Copperfield in Brussels

I've been reading this resume regarding Copperfield in Paris. (it's in French ... click Here)
I couldn't agree more!
I was VERY dissapointed by the show. First of all i've seen Copperfield in Vegas a few years ago, i think 4 years ago. The show i saw was in Brussels/Belgium. It was for 95% the same show i saw in Vegas.
I've always had respect for Copperfield but also always said that the pricing to his shows are exagerated. If someone has the opportunity to pay a lot and see a little or pay nothing and watch GOOD on TV i preffer TV... anyway i disgress...

My biggest dissapointment was in the middle of the show when Copperfield asked us the watch a small 3 minutes film.
It was NOT 3 minutes but close to 10... and it was only about Copperfield being the greatest, the biggest, all his world records, all his awards etc... I AM SORRY, but we do NOT pay so hat an artist shows a movie about how great he is, we pay so that you SHOW us that you deserve these awards and merrits... Unfortunatly I found Copperfield's show not interesting, it had NO energy, the tone was vulgar, and with the translations to Duth and French lost all the humour...

I also think that everybody can have a bad day... but when i've seen his show in Brussels, Vegas and read that in Paris it was exactly the same... In brussels at another timing also... I start to wonder....

Le Plus Grand Cabaret Du Monde

YES!!!! i've been on this show with Armando Lucero.

Armando is for me the most interesting contemporary magician, even the best magician available today, worldwide. Why? because what he does is just plain magic !His thinking process is different than most magicians today!! If you have the chance to get to see him , just go, you will not regret it!

Now, regarding the above mentioned show : Le Plus Grand Cabaret is the best magic show on tv almost all the acts are the top acts available ! I was very impressed by the profesionalism of this crew ! but i was even more impressed by the involvment of the Host/Producer Partick Sebastien, he just defends artists in a way i've never seen before! He really cares for his guests artists and really gives them the best work conditions possible ! Till now i thought that producers just want to make money, by not wasting time with artists... just do the thing and Sell... no Patrick Sebastien is really taking the time for his Artists.. so if i could i would give jim a GOLD medal for what's his doing!

Ps: this show can be seen once a month on French TV (FRANCE2)

Social contract for disaster

Interesting link related to the psychology of magic.

More to be read at this link

This is just INCREDIBLE !!!

Don't wait and just check out http://earth.google.com/ now!

this is just incredible, i've spent some hours travelling all over the world, went to see the pyramids in Egypt and a few seconds later i checked the pyramid in Las Vegas, then went to New York and checked all the places i've been to....

It is just halucinating ! i even went to see some craters and went to Bagdad, Thailand, Russia, North Pole, Israel, Belgium and All this from my seat.... Just check it out!

I wonder where this technology will lead within a few years...

I'm someone now!

Hehe,

I finally received my Genii Issue... Finally!

Like in Steve Martin's Movie "The Jerk" I am Sombody now !
(In THE JERK he becomes someone after he reads his name in the phone book.... shouting : I am Sombody now ! I am Sombody now ! I am Sombody now !

Well, it's nice to see your name in an important magazine... what can i say?
I makes me fEEEEl GOOOOD !

later,
J.

Spellboundless

This is great for my ego !
First time a move i discovered is published in Genii Magazine !

It's been out for a few weeks now, and i did not get my copy yet!

Hope to get it this week... i can't wait no more!

later,
j.

Max Maven In Luxembourg

I've been to Luxembourg last week.
It was a great honour to at last meet Mr. Goldstein aka Max Maven. He is a really a real interesting person, not only magically, he has really a great culture baggage and of course a great knowledge of Magic.

He came to Luxembourg to present us his latest show.
"MAX MAVEN THINKING IN PERSON"
Do yourself a favour and go ! just go, don't ask questions, just GO !
it is a great one man show.


Only Max Maven could do that ! At some points in the show he is using very simple magic, but with his presentation it's really excellent ! adding his great sense of humour makes it even better !

I was laughing almost all the time !

What made me really think is the following : Only Max Maven can get away with this, this is weird, he is known for his extensive magic knowledge, and knowing that he knows soooo much, in his show he is using sooo simple magic.... this is really weird.. but interesting.... i think that only if you know so much you can afford to use so simple magic.... like we always say... it's all in the presentation....

later,

J.

ps: if his show is in your neighbourhood... GO !!! more info http://www.maxmaven.com/news.php

MagicbooksBlog: New Book about Magicians will be published

MagicbooksBlog: New Book about Magicians will be published

New Book about Magicians will be published

I wanted to let you know that I have decided to produce/write a book !

The content of the book will be a collection of "Internet Email Interviews with contemporary Magicians".

I’m sending you this email because we already had contact, live or via the net and would like you to answer the questions below.

Some magicians already knew about the project and many of them replied positive !

What I need now is your collaboration, it will take a few minutes of your time, but I think it’s worth it, with your help, soon we’ll have a nice book with a collection of contemporary magicians.

Hoping everybody will reply...

Please reply as soon as possible,(if possible now) we hope to finalize this project by the end of this month. (Dead Line : 30^th April)

Also, please don’t hesitate to forward this message to all your magician friends, who of course really need to be in the book !

Kind regards,

Jacky Kahan
MagicCafé Productions
www.magiccafe.com
www.magicbooks.be

---------

So here we go :

Name :

Country :

City :

1.How would you like to be presented?


2.What is your first memory regarding Magic?


3.How would you define magic?


4.What advice would you give to a beginner magician?


5.If there is a perfect routine, what would it be?


6.What was your best magic experience?


7.What was your worst Magic experience?


8.What are you the most proud of, related to magic?


9.If there is a subtlety related to magic theory you would like to share, what would it be?


10.If there is a subtlety for a sleight you would like to share, what would it be?


11.What did I forget to ask you?


12.What would you like to say to magicians?


13.What book are you reading now?


14.What book would you recommend absolutely?


(you can write as much as you want, just try to keep everything, on one A4 page)
--------

PLEASE FEEL FREE TO FORWARD THIS EMAIL TO YOUR MAGICIAN FRIENDS THAT NEED TO BE IN THE BOOK!
YOUR ANSWER TO THIS MAIL NEEDS TO BE SENT TO INTERVIEW@MAGICBOOKS.BE

By replying you give permission to print your answers in a book
Copyright (c) MagicCafé Productions

Ethics In Magic

Yes, this topic comes back way too often !
I've been to a lecture a few days ago.

There was this magician, who won international competitions, giving us a lecture.

WHAT A SHAME !!!!

Mr. Magician showed us 5 routines, which are not his, he did mention that these routines are his favorites..and not his....

He Did not mention that he had the right to us it, not only that, he's selling a DVD with the explanation of these... I'm sure the creators of these routines are not aware of this...

It looks like it's easy to make money with magic today, just buy a book like "best of magic tricks", learn it, make a dvd, and go on a lecture tour, there are so many magicians out there that buy anything... go make some money!

Sorry, but i'm sick of this... when will people learn to show some respect for the art of Magic?

MagicCafé Productions Closed the biggest deal ever

MagicCafé Productions Closed the biggest deal ever in the history of Belgian Magic. (World?)

How it all Started
Yes, I like challenges. I've met one of the Marketing executives of LU (from the Danone Group) at a Marketing Fair. He liked MagicCafé’s approach so he kept the business card.

He always wanted to do something with magic. So a few months later he gave my business card to one of his colleagues to see what they could do for a product launch.

They contacted me and we’ve been working and brainstorming on this project for more than 6 months, before the final signature.

NUMBERS
Is this a World record ? I don’t know, but it is the biggest product launch ever in the Belgian magic History.

More than 420 shows done by 52 different Magicians over whole Belgium and Luxembourg in more than 200 different salespoints over a period of less than 20 days.

Who is LU?
LU is part of the Groupe DANONE, a leader in the world food industry.

The Concept :
It’s called the “Back To School” Action. The period of this action was when all the mothers go with their children to buy school furniture. And since LU sells cookies (especially healthy breakfast cookies) , which is exactly the same target audience, it’s the right timing.

Every store buys displays with LU cookies. If the store buys three displays, they have the right to book a magician for an half day. That’s all. That simple.

Once the magician is booked, he comes with a special designed close-up table and magic giveaways. The close-Up table was specially designed for this action by MagicCafé Productions, made out of strong cardboard, foldable and easy to carry.

To receive a magic present the clients just needed to buy 2 promotions (cookies). 3 Promos for 2 gadgets and 4 for 3…

Regarding the magicians, I succeeded to convince the client not to ask magicians to play a character. Since this is such a huge project and it would just add stress and energy, it would be better for the magic quality to let magicians be themselves. Like this, every magician is more comfortable, less stressed and knows very well what to do with their audience. It is also nice for the magicians that there is no real message to learn, just to talk about the promos... that’s all.

Recruiting 52 Magicians
In Belgium we have a few Magic clubs, about +/- 10 . There is a maximum of maybe 20 professional magicians. All the other magicians are “good” or “better” amateurs.

In fact it’s a question of word of mouth. In a period of 4 weeks MCP collected a list of about 70 Belgian magicians willing to work. Unfortunately the action happened to be in a holiday period so only about 50 magicians were available.

Imagine 50 magicians all having different schedules, different planning, different languages (In Belgium there are three different official languages, Dutch, French and German) and since they are not available ALL at the same time MCP needed some more magicians that were found in Holland and Luxembourg.

Meeting and preparation
The first meeting was in fact divided in three different meetings since all magicians couldn’t be present at the same time. MCP organized together with the client a presentation of the concept and the details of the action.

Communication
MCP created a forum on internet with the sole purpose to have a better communication platform for this action.

52 Magicians calling all the time with the same questions and remarks… no time for that, so this forum was created where all the messages and dispatching of dates was shared. This is a great tool, once communicated… you do not have to repeat yourself! Except for the less technology minded, but they were very few.

The creation of this forum brought a solution to a project I had in mind since a few years: MagicBooks.be : It’s a Forum dedicated to Magic Books, and it’s purpose is to be a research tool for all the magicians in the world. With the collaboration of magicians from all over the world we gathered more than 1500 books in less than 5 weeks… By the time of writing we have more than 3000 books available for research....

This project is maintained together with Marc Decoux one of the better Belgian cardicians.

Interesting !
The biggest surprise of this action is that the magicians that are the most quite, or shy in life as well as the less technical are the best show/sales people on the field!

And the magicians that are the most noisy or more technically able are not always the better show people. This is not a legend, this is a fact!

Complications

I like brainteasers. But I never imagined the complexity of this project.

Imagine this mission:

More than 420 + gigs over whole Belgium and Luxembourg, more than 200 diffrent sales points, 52 different magicians. Speaking 2 or 3 different languages. Living all in different places. Every magician has different availabilities. And all this has to be squeezed in a timeframe of less than 20 days.

No there is NO software that provides a solution for that…. At least I did not find it, and yes, there are huge solutions like SAP but that is a little too expensive.

You know what? I did it !

A huge magnetic Map of Belgium, 4 Huge planning boards, an Excel sheet and a lot of thinking made this all possible! (Imagine an Excel sheet with more than 600 lines/23 columns.)

About MagicCafé Productions (MCP).

Jacky Kahan is the proud founder of MCP. Why the Name MagicCafé? Because Jacky always dreamed of having a place where magic is happening! And this place will be ! The question is when? He decided to make his living out of his passion. Jacky has a background of Sales & Marketing.

The purpose of MCP is to provide quality magic. MCP is working quite often as a consultant to guarantee the quality of magic. Mostly for other event agencies and more and more for Film and TV. MCP organizes product launches, corporate events and private parties. An average of 60 events per year.

Some references : Kraft Foods, Côte d’or, Sony Music, Bosch, CitiBank, Ford, Agfa Gevaert, MPI, Procter & Gamble, Saga Films, Hokus Pokus (Turkish TV) and of course Danone/LU

MCP also organizes quite often lectures and workshop for the Belgian Magicians. The latest were : Roberto Giobbi, Aaron Fisher, Reed Mclintock, Richard Sanders, Whit Haydn, Armando Lucero… and many others to come… Jason Latimer, Paul Wilson, Michael Rubinstein ...

More info on MagicCafé Productions & MagicBooks.be

Did all Magicians have a poor Childhood?

I've been talking to a friend yesterday and asked me this strange question :

How come magicians are people that had a poor childhood?

This is an interesting question. I think. This is a strange point of view, but understandable, no?

My friend thinks that it's because you had a poor childhood you need to compensate, and one of the possibilities is to entertain people, as if you have to give something back to people that you never received.

This made me think, and maybe he is right, maybe not, i don't know...

I know one thing, i had a great childhood !

till the next post!
j.

This is the First Post

Well, first of all welcome to this blog!

Why did i create this blog?
To be honest i have no idea.

I was just talking to my girlfriend about blogs, and i said to myself, let's create one.

So here we are.

I'm passionate about Magicbooks, I have created a site MagicBooks.be where we list "toc's" (Table of contents) of many many magicbooks. To date we have about 3000 books, lecturenotes and manuscripts online ready for research.

In less than a year we have more than 550 magician members from all over the world.

Check it out and see for yourself!

Have to go now.

All the best, and thanks for reading me.
Jacky