dgmagic - UK magic blog by magician Dan Gifford

Welcome to 2007!

After a very busy Christmas period and a bit of a rest at the beginning of January, I’m back on the blog again.

December was pretty hectic, even though I didn’t perform magic at any restaurants this year. I managed to fill up my calendar with private parties, which is better for many reasons; more variety, more money and less evenings out (though being so busy still puts a bit of a strain on family life).

So, what are my plans for 2007?

I’m going to work out a new close-up magic competition routine, I have some great ideas that would be spectacular if I can pull them off. I’ll perform it at Leicester Magic Circle and then maybe some other smaller magic clubs leading up to the International Brotherhood of Magicians convention and competition. I might also enter my cabaret act into the Leicester Magic Circle competition.

I want to promote my magic lecture a bit more. It’s not a big earner, but it is a great way to meet other magicians and get a bit of exposure.

I need to update my main website www.dangifford.com. The problem is, it’s doing quite well in the search engines, so I need to be careful not to change it too much. More info and tweaks to what is already there.

I also have some other websites on the go - more on those later.

And of course I need to continue to build up my client base and get more gigs.

Plenty to keep me occupied this year!

The Christmas Party season is now upon us.

You tend to get a slightly rowdy audience at work Christmas parties. Maybe it’s something to do with releasing all the pent up frustrations of the nine to five routine and the formal work environment.

You need a thick skin when you’re performing close-up magic and interacting so closely with the audience. So far I’ve had a couple of people trying to pickpocket me (they’d had a few and it wasn’t particularly subtle) and quite a few just too sloshed to care (’I don’t like magishms, hic’).

The way I deal with it is to try and remember the great reactions, visualize them afterwards instead of dwelling on the few bad ones. Thankfully, really bad behaviour is rare and usually it’s just a bit of banter and people trying to challenge you - par for the course if you’re a magician.

And a high blood alcohol level in your audience isn’t all bad, you can get away with magic you’d never normally try.

Anyway, Christmas is a busy time for most magicians and I’m performing magic almost every night through December. So this will probably be my last post for a couple of weeks - I’ll be out performing magic for pissed people!

I’ve finally got around to posting a couple more pictures on Flickr.

They are from a gig I did a couple of weeks ago for Leonard Simmonds Associates in Worcester. It was their company Birthday party and I performed close-up magic and my stand-up magic act at the end of the night.

A magical night was had by all!

A big thank you to all the members at Coventry Magic Circle who gave me a really warm welcome last night. Performing to magicians can be difficult because they generally don’t react like ‘normal’ people - but the guys at Coventry responded and reacted in all the right places.

It’s also nerve wracking explaining your ideas and pet magic tricks to other magicians, what if they think your stuff is rubbish!? Thankfully, I think everyone took away some new idea or technique last night.

I am hoping to present my lecture ‘High Impact Magic’ at a few other magic clubs and societies over the next year. The lecture is a mixture of close-up magic, stand-up magic and mentalism effects with an emphasis on strong, direct magical effects. When I have confirmed a few more dates I’ll post some information up here.

If anyone is interested, drop me an email: dan@planetstrange.co.uk

Last weekend I had a bit of a nightmare gig, but last night’s was exactly the opposite.

It was a private party where I was booked to perform my small party close-up magic show (close-up magic performed to the whole audience together instead of mix and mingle style) and it went really well.

They were a very receptive audience and up for a good time. They even laughed at all my jokes!