The Magic Cafe Forums - March 7-9, 2024 Winter Carnival of Magic at Pigeon Forge Tennessee Review notes

Larry Finley (alias Larfin glowball) notes about March 7-9, 2024 Winter Carnival of Magic at Pigeon Forge Tennessee

Special note about this convention (49 years by the Knoxville IBM Ring 58):
1. Even though the traffic is very heavy we could get to any restaurant or any event within 10-15 minutes including a Walmart.
2. Parking is free everywhere. We ate at Cracker Barrel, Golden Corral, the Local Goat. There are hundreds of restaurants in the area.
3. All events are at the Country Tonite Theater which is a huge performing arts theater. With dressing, makeup, lounge areas and separate bathroom for performers waiting to go on stage.
4. This is a slanted padded seat theater (holds 1,500? people). The seats are all pre-assigned when you make your reservation. All seats have an excellent view of the enormous stage.
5. Within a few miles there are all kinds of outlet malls, go-kart rides, thrill rides, eating establishments, live entertainment shows, including two or three magician illusion shows. Dollywood theme park and water park.
this convention has free parking everywhere.
5. Including regular hotels and motels there are hundreds of Airbnb cabins within 10 minutes. Most of these cabins are on the hillside / mountainside with beautiful views and hot tubs.
6. This convention is attended by many prominent IBM members including at least 4 international presidents.

The first part of these notes are pretty sketchy because trying to watch performers and taking notes at the same time it is very difficult therefore there will be lots of grammatical mistakes and things may be very unclear, even to me. Part of these notes were done by whispering using speech to text and that can introduce many errors.

But you can get the overall idea of what's going on. Toward the end of these notes there is some better notes about the Friday and Saturday night shows.

It was a lot easier to take notes about the lectures than to take notes about the actual shows because the lectures go slow whereas the shows the action goes very fast.

No notes about the contestants because was practicing and concentrating on my two routines.
I did the random dots mat (homemade mat 2 years ago) Queens to Aces and then (poorly) rub a dub magician's assistant to rabbit. Open mic did Ted Anneman mentalism with Janna and her smokey crystal ball naming their cards then throw out deck.

Here goes the notes starting with:
Thursday March 7th, 2024:
Anthony Gerard under the table Jack ass tetradistic stack.
Side steal Square Shift.
Tennis ball and cup.
Spell to card.
Arial Hang pien chen.
Two clear glasses 2 cards w match.
Edge card.
Miniature briefcase.
Prismatic Prediction envelope (red square) matches spectator cut color.
You will select the only blue back card from a red back deck.
Sponge Ball idea pivot move.
Gamblers cop.
Fingernail.
Coin flip.
Two decks chosen card is reversed in the other deck.
Rifle force spectator.

David Ginn lecture
Serpent silk opener.
Use animals (toy or live) because kids love them.
Dove from 3 tissue papers.
Rabbit from empty top hat and black scarf.
Rabbit from school bus drawer box and blooming rose.
Hippity Hop rabbits (Bob Carroll version) with white cloth cover and black cloth cover.
Four red sponge 3" balls.
Animal cards numbered.
Mee Moe The mind reading monkey You're not going to laugh are you.
Change bag and 2 scarves and 2 kids.
Alice through looking Glass penetration trick (kid's arm thru plexiglass). Kid slowly pulls a streamer scarf back through the plexiglass.
Magic wand to spring snake (act like snake attacks you never the kids).

Andi Gladwin
Envelope with 1-in metal strap and a PK.
Three jacks in a clear glass and one Ace is put in front and they all change to aces.
Super Sonic Self-working trick that uses two slights, 26 blacks and 26 reds.
Six people intro themselves. Andi reads instructions from big cards in an envelope.
Mag choice final person predicted.

3 cards selected then returned to the deck.
Deck shuffle by a spectator.
Cards put in right coat pocket and mag finds the correct one. Spectator reaches into magician's pocket and grabs one card and it is the correct one.
Bluff Prophecy switch.
Tilt switch.
"Undo cut".
Slip cut one card and two packets.
4 coins and clear shot glass upside down and okito type "Boston" box final scarf over glass.

$50 Magic squares using pre-printed cards and one number self-working has specials sticky stuff mat only made in England.

Doug Conn cups and balls, sponge yellow tennis ball w 3 inch red sponge ball.
Coin matrix with wand stick in middle.
Then Roth type shadow coins,
Purse palm, move clean hand first.
Recommends invisible deck.
2 cards selected
Linking rings Sound, movement, color (Celini) basic crash link etc "appears to be linked but not".
Triumph shuffle top half. 2nd half fu fd then together (4 Royal Flushes on top). Half faro. Sticky mat spread 4 royal flushes.
Dice cup and cards. Count cards to dice number and card equals dice.
1/3 push thru false shuffle.
Sponge bunnies.
Triplet Erdengase,
3 card monte w Little Queen card.
Actually four cards involved which are:
Xxx, yyy, zzz and
1 miniature Queen of Spades.

Thursday night show (mini lectures):
Steve Bargetze MC

Paul Richards by chance dictionary and spectator.

Steve Valentine.
Cuts off exact number of cards. Explained method.

Ray Adams count down timer.
Turkey call squeaker and invisible flying bug.

Jafo
Borrowed cell phone pretend to put in left pant pocket but ends up in rt pants pocket. Bendy phone.
Also 2 phone switch.

Tom Vorjohan
"Did the lier take the coin".

Kevin King
Counts six coins into girls hand the 7th pretend drops on her hand as she closes her hand quickly and then he produces one coin from under her hand.

Andi Gladwin
Master push off move
Deal

Minnesota guy
5 cards magic words (Gilbreath): last, two, cards, match.

Tom Gibson
Photograph of face up and face down cards and then at the end only one card is face down but on the other side that one card is the only face up card and it is the chosen card.
-------------------------------------------
Friday morning (I think):

Close up competition with 10 competitors.

After the close-up competition:

Nick Diffatte
Thin plywood cut out to look like a flat hand and painted white: " name a piece of clothing" spectator says "shirt", fingers on white hand pop up letters. Funny bit.

Multiply sponge "bananas" but with inhalers.
"Mundial Sierra" red handle shears are best scissors to cut rope with.
short piece.
Neat false knot.

$20 folded into eights. $100 little monopoly money. Phantom tube style.

Penny attaches to back of new iPhone. They see a mini penny in the cell phone display. ???

Bounce, no bounce, balls he just talks about them.

Red foam monkey similar to barrel of monkeys (he had special made so that no copyright nor patent infringement).
Giant contact lens comedy tricks.

Red silk and white silk w red in tube.

Business card switching wallet.

White plastic Boston box looks like a bottle cap.

Bob Sheets
8 yr old red head he cuts to aces many times, then shows four different cards and then re-spreads to show the four aces.

Woman and funny zodiac readings.
Newspaper tear.

Very long rope saw self in half.

Texas Holdem with a spectator who takes back to several spectators that each picks a card and keeps it. Then he has the four spectators come on to stage with their card. Blindfold card stabs with wicked looking dagger. Brown lunch bag spectator holds.

Paul Richards
3 blue back Jokers and one red back queen which he keeps removing and puts in his right pocket.
Two redback Jokers, ...
Impromptu "ups and downs" Rising cards in his hands.

$20 bill part and white paper pencil penetration.
Esp cards spec and have a small set of cards and they match down.
Sensitive Business: ESP cards near the bottom line.

All 4 aces on table.
Track Master. 4 aces w 4 cards. The four packets starting at the far left packet: Ace position after forth card, next packet the Ace is after third card, next packet the ace is after second second card, last packet the ace after first card. Then ???

Off the wall color change: Two card color change by Walter Collins.

Solid gold:
Tyvek Envelope card trick.
-------------------------------

Saturday morning:

Jafo
Structure of magic routines advice.
Example:
Zone zero billiard table, three pool balls, chalk square, produces pool que stick.

Mexican turnover reborn.
Siesta version on top of the deck.

Metal photography deck and Mexican turnover.
Color change using left thumb.

Getting money.
"Big Reveal" book about gender of unborn baby.
Baby carriage picture trick.

Make conversational connections with audience.

Card trick:
Lefty "puppet"?

Pocket rocket turbo (whole tuck case).

Friday night show:
It was almost impossible to take notes and enjoy the the Friday night and Saturday night shows therefore I do not have many details but will highlight a few things.

Nick Diffatte comedy magician was really good and our older son Zachary (non-magician) thought he was fantastic. Especially the woman's ring ending up on his toe.

Nick also did a hilarious bit with what appeared to be a football under a piece of cloth and he asks a woman to name any kind of sports ball and she thinks then she says says golf ball. What happened next was hilarious.

I really liked Derek Hughes opening trick with a piece of rope that he cuts and holds the two pieces one in each hand spread far apart and then he brings the two pieces together to make one rope and immediately throws it into the audience showing both hands empty. He did some other really good advanced stuff to good humor.

Nate Bargatze's father (yes they had that on the electronic billboard) lol. Stephen did his $10 count trick with a man and wife. That went over well as it always does and his walk off finish.

Apologies about the other acts that I can't remember right now.

-------------------------------
Saturday afternoon:

Steve Valentine (magician and actor):
Magiconthego.com

Wine glass marker with cloth over it. Lots of productions and vanishes of wine glass or shot glass.

Dye tube stuff. Very good tips.

3 card monte w Kings.
Fold a dollar bill that has a playing card somewhere.

Five spectators stick their finger in and takes a card then shuffles their packets and places in their pocket. Magician finds their card from their pocket.

Bah Meb: Black Art Makes Everything Better. Bameb:
Little card to full card.
Coin purse long wand production.

Double shot.
Fake food whiskey glass. etc.

I missed the Saturday morning Bob sheets show because we were preparing for the open mic competition. I heard that folks really liked his shell and pea and his dice moves.

Saturday night show:
Steve Valentine was the MC and was a definite hit especially the way he took control and kept the show moving when they had really bad situations with the microphones not working and a music CD not being played. The tech people eventually got this straightened out but for the first two or three acts there were major problems having to switch microphones etc. There was a huge delay getting Jafo's music for his beautiful Jerry Andrus Zone Zero routine. Jafo's Pool Table version of ZZ is the best I have ever seen).

Believe I (Larry Finley alias larfin glowball) was president of ring 37 (Nashville) when Jafo as a young man did his initiation performance for our local club and was really impressed with his finger skill and overall talent. He was doing coins to glass and two coin finger rolls across both hands way back then!

Jason Hudy did a good job with the two towers of numbered blocks on a table but since he is starting a major illusion show in Pigeon Forge I was expecting a couple of illusions using attractive showgirls doing box jumping of some kind. Bummer (I like to see pretty girls).

Ray Adams did his hilarious salt routine.

The Evasons did their incredible mentalism act where she is blindfolded on the stage and naming everything under the sun that people are holding including dates and license numbers and people's names and things like that. He says that they do not use high tech devices, but I don't know what that means. Regardless their mentalism act is fantastic and second to none.

The Saturday night pizza party and socialization at the Ramada was enjoyable as usual. I wish I could have stayed up late until 2:00 a.m. but I was exhausted and was with family so we went back to our cabin at about 11:00 p.m (hey, at 80 yrs old I need rest before the 5-hour drive home with wife Janna next day).

The dealers room had a lot of good stuff. I bought a couple things from Paul Richards (he has incredible card tricks).

We also got some Tenyo stuff from Michael P. Lair. He has a reusable tyvek map of the United States that has been cut up into pieces and then magician restores it (reusable trick, simple reset). I talked to him about possibly making the trick using pictures of fruits and vegetables to get school kids to eat healthier. If he does I will definitely buy the trick.

Doug Conn's Shadow coins lecture and performance was incredible and a highlight.
I also especially liked his sponge tennis ball coupled with a red sponge ball removal from the cup idea.

Of the free easy to do stuff I really like Paul Richards impromptu "Ups and downs" rising cards!

We really enjoyed the convention in spite of the tech problems on Saturday night and definitely plan to come next year. This convention is a very good deal at about $175 for the magician and $100 for the spouse/companion!

Feel free to add your own highlights to this thread.