dgmagic - UK magic blog by magician Dan Gifford

Last night I performed at a wedding with a Halloween theme. The hotel was decorated with cobwebs, spiders, coffins (not real ones) and an assortment of severed limbs (again, plastic not real), which I thought was an interesting touch for a wedding.

It sounds a little macabre, but it actually worked well and all the guests entered into the spirit of things. Everybody was in gory fancy dress for the evening do, my favourite being a man with an alien emerging from his stomach.

The weirdest thing (from a magician’s point of view) was the bride saying I was ‘Just like Derren Browne’. I look nothing like him and at that moment, I was performing my sponge ball routine.

Every now and then, I am reminded why being a magician is such a great job.

Just like any job, it can have it’s ups and downs. The traveling can be arduous, things go wrong and even performing can lose it’s buzz after a gig every night for a week.

A wedding at the weekend reminded me why I do it. I was performing close-up magic, walking about performing in the hands magic during the photographs and then table magic during the meal.

The wedding breakfast began and I timed it so I could perform for the top table after the main course was finished.

From the start of my set, everything went perfectly. There were no interruptions to spoil the flow, nothing went wrong, the table reacted brilliantly in all the right places and, most unbelievably, laughed at all my jokes.

It is rare when performing close-up magic in a real world situation that this happens. Sometimes the magic doesn’t work as smoothly as it should (although usually the audience is not aware of it), or the wait staff need to get to the table, or something happens in the room that distracts the audience, but not during this 10 minutes.

The climax of my routine was the ‘Congratulations Card’, an effect where the Bride and Groom choose a card between them, simply naming any card in the deck.

When they turned it over to reveal it was the only red backed card in the deck and the only one with a sticker on it that said ‘Congratulations on your Wedding’, the whole table gave the best reaction I think you can receive as a magician - the disbelieving gasp and sharp intake of breath. This turned into laughs and applause and at that moment, I actually felt a shiver run down my spine.

It’s my job to give people moments like that, hopefully making their day even more special, but it’s also fantastic that I get to share it with them.

At the weekend, I was booked to perform close-up magic at a wedding held in a rather nice country house hotel near Loughborough.

As normal, I went to introduce myself to the hotel wedding coordinator and find out what the plan for the afternoon was. I got as far as “Hi, I’m Dan the magician…” before I was told in no uncertain terms that I was not to perform the “trick where a card ends up on the ceiling…if you do you’ll be charged to clear it up…”

It turned out that a couple of magicians who had been there previously had performed this effect and it then cost the hotel £100 each time to remove the cards and repair the ceiling!

It sounds as though they had performed it using some kind of glue rather than the method using a drawing pin. When I could get a word in I explained that none of the card magic I was performing involved ceilings, glue or damage.
It’s strange how people tend to assume all magicians perform the same tricks. Maybe it’s because a lot do?

The UK Entertainer Directory is a new site I have set up (with some technical help!) for entertainers and performers to advertise their services. There is a big demand for entertainment at weddings, parties and corporate events, and these days many people go direct to the performer via a website rather than through agents.

Being a magician, I use sites like this to advertise myself but I often find they are complicated, won’t let you link to your website or are too expensive and require subscriptions. Other, more general web directories often don’t have relevant categories or they also list low quality sites that you don’t want to be associated with.

So I thought I’d create my own web directory which only has categories relevant to entertainment, is simple to use and cheap. Best of all, I have control over the sites that are admitted, so I can make sure they are good quality sites.

Entertainers and performers provide a link to their site, a short description of the entertainment service they offer and optional contact information. They can choose to place their listing in a variety of categories, including one for magicians (with sub categories for close-up, cabaret and stage magicians, and illusionists), a massive one for musicians (big because of the number of different styles of music and bands), and ones for more unusual entertainers like drag acts, after dinner speakers and living statues.

From the point of view of people looking to book an entertainer, the site is pretty easy to use. All the categories are listed on the front page, so users can click on them to browse whatever type of performer they are after. There is also a search function for finding specific listings and an option to find entertainers in a particular region.

The site is gradually filling up with listings and gradually getting more and more visitors. I’m hoping it will prove to be a useful resource for entertainers and bookers alike.

I was the magician at a wedding reception this weekend in Derby where there was no groom! (more…)