I go to bed reading books. And the good thing about that is even if you're only consuming 10-20 minutes you can digest it think about it and really process it you know like those are really really fun things to do so and then mike's asking here when you're churning through books is it with props in hand no no it's not i just i just like to just read more times than not i like if it's really good and it's giving me methods i'm not going to be able to

I read it, but then I start reading and my mind goes off on a tangent. I start creating. It takes me a long time to get through books as a result, but I still chew through them, you know? I have a funny story, a gig story, I guess, to put a bow on today in regards to Mike's question.

Like do you have the props in your hand when you're reading these books so this is a this is a geek story from two weeks ago we're doing the theater magic and i've just got my hands on rz win's repertoire to book and i had the video of me doing i had the video of this show but i don't want to put the video out because i think this routine is better just living in the books and in live performance and people not seeing it online but there's essentially a routine in this book where you as

the magician leave the room and you call the spectator on their phone or your phone and you give them your phone you take a spectator's other phone you call them and you instruct them what to do on stage and you're not even in the room and the premise is like the further you the further i am away from the magic the more impressive it is so i leave the room and talk to this guy on the phone and he's doing the magic in front of

the audience and it's super weird to hear the audience laughing and stuff on the phone because I can't hear it in real time. Anyway, this is the first time. So I practiced the routine, but it's still the first time I'm trying it. So I walk out of the performing room and I walk into our green room because I'm on the phone. So I like instructing him what to do so I can be anywhere really. So I walk into our green room, which is only like, you know, 30 meters away.

And I pull out the book that I've been learning this trip from because I have it chapter marked and I sit down in our green room on the phone in a live show and I crack it open and I just double check my work and I'm literally reading the tutorial of the routine, like while it's live being done.

And just for the first time I'm ever doing it, because I'm like, I don't want to accidentally slip up, like, because it's quite finicky in, because the outcome is incredible, but you know, you just want to get the instructions right. And so, yeah, I'm literally reading the book as it's being performed live in the next room. And that was fucking hilarious to me. And like, so then I hear the applause and stuff and I close the book.

I'm like, great. I walk back in the room and continue with the show.

And it was bloody it was a great time it's like a live banana bandana it really is right yeah yeah but yeah with this that's right with the spectator doing it yeah but the spectator's doing a banana bandana like it's totally flipped the script yeah yeah yeah well yeah william fisher saying he's done that routine as well it killed yeah and again it's books as he wins repertoire too is a book he only i think he only printed a thousand copies damn if there's any left

but you know it's because that's where the good stuff goes and the beauty of it is not it won't be a mainstream known thing because it's only if you went to that barrier of entry to to read the book and and interpret it and actually do it you know yeah absolutely and crazy stuff so right now i'm just i'm all about consuming theory but we can we'll probably have to talk about that another time as our hour is up.

Crazy crazy stuff and thank you all for being here tim william adonis gutbuster mike scotty p, everyone else is here thomas conga was there i saw scotty as well somewhere in our chat good to see you all friends thank you for being here this week we will be back next week i may or may not be here i'm going to be in canada doing some snowboarding but if it's if if the weather permits and i'm kind of in my accommodation i will jump

on and join you friends but i don't know where i'm going to be so i'm not going to make any promises yet so thank you for joining us you can scope out my socials nick k magic on instagram or my website nick k magic.com and josh debito yeah you can all my stuff's below and this is the magic guys episode 204, See ya, 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.