Latest / The Magic Guys / Tim Ellis & The Melbourne Magic Festival! #268

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Tim Ellis & The Melbourne Magic Festival! #268 · The Magic Guys

• 0:00
  They're guys. They do magic. They are the magic guys.
• 0:11
  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 268 of The Magic Guys.
• 0:18
  I'm Josh Norbedo, one of your magis, fellow wizards and conjurers,
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  but next to me is Nick Kay.
• 0:25
  That's right, I'm Nick Kay, people, another bald guy from The Magic Guys.
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  And also joining us is the baldest, oldest guy.
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  Wait, we don't know that. I might not be bald. We're not sure.
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  There might be a couple hairs under this hat. Yes, and if anything,
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  it's by choice, you know.
• 0:44
  Hey, I'm Doug Khan. I'll be your third wheel in this party.
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  You know, it's still, apparently the joke still works about not being able to
• 0:52
  make a rabbit appear, but you can pull a hair out of your whatever.
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  On the weekend, this lady made a joke. Everyone in Australia always makes jokes
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  about, in Queensland, how you can own a rabbit in Queensland if you're a magician,
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  but you can't if you don't.
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  And this woman in the front row, you know, wow, where's the rabbit?
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  Can you pull a rabbit out of your hat? And then I like show that I'm bald and
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  I'm like, I can't even pull her hair out.
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  And she just started crying. It was so funny apparently to her that she'd never heard the joke before.
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  It's actually in my working repertoire. Like it's a pro joke for me in my professional performances.
• 1:27
  Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense because it killed and it's great.
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  And we're glad we could have you here in the flesh, the digital flesh today, Doug.
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  Yeah. I got a desk full of magic. I could be working hard at my job instead
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  of being here having fun with you guys.
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  But I'm opting for fun instead of... Can you show everyone that old relic of
• 1:50
  an item that we don't use anymore that you just held up for five minutes before we went live?
• 1:54
  Doug has... Look, I was actually answering phone calls here.
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  Look at this. How hysterical...
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  And he's telling us that's a real landline. No, man. Trick supply.
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  This is Doug. How can I help you? Call me. I'm here now. But don't call me.
• 2:08
  I'm not answering the phone during the podcast.
• 2:10
  Ring her down. I know 10 of you are going to start ringing the damn shop.
• 2:14
  How funny is it to have a real landline? That was Eric Henning on the phone.
• 2:19
  He's a national professional. You guys might know Eric Henning's name. Oh, yeah.
• 2:25
  That's irrelevant to this podcast. Yeah. Yeah. Sorry.
• 2:30
  I mean, it is I could be more irrelevant if you'd like I'm pretty good at it,
• 2:35
  Well friends, as you can see we do this live and unscripted which is why it's
• 2:40
  probably not as funny as it should be, but fear not you can put all of your
• 2:44
  comments for our upcoming guests, which I think we should jump straight into, friends,
• 2:49
  should we introduce our guests I'll just say as well, it will be very funny
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  in post in the post edit very funny, but yes, let's continue with our guests, Nick.
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  Friends, today's guest is someone who doesn't just perform magic,
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  he has helped build the very Australian magic scene in its entirety.
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  He's a FISM award winner, creator of modern classic Cups and Balls routine,
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  which is the runaround Sioux, one of my favorite versions of the Cups and Balls.
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  He is the founder of the Laneway Theatre, the president of the Australian Institute
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  of Magic, and the man behind the Melbourne Magic Festival, which is about to
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  celebrate its 19th festival.
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  Friends he's such an important person
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  in the australian magic scene and without him i wouldn't even have the opportunity
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  to perform on stages without his encouragement without the community he's built
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  i wouldn't have been able to build my career so we're not just interviewing
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  a friend we're interviewing an absolute superstar in australian magic please
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  join me in welcoming the one and only mr tim ellis.
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  Well i can't live up to that introduction sorry about that i'm going now goodbye,
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  welcome back to the magic guys podcast for the folks being here for the first
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  time please tell us who are you and what do you do?
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  I'm Tim Ellis. I'm a magician. That's all I've done all my life because it's
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  the only practical skill that I possess.
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  Can I just speak to that for a second? One time I was asked to run a session
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  and it's like, we all know how to do magic, but nobody knows why we do magic.
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  And we went in a circle and it was like, why do you do magic?
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  And it was always like, oh, my granddad bought me a kit.
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  And what do you do? Well, I saw a guy, I saw David and then it goes all the
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  way around to Tim and we go, Tim, why do you do magic?
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  And Tim just goes, I have no other skills.
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  Other than magic. I have no other skill sets. And you've known me long enough
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  to attribute that that is absolutely true.
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  Well, I push back on it by saying, well, Tim, it doesn't take just a magician
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  to run something as awesome as the Melbourne Magic Festival,
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  which is what we want to talk about today.
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  Yes, you have to be the one who doesn't step backwards when people say,
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  could the one who wants to run the festival step forwards right right
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  true so now 19th year
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  it's 19th year we started a long time ago we have already been working on the
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  20th festival because that's going to be a huge event very very big changes
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  in the male magic festival but this year we are back at arrow on swanston as
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  our hub and instead of just doing one week at the at the hub We're doing two weeks at the Hub,
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  which means we'll be completely dead by the end of the festival,
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  probably halfway through it. We'll all be exhausted.
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  But there's so much magic this year.
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  This year, we have got 320 performances of 59 different shows over two weeks.
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  And we just did our launch, which we've never done before. We did a launch at
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  Spiegel House on Friday, which was a fantastic success.
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  Wow. What is something that people wouldn't realize is something that happens
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  when you're organizing a festival of this size? Like what would people not realize happens?
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  They probably don't realize that there's pretty much like just me running it.
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  There's other people who do help from time to time in different areas and special areas.
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  But unfortunately, I sit out, I'm the one who has to sit there and plan it all
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  out and book all the acts and figure out who's and do it and do all the budgets
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  and the invoices and chase everyone up and say,
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  hey, you haven't paid your bill yet, please pay it and contact everybody and
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  do all this sort of stuff.
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  I do have a lot of supports from people like Liam Jumpitz, who's a fantastic
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  helper, Carla Sanchez, who does a lot of work with visas and front of house work.
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  We have lots of people who help in their capacities from time to time.
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  I'm not going to name all of them because there are a lot of people who help
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  as it goes on, but probably I spend maybe, I'd say, 20 hours a week every week on the festival.
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  So it's sort of my way of giving back to the magic community,
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  which I grew up in many, many years ago and continue to live in.
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  And I just, it's sort of like if you have a festival, people go to the festival to see magic.
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  If you're just a famous magician they go
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  to see you and i want the world
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  to know that we have fantastic magicians here in australia especially
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  here in melbourne we have a huge thriving magic community
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  here and i want to showcase that community i want i want to help the young magicians
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  who are coming up i want to help the experienced magicians get opportunities
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  just like people helped me when i was growing up when i was just a 17 year old
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  magician trying to become a professional.
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  You know, looking back, the very first Magic Festival was in 2008, is that correct?
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  If your math is better than mine, probably yes. Probably, right.
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  So, the very first one, what does it look like?
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  What did the very first one look like compared to the one we have now?
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  So, the first one I went up to the Northcote Town Hall, which is just up the
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  road from where I live, and I said,
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  you know, why don't we do something like the Comedy Festival,
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  but we'll do a magic festival and i
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  think we the first one i think we might have done in october i can't remember
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  offhand but they said oh that sounds good because we want to
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  try and make our our town hall more of an arts hub and so we put a bunch of
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  people together we had i think tammy and tim from uh from the magic shop at
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  the time we had i think enzo was there i think anthony de marcy was in there
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  was a very small group of magicians there may be about 50 i can actually rehearse
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  research while I'm talking to you,
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  but there was just a small group of magicians there,
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  and we put it all together, and we ran the festival, and it was a big success,
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  and it was quite amazing how it actually worked. I'm going to give the research now. We had.
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  10 shows and 58 performances and
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  we sold 3,200 tickets so that was in
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  september in 2008 and so it
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  was amazing how how will it work and back in those days it was
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  people would come in they'd buy the ticket at the door going
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  watch the show and at the end of the show the performer would come out go
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  to the ticket box and they would give them an envelope full of cash cheesy nice
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  those were the days yes so it
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  was very very homemade and i mean it really is
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  still very homemade it's just we've got a bit more tech involved in
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  us we've we've got more people involved more
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  staff more promotions but back in those days it was like hey
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  let's put on a festival we'll put an ad in the newspaper's theater guide and
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  everyone will come and they did but now it's just there's i mean every human
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  being on the planet is their own media empire and everybody wants to get paid
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  to promote everything so it's it's become much more expensive to advertise anything,
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  I would suggest asking the talent for the festival to do their due diligence
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  on social media to promote the event.
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  That seems like a good time. We do and they do. Yeah. Yeah, they do. That's the way.
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  Yeah. Nick, one of the talents is over here, Nick Kay. He's going to be performing
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  in the festival this year, and I'm sure he's doing his due diligence as I speak. Absolutely.
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  You know, it's like a show. Play the show. Well, I've done it several times
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  in the show, but the show is called
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  Pieces of Me, And we'll get into that closer to the date, of course,
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  because it's just remarkable you've gone from the very first year having 10
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  shows to this year having how many shows now?
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  I have to refer to my notes again. It's 59, I think. 59.
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  59 shows. We have had more. The biggest year we had, I think,
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  was at Spiegel Tent where we sold 17,500 tickets.
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  Wow. That's cool.
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  But we are aiming to try and sell more this year. We're very ambitious.
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  Curious, do the acts get paid like in the old days by the ticket sales or do
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  you book acts like for fees?
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  So it runs a little bit like the comedy festival or the Hollywood Fringe Festival
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  where the acts are producers themselves. So let me give you a background.
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  The initial reason for putting the whole festival together is it was during
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  the time of the global financial crisis.
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  So a lot of magicians had no work. They had no ability to get work because no one was hiring.
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  So we thought if we put the festival on, not only do we get to showcase the
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  stuff that the magicians do to the public who don't get to see it normally.
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  Magicians also get to experiment and create new works that they can't do in
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  their normal corporate work, but also they'll learn how to produce shows.
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  So we gave them a very safe environment. And my policy has always been,
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  if you rent a room from the festival and sell 10 tickets, that should cover your rental of the room.
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  Which no other festival does that sort of ratio but
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  that's what i've always tried to do because i want to make it accessible to everybody
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  so if you if you come out and you do your show
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  and you don't do any publicity nobody turns up
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  you're going to get a handful of people coming you'll still at least
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  break even you won't make a loss and we've had that
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  record that track record going all the time which has been great but you
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  do learn how to produce your own show and we
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  have a little network and a little community of people who help each other
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  in talking about you know here's some ideas
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  to promote your show have you tried this have you tried that oh
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  i can't get onto the tv how can i do it what
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  about do this give this person a call i need someone to video
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  my show what about this person so there's lots of sharing lots
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  of community aspect in it so people talk with each
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  other and help each other and from the festival from the
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  early beginnings people like sam and justin are now
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  out doing i think they've got five major shows they
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  take to festivals now and sell out all around the world so
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  they're constantly touring around the world now doing these amazing
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  shows and selling masses and masses of
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  tickets we've got dom chambers who was a junior champion
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  at the melbourne magic festival he's now touring around the world his shows
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  like the number one show at adelaide festival you know he's in the illusionist
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  so we've got josh staley who's now doing touring around festivals uh we've got
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  nick k who came as an audience member to the festival and look now he's hosting the magic guys podcast.
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  That is quite literally how my career was. The very first year I saw it was
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  the year that Boris Wilde was one of our national guests.
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  Yeah, it was wonderful. And...
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  I was very new and early to magic, fell in love with it. And the mediation went
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  that I was performing at this variety show that was run by Nicholas J.
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  Johnson, the Australia's honest con man we've interviewed in the past.
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  And he put in a good word with Tim and was like, you got to hire this kid.
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  And Tim was just like, sure, give him five nights here.
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  I think Tim regretted it at first, but I was very thankful for his opportunity.
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  And because of Tim, I certainly, everything just launched out from there.
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  And I'm able to have a career because of you, Tim. Now he's a multi-million diet man.
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  I've only got, okay, not that much. I'm doing good. But the point is how much
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  it actually does help the community through all facets of magic.
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  So not just the kids' shows.
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  We've also done hypnotist shows.
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  We've done mentalism, comedy shows, very serious types of magic,
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  as well as lectures is what you'll get to experience at the Magic Festival, right, Tim?
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  Yes, and I do have that vivid memory of you standing on stage at the Wesleyan,
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  which was one of our hub venues, and saying to Phoenix, you can't really hypnotize people, can you?
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  And then a moment later, Nick K just drops to the ground.
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  Yeah. Nice. Is there footage of that? Please tell me there's somewhere.
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  Sadly, no. There was only one other person in the room. It was yourself and Lachlan Wild.
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  And yeah, and he did amnesia on me, and I could not remember my name for anything.
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  It was just, it felt like a sack. It was very funny. We should get Phoenix in
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  the show. He's brilliant. Yes, it was lots of fun.
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  We've had lots of strange experiences and there's Northcote Town Hall with the
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  Magic Festival had so many.
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  Unusual things like the gas leak there was
• 15:21
  a gas leak in the building and the entire venue had to
• 15:23
  be evacuated including about three big school groups who'd
• 15:26
  come in buses then we had one of our
• 15:29
  close-up i think it was a close-up gala where there was a suburb
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  wide blackout and everybody came outside and got
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  their their phone torches and held them up like that and everyone
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  performed under phone torch lights cool that's
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  cool you showcase some close-up magic
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  then i heard you mention a few genres but every genre
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  in magic is showcased uh this year we
• 15:52
  are really thrilled we've got every year we have a spanish magician
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  because that's the condition under which carla will work for
• 15:58
  us she says we have to get out a spanish magician because
• 16:01
  she is spanish and she always loves getting her her colleagues
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  out so this year we have ernan mcgagnon and he
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  is coming along and because he is so good like i saw him
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  at fism and i was i was the only
• 16:13
  complaint out was that they didn't stage him properly
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  he was on stage they had cameras and it was hard to see what he's
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  doing so i said if you come to melbourne we just
• 16:22
  want you to do shows for audiences of just 20
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  at a time yeah baby so it's 20 people around a table he will have to repeat
• 16:31
  the show more often than maybe he likes to but a lot of times you know when
• 16:34
  you're doing it that close it's worth it so he's going to be coming along those
• 16:37
  shows will sell out very fast it's called reflections of Illusions.
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  Reflection of the Apostle,
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  and it's just 20 people at a table with Hernan, and that's going to be a fantastic show.
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  He's also doing a show, only one, entirely in Spanish, which is actually selling out quite quickly.
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  So that's for our Spanish community, and he'll be doing a lecture as well.
• 16:59
  So he'll be lecturing at the Magic Festival, and then I think he's lecturing
• 17:02
  in Brisbane and Sydney, I think, as well.
• 17:05
  Come on! Or maybe Adelaide. Alright. Right.
• 17:09
  He's touring about. So that's going to be fantastic. We also,
• 17:13
  speaking of international guests, as I have led us into this pathway,
• 17:16
  we have Calista Sinclair.
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  Now, if you were at FISM, hands up.
• 17:21
  Just me, all right. So, you're at Fism. Sorry, buddy.
• 17:24
  We just sat back and won it. It was weird. Yeah, you just sat back and said,
• 17:28
  post the award twice. Come on, give it to us.
• 17:31
  So, Calista. I'm sure we'll be invited back to get our award next, Fism, right?
• 17:37
  Well, she didn't give this podcast.
• 17:40
  But she won a different award. But her act, I honestly thought she should have
• 17:44
  taken out the Grand Prix. It was astonishing.
• 17:47
  I've never seen anything like it before. It's very impossible to describe.
• 17:50
  But she came out on stage as an old woman.
• 17:53
  And as you watch, she visually de-aged.
• 17:57
  It looked like a movie. She's visually de-aged. It was like the opposite of
• 18:01
  quick change. It was like slow change.
• 18:03
  She just stood on stage and slowly became younger and younger.
• 18:06
  And then at one point she was pregnant and then she had a baby and all this
• 18:09
  it was it was amazing everything was going on and then
• 18:12
  at the end she just floats away and vanishes and it's
• 18:15
  uh it was a piece of art and so
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  i said to her please come to melbourne i said by the way
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  you will have to do an extra 45 minutes along with your five minute
• 18:24
  act no problem that's all right so i
• 18:27
  booked it specifically just for one act which is doing a whole show it's
• 18:29
  called you married a witch and it's all
• 18:32
  about the patriarchy so it's going to be a lot of fun so that that show
• 18:35
  is going to be in our first week of the festival and our second
• 18:38
  week of the festival our special guest is magical katrina
• 18:41
  now magical katrina is the you probably saw
• 18:44
  her in the chapel rowan video red wine supernova
• 18:48
  where she taught chapel rowan how to do magic and
• 18:51
  she appeared in it as the uh the other magician in
• 18:53
  the in the video but she's uh very very
• 18:56
  well known on social media and very heavily
• 18:59
  in demand for kids shows so i asked her to come and do
• 19:02
  her kids show uh we had eric leclerc do his kids show
• 19:05
  last year was a big success so i said please come and do your kids show
• 19:08
  and she's like well that's what i always do could i do something
• 19:11
  else as well and so she's also going to be doing an evening show called i am
• 19:15
  not a spy this is a magic show and this shows premiering at the hollywood fringe
• 19:20
  i think this month before it comes to melbourne to be performed as well and
• 19:24
  she'll actually be doing a lecture which is a bit different to what we normally
• 19:27
  have which is a lecture about.
• 19:30
  Marketing and internet marketing and how you can become successful because she
• 19:34
  her social media the following is insane and that's how she's got so much work
• 19:39
  so i've actually seen that it's a banger she
• 19:43
  She delivers some great information and is super pro on the marketing end of things, for sure.
• 19:50
  So I'm sure that's going to be a very popular lecture as well.
• 19:53
  But, you know, we are primarily not a magic conference. We are a magic festival.
• 19:58
  So our market is the public.
• 20:00
  Because I also used to run the magic conventions here in Australia.
• 20:05
  And we'd have, I think, Nick, did you ever go to any of them?
• 20:08
  You know, it was literally like a year before I got into magic where I missed
• 20:13
  the real good one where you had Gate and Bloom, you had Sean Farquhar.
• 20:19
  That was the ASM convention.
• 20:23
  The last Australian magicians convention was in Heidelberg.
• 20:29
  We had Ongyul Lee, Norbert Ferrer, Henry Evans. Henry Evans.
• 20:35
  Oh, a couple of other, I'm going to feel very embarrassed. I can't remember
• 20:38
  everybody. We had a lot of acts.
• 20:40
  I had to sort of almost mortgage my house to run that one because nobody wanted to run it.
• 20:45
  Everyone was like, we're not going to do any more conventions.
• 20:47
  We're going to do one big one.
• 20:48
  And it was a huge convention. But at that convention, I sort of realized that
• 20:52
  magicians are really performing at these conventions for other magicians.
• 20:55
  And we don't get to see our real work. So that's one of the other reasons this
• 21:00
  festival is so good, because you get to watch the other magicians performing
• 21:03
  for the public and go, ah, the coloring book is actually quite a good trick or whatever.
• 21:09
  You know, you get Stephen's stuff working.
• 21:12
  You know, stuff that you'd think, you know, like, oh, I do the linking rings.
• 21:15
  I won't do that at convention because the magicians are sick of it.
• 21:18
  But you do it for the public and they're like, oh, I've never seen that before.
• 21:22
  So it's a really different experience. And as you know, Nick,
• 21:25
  we know if you are a producer of the festival, You get a producer pass,
• 21:28
  which means you can sneak in if there's any seats available and watch the other performers.
• 21:32
  And quite often, you'll find a performer you like and just watch all of their shows.
• 21:36
  And it's much more educational than attending a magic convention and having
• 21:41
  lectures and shows and stuff like that. You actually get to see the real work.
• 21:45
  Can you repeat that? There's like a producer's pass for the event? Yeah, yeah.
• 21:49
  If you produce, most festivals have it. If you are a producer in the festival,
• 21:54
  you get a producer pass, which means that once everybody's seated in the audience,
• 21:58
  if there are any empty seats, you can go in and take a seat.
• 22:01
  We also have that for volunteers because we always have volunteers at the festival.
• 22:05
  This is a little plug for anyone watching who'd like to be a volunteer at the
• 22:08
  festival. It's a good job. You're basically like an usher, like a ticket collector.
• 22:12
  So if you're a volunteer, you get a volunteer's pass, which
• 22:15
  is a little bit better than a producer pass because the volunteers get first
• 22:19
  dibs at the empty seats then the producers get their dibs out so yeah if you
• 22:23
  want to be a volunteer for the festival there's a link on the website and we
• 22:27
  get i think we're about 60 volunteers every time and they always come back they
• 22:32
  have such a great time they can win prizes and they get a great networking,
• 22:35
  experience and they get to watch so much great magic,
• 22:39
  You know, you mentioned Onggyul Lee.
• 22:43
  Is it true that you actually contributed to that book, which was the first ever
• 22:49
  Korean language magic book?
• 22:51
  Yeah, I didn't know I had, but I did.
• 22:55
  So Onggyul, who is a great friend of mine, I love Onggyul.
• 22:58
  And honestly, if you ever get to see Onggyul's Illusion show,
• 23:01
  you have to really go to Korea to see it.
• 23:03
  It's worth the flight. It is the best Illusion show in the world.
• 23:07
  So Ongyul, when he started doing magic, he sort of had his first big break where
• 23:13
  he won an award at the College of Magic, South African Championships of Magic.
• 23:18
  And then he was like a hero in Korea because that was the first time anyone
• 23:21
  outside in Korea had won an outside award.
• 23:24
  And he released a magic book, which, you know, you think, oh,
• 23:28
  let's do a magic book. But he put one of my effects in there without my permission.
• 23:32
  In Korea? And when I had a look, I was like, can I have a chat with you, please?
• 23:37
  For what i said you know when you put put people's tricks
• 23:40
  in books yeah you have to ask them
• 23:43
  first it was all
• 23:48
  sorted out he's he is you know the most ethical magician you'll
• 23:51
  ever meet i think he invited me to do his tv show
• 23:54
  called the storytelling magic show he said can you
• 23:56
  come and do a guest spot on my show and i said fantastic i'd love
• 23:59
  to so i flew to korea and i said how long do you
• 24:02
  want it's like just 10 minutes and there's like 20 minutes i
• 24:05
  did like 45 minutes guest spot on
• 24:08
  his show wow it's like um
• 24:11
  i felt like i did the entire show it was it was amazing i'm like just pulling
• 24:15
  out new tricks what is your oh yeah i'll do this one too it's a really great
• 24:19
  format he had a whole lot of korean celebrities sitting on like bleachers around
• 24:25
  the area and you do your show you do your tricks and they were just sitting there like.
• 24:31
  Freaking out yeah and you'd get them involved oh and they were saying all this
• 24:36
  stuff in korean and you're going i hope that's positive i think that's good
• 24:39
  i think it was such a fun concept,
• 24:42
  wow are you still doing much traveling yourself like even though you're so busy
• 24:47
  with this festival i feel like you're always right and yeah i do i do a lot
• 24:51
  of cruises i tend to do just like the luxury cruise ships i i started wanted
• 24:55
  to do cruises originally because of the big big theaters They've got fantastic
• 24:59
  theaters on these ships.
• 25:00
  But for some reason, I've sort of, I don't, I mean, I choose which ones I do,
• 25:04
  but I keep getting offers mainly on the Seabourns and Regent and Oceania and
• 25:08
  Silver Seas and these sort of luxury cruise ships, which don't really have the
• 25:11
  big theaters, but you get treated really nicely.
• 25:14
  And you only do like one performance instead of doing two performances of your show.
• 25:18
  So generally the cruise ships, you've got to do two 45 minute shows,
• 25:21
  two different shows, and you will do a 7.30 and a 9.30 or something.
• 25:26
  But on these ships, you just do a 9.30.
• 25:29
  So I tend to do maybe six or
• 25:32
  seven in the start of the year and maybe six or seven in the later part of the
• 25:35
  year and so in the start of the year that's when I'm doing the magic festival
• 25:39
  work so I'm in my cabin on my computer doing graphics putting together you know
• 25:45
  the program and doing all that sort of stuff scheduling invoicing to all those
• 25:49
  things because I got good internet,
• 25:52
  and that's how I spend my free time on the cruise ships that's so clever you've
• 25:57
  literally figured out what it is people should do when they're in their cabins?
• 26:01
  Well, it can be. Look, the very first time I was doing cruise ships,
• 26:04
  I'm like, oh, and you know, like you're going, oh, I feel like I should be relaxing, but I'm working.
• 26:11
  Ah, and you don't do either of them. And you end up getting out and going,
• 26:14
  I just wasted the whole time.
• 26:16
  Because, you know, you think, oh, I'll just go back and relax by the pool.
• 26:19
  And then you're like, oh, perhaps I should be working on my act or perhaps I
• 26:21
  should be doing, and you don't do anything. So, yeah, I just go,
• 26:26
  this is my magic festival preparation time on these ships.
• 26:29
  That's so cool. You know, we've done a lot of promo things in the past with
• 26:33
  regards to promoting the Magic Festival as well as other festivals.
• 26:37
  So for example, one year we had Wayne Houchen and his partner suspended upside
• 26:42
  down with the straitjacket escape and so forth.
• 26:45
  Really fun stuff. But there is a particular box that you keep in your foyer
• 26:48
  at your home, which is a fun story attached to it where you did some promo for Magic Week.
• 26:54
  Can we tell them that story, Tim? um i'm just trying to think how it so originally
• 27:01
  this box was made for me to do an escape.
• 27:04
  So uh when you come into the laneway theater the the
• 27:08
  bar i suppose the counter is there's a glass top on this wooden crate and it
• 27:12
  was made for many many years ago i did an escape to promote what was at the
• 27:18
  time magic week so magic week is the precursor to the melbourne magic festival
• 27:22
  magic week was essentially in the 80s and 90s.
• 27:26
  And it was me saying, there's a lot of magic happening.
• 27:28
  There's people working in restaurants and cafes and doing shows.
• 27:31
  We should put it all together under one umbrella and celebrate it.
• 27:36
  And we do it at Halloween to commemorate the anniversary of Houdini's death.
• 27:40
  And so I thought, what can we do? We could do a big stunt. So I had John Bowen
• 27:45
  build me a box, a big crate.
• 27:48
  So I was tied up with rope, put into a sack
• 27:51
  that was tied up put into the box it was nailed shut chain shut
• 27:54
  and lowered into the yarra river and so
• 27:57
  we did a test we did it for a regatta in
• 28:00
  devonport in tasmania where it was beautiful clear warm water 10 000 people
• 28:06
  came out they lowered me in i got out it was beautiful i'm like this is so good
• 28:10
  this is so easy so yarra river comes out lowered in it's like going into solid
• 28:17
  it's not like water It's like, it's like black stuff.
• 28:20
  So I'm in the box and I'm like.
• 28:24
  And I almost didn't get a breath. I'm like, but you could feel the water.
• 28:29
  It wasn't like clear, warm water. It was cold, hard mud.
• 28:32
  It was disgusting. And I got out as fast as I can. I remember the voice going,
• 28:37
  and he's out in one minute, 45 seconds.
• 28:39
  I'm like, that was like 10 seconds. That felt like 10 seconds.
• 28:42
  So that box was used for Magic Week to promote that.
• 28:45
  And we got national TV coverage and that was great. but
• 28:49
  then while later quite a while later i got
• 28:52
  a call from tv show what was
• 28:55
  it i'm having a mental blank now it was
• 28:58
  a late night show so will anderson was no no it
• 29:01
  was will you remember nick who was it i'm not
• 29:04
  sure buddy road nick manners or the full show i'll remember it after we finish
• 29:09
  this i'm sure so ah adam hills adam hills go in gordon street tonight with adam
• 29:15
  hills so they said we want to do a segment where we have people you know like
• 29:20
  the lady is heckled a magician,
• 29:22
  and so we want to get revenge on her by having a
• 29:25
  mom you know on a board and throwing knives at her or put in a box and put sticks
• 29:30
  through her i was like well that's sort of a bit naff you know people will know
• 29:34
  it's not really you know she's not really in danger and then i thought to something
• 29:38
  that penn and teller did once on one of their specials where they put someone
• 29:41
  in a box and threw them in the river. And that was it. That's all they did.
• 29:44
  And so I thought, well, we could use this box.
• 29:48
  So what happened was that they did the whole thing live in the studio.
• 29:52
  Your mum is in this box. And they cut to Williamstown Pier, and there's me and
• 29:57
  a bunch of other magicians and this lady's 75-year-old mother inside the box
• 30:02
  as we put the lid on it and screw it shut and then push it into the river.
• 30:06
  And I think Dave O'Neill said, oh, this is great. What happens now,
• 30:10
  is she going to escape? And I went, no, she's not going to escape.
• 30:12
  She's not a magician. There's no way she's getting out of that.
• 30:14
  And that was it. That was the segment. And then they cut back to it a few times
• 30:18
  and there's divers in the water and they go, we can't find the box.
• 30:21
  I've been swept out to sea. We don't know what.
• 30:23
  Then at the final segment, because it's all live, the final segment,
• 30:26
  she comes back into the studio and she's.
• 30:29
  Wet with makeup running out of her face. It's like, don't ever heckle magicians
• 30:32
  again, and hugs her daughter.
• 30:34
  So it was a really good thing. And I actually got to show that to Teller when he was in Melbourne.
• 30:39
  And he's like, I won't say what he said, but I did it live.
• 30:44
  And he was quite surprised that we were able to do it live.
• 30:48
  Because, yeah, so it was good. We had a nice exchange of ideas after that.
• 30:55
  I'd come up with a method, basically. so
• 30:59
  you know as well as helping the community with magic festivals
• 31:02
  magic week and as well as everything else you do printed media has certainly
• 31:06
  been one of those things that has now kind of been phased out but you did produce
• 31:10
  the australian magic monthly and did 100 issues of that do you do you miss like
• 31:16
  those days of publication where we okay good chat,
• 31:23
  it was the hardest work i've ever done really like pulling teeth it's like you're
• 31:30
  saying to magicians all around australia hey guys i have this publication that
• 31:34
  goes out to hundreds and hundreds of people and i would love to put your upcoming
• 31:39
  events in it so they know and they can come and see your shows people like.
• 31:46
  So i'm having to scour everywhere i can and
• 31:49
  go oh so-and-so's doing a show put that in there oh so-and-so's doing a show
• 31:52
  and then it's like you know trying to get people some people
• 31:55
  are very happy to write articles some people want to write a column or get column
• 31:58
  other people want to put some advertising in that's good but there are there
• 32:02
  are occasions where the whole episode the whole right monthly issue is like
• 32:07
  i've had to write everything in it and people like well it's a bit Tim Ellis-centric
• 32:11
  this month. I'm going, yeah, because nobody else would write anything.
• 32:18
  But yeah, we finally finished it. And I think we ended up handing it over to
• 32:23
  Andrew Wimhurst, I think it was, and somebody else. They were going to publish it.
• 32:28
  And so they did the first issue. I think they called it Hocus.
• 32:32
  And they did the first issue. And then there was a gap. It was supposed to be every month.
• 32:36
  And it was like two months later, the next issue came out. And then there's another gap.
• 32:40
  And see with me anytime my issues were
• 32:43
  even a day late i'd get bombarded with
• 32:46
  phone calls and angry where's my where's my copy of magic monthly i
• 32:49
  don't have it yet i don't have it yet and i think they ended up i don't think
• 32:52
  they've ended up doing 12 issues in the end and so in the end in the year 2000
• 32:57
  we did we revisited and we did amm 2000 and we did another 12 issues just a
• 33:02
  very limited subscription run with color covers and a bit more high tech and,
• 33:07
  very planned out, so it wasn't such a stressful job to do.
• 33:12
  But it was pre-internet, so the only way you could find out who was working
• 33:16
  where, where the clubs were or the connections were, was through printed media.
• 33:20
  And that's how I got to be good friends with Teller because he was one of the
• 33:23
  subscribers to Australian Magic Monthly.
• 33:26
  And he quite liked the fact that there were no punches pulled in the publications.
• 33:31
  Wow. If I can ask you a question, going back to the festival,
• 33:36
  Do you sort of have any stats on with ticket purchases like,
• 33:42
  Do the public buy a ticket to a magic show and then typically,
• 33:46
  if they love it, go and buy and see another magic show?
• 33:50
  Or do they sort of get indulged in one and then they're like,
• 33:53
  ah, yes, I'll come back next year?
• 33:55
  Or do you find… They come back a lot. Lots of people buy lots of tickets.
• 33:58
  We've already had a pre-sale that started on April 18. And all our regulars
• 34:03
  were out there buying, I think one of them bought 25 tickets to different shows.
• 34:07
  So people, they save up all year. They look forward to it. It's Christmas for
• 34:11
  a lot of people, the Magic Festival.
• 34:13
  Every now and again, I'm like, it's so much work. I don't want to do it anymore.
• 34:17
  And my mom is constantly saying, could you please stop doing the Magic Festival?
• 34:22
  She goes, just leave it alone. Leave it alone. Don't do it anymore.
• 34:26
  I'm like, but every time I start to go, well, perhaps I won't do it,
• 34:29
  I just get letters from people or emails or messages, and they're just like,
• 34:32
  we love the Magic Festival so much. We really look forward to it.
• 34:35
  Our whole family loves it.
• 34:36
  And so i just have to go well you know the people want it the people get it
• 34:41
  so you know it's it's great but they do we do get people coming to to see lots
• 34:46
  of shows that's why we have the 18.
• 34:48
  Tuesdays so people can afford to come and see multiple shows on the tuesdays
• 34:53
  we got two tuesdays this year so that's great and we also will have special
• 34:58
  ticket offers we have had the 20 the pre-sales 20% off all the tickets. That's just ended.
• 35:03
  May 8th was the general ticket launch, which we just had. So again,
• 35:08
  we had another flurry of ticket purchases.
• 35:10
  Tim Credible has been with us since the very beginning. He does a kid's show.
• 35:14
  He always does a lot of shows and he said ticket sales for him this year are
• 35:19
  better than they've been. So that's a very positive thing.
• 35:23
  And our stage gala show, I think is a third sold out already when I looked last
• 35:28
  week. so that will probably sell out,
• 35:31
  I'd say, in the next couple of weeks. But there are quite a few shows that are
• 35:35
  – I was just saying before we made an announcement, Lee Cohen's show has sold
• 35:39
  out three or four sessions already.
• 35:41
  And it was like, wow, yeah. But her show only takes four people at a time.
• 35:50
  Well, you just don't mention that bit. It's a very personal show.
• 35:55
  It's really interesting. She came to me with the idea to do a show called Enchantment
• 36:00
  Corner, where people come in and have a little five or ten minute magic experience
• 36:04
  just for the four or five of them in this little world that she's going to create in a special room.
• 36:09
  So why not? We'll try that because we're always up for new and unusual ideas.
• 36:14
  That's very cool. It sounds like the audiences, they understand that every magic
• 36:20
  show is a different show.
• 36:22
  It's not like an umbrella of a magic show. They're starting to get that idea.
• 36:27
  I mean, this is a thing. we have had acts that have come from other festivals and,
• 36:32
  Our audience, I think, is, I mean, after all these years, they should be,
• 36:36
  but I think they're a little more discerning.
• 36:38
  So some people who've had success at other festivals where there's not been
• 36:42
  a lot of magic, you know, their punters might have gone and seen a comedy show,
• 36:46
  a variety show, a circus show, and then seen their magic show and gone,
• 36:50
  wow, what a great magic show.
• 36:51
  But when that magic show is then transferred into a magic festival and put up
• 36:56
  against other magic shows, our audience goes and sees and goes,
• 37:00
  yeah, we've seen better.
• 37:03
  Because, you know, they've seen a lot of magic. So you know what it's like.
• 37:07
  You have an audience, you do a sponge ball trick or something like,
• 37:12
  you're better than David Copperfield, that's incredible.
• 37:14
  And you say, have you seen much magic before? You're the first one I've ever seen.
• 37:18
  And you go, yeah, that's the power of magic. But then once they've seen a few
• 37:23
  different acts, they go, yeah, that little ball, yeah, it's not so good.
• 37:27
  It's not so good. We've seen better. so i i
• 37:30
  like to think that we're we're giving the audiences experiences and they
• 37:33
  that was one of the amazing things we did with this
• 37:36
  launch we did on friday so spiegel house
• 37:39
  which is a new venue here in melbourne they invited us to do a launch which
• 37:44
  we've never really done before and with their contacts with social meat we had
• 37:48
  260 influences and media people and stuff come along so i coordinated a program
• 37:54
  where when they came in they had free drinks they had strolling magicians.
• 37:59
  Then they went into the big circus tent to watch the show.
• 38:02
  And then after the show, they had one-on-one encounters with magicians where
• 38:06
  they'd be brought in to sit down with different magicians and do like a rotating
• 38:10
  experience with five or six different genres of magic.
• 38:13
  And then of course they come out and if they saw anyone wearing the magic festival
• 38:17
  pin, they could approach them and say, you're a magician, do a trick.
• 38:20
  And they would do a trick for them. And.
• 38:23
  Influencers were so excited and the
• 38:26
  majority of them had never heard of the magic vessel before which
• 38:29
  is not surprising because we have zero advertising budget even
• 38:32
  though we can have 19 years so they were all hyper excited
• 38:35
  and when we started the show in the tent you know
• 38:38
  i came out and and they're all like they're like
• 38:41
  crazy and i opened the show by doing something that
• 38:45
  i probably shouldn't do but because it's my birthday on
• 38:47
  that day i said i'm going to do the suspended straightjacket
• 38:51
  escape because I haven't done it in 20 years and why
• 38:54
  not and so as I was being
• 38:57
  hoisted up they're like you know I get
• 39:00
  my head out and then whoa and I undo the buckle whoa it
• 39:04
  was amazing and every act that came out was just the
• 39:07
  reaction was so over the top so it was
• 39:09
  because we had really short segments you know everyone's just doing
• 39:12
  five really tight minutes and we'd have like a
• 39:15
  kid's show entertainer a mentalist a
• 39:18
  card expert and and all these different magicians and you
• 39:21
  could see on the faces people it's just like and they're
• 39:25
  just filming everything and their their eyes are wide and they're almost
• 39:28
  teary because they're you know people coming up after me going
• 39:31
  oh i was really back in my child it was amazing and so i was sort of thinking
• 39:36
  this is the audience we need to tap into because we're we're already attracting
• 39:40
  our core audience but we really somehow need to get the word out and get everybody
• 39:45
  to come and see the magic festival because there really is something for everyone.
• 39:50
  Some of the actors you might go, well that's a bit chintzy but there's a market,
• 39:54
  there's an audience who want to see chintzy magic.
• 39:56
  Some of the actors are very dark and oh I don't want to see that,
• 39:59
  but there's an audience who want to see that style of magic.
• 40:02
  My favourite as far as like.
• 40:05
  I mean, not that I have favorites, but my favorite, because it is so different, is Dane's certificate.
• 40:10
  Because Dane will do magic that is, Nick's seen it before, it's hard to describe.
• 40:17
  You know, I can only say it's abstract and surreal.
• 40:20
  We had, last time, we had people coming out of his show just like,
• 40:24
  I don't know what I just saw, but I feel wonderful.
• 40:29
  Yeah, they liked it. That's magic. That's what it's all about.
• 40:33
  Yeah, it was great. Magic and art put together in the most beautiful way, and it was perplexing.
• 40:42
  It made you think, it made you feel, it did all the things that magic is supposed to do.
• 40:48
  And that year, I gave out the Director's Choice Award, and I had to split it.
• 40:53
  I gave it to Dane's certificate, because he was just achieving the goal of magic.
• 40:59
  His show wasn't perfect, but it was achieving the goal of leaving people with the feels.
• 41:04
  And then the other person i gave it to was dom chambers with a boy in his deck
• 41:09
  because it's the funniest magic show i've ever seen and it was delivering exactly
• 41:16
  what it needed to deliver and so those two shows completely different to each
• 41:20
  other but i'm like i could not split them i had to give both the awards.
• 41:24
  So anyone wanting to consider putting on a show at a future Melbourne Magic
• 41:29
  Festival, is the goal to kind of try and be as non-generic magic show as you can?
• 41:37
  Try and find an abstract approach to a show?
• 41:41
  Is that kind of like what you're looking for? The goal is whatever you want to achieve.
• 41:45
  The goal is whatever you want to achieve because some people want to do a commercial
• 41:50
  magic show and they want to test it out and they want to get it going.
• 41:52
  Some people want to just do shows and get money.
• 41:54
  Whatever your goal is that's fine we
• 41:58
  will try and find a place for it in the festival we have
• 42:02
  very interesting thing that we're working on for next year which
• 42:05
  we will announce in time but that will change everything
• 42:08
  but for what we've been doing for
• 42:11
  the last 19 years we generally accept all
• 42:15
  offers if we can it's not
• 42:18
  really a curated festival as such it hasn't
• 42:21
  been anyway and so sometimes we'll have
• 42:24
  shows in there where the audience comes out and they're like i want
• 42:27
  my money back that was terrible we're like
• 42:30
  well make it up with the producer and generally the
• 42:33
  producers are like yeah yeah i didn't do a good job here's your
• 42:36
  money back yikes but you
• 42:39
  know we're not gonna it's not like it's not like
• 42:42
  that doesn't happen at the comedy festival I thought true yeah there's a huge
• 42:46
  non-magic acts is that something you bring in juggling we generally don't we
• 42:51
  generally don't I mean it is a magic festival yeah we have had we have had I
• 42:55
  think I'd say maybe three I've had I think we've had a flea circus guy.
• 43:01
  We've had ventriloquist show we've had Peter Gray who's an amazing circus performer
• 43:08
  okay I think that that might be it I think yeah I think,
• 43:13
  Other than maybe the hypnosis realm, that's pretty much as far as we've stretched the magic scene.
• 43:20
  And sometimes people will be like, you know, I've got a magical show or something
• 43:24
  like that. And we go, well, you know, maybe, maybe.
• 43:27
  So, you know, we don't want to restrict anyone and we don't want to say, well, that's not magic.
• 43:32
  You know, you need to have 15% magic content in your show minimum or anything like that.
• 43:37
  But we weigh each other, we weigh each option up as it comes.
• 43:41
  Yeah. There's a remarkable level of freedom that's given to the performers,
• 43:44
  producers of the shows. And it's a very safe place to do it financially as well.
• 43:48
  And it's been an absolute blessing to be able to go there and work on shows.
• 43:52
  I mean, one of the best examples I think is Lucy Darling, who quite literally
• 43:57
  was born at the Melbourne Magic Festival. And I remember the first year she'd done it.
• 44:01
  And then the year after, we're backstage and she turns to me and she goes, I'm one years old today.
• 44:09
  And I was like, she is, she's one year old because she was literally born here.
• 44:14
  And this is where she developed the character. there and now you know from the
• 44:16
  melbourne magic festival to doing shows at the mgm grand in vegas
• 44:19
  like it is really selling out the london palladium
• 44:22
  twice there you go it is really that
• 44:25
  wonderful place that you have a very safe place to just
• 44:28
  dive deep in and do some really really
• 44:31
  out there stuff if you if you want to do it we have a question
• 44:34
  from tim askin he's asking is there an
• 44:37
  audition process no there is not essentially you
• 44:43
  are coming in as a self-producer so you're
• 44:46
  coming in and saying the information will be up on the website again
• 44:49
  on in october i think usually october
• 44:52
  we start to apply have applications for the next year but
• 44:55
  i mean you're welcome to go into the section to the website go to the very bottom
• 44:58
  you'll see where it says producer magic show producer resources and we usually
• 45:03
  have the applications from the previous year still up you can have a look at
• 45:07
  that there's a producer's guide that tells you how to do it and essentially
• 45:10
  what it is is you apply and say this is the show i want to do this is where i'd like to do it.
• 45:16
  And there's a fee for if you're going to do a hub venue
• 45:19
  there's a fee for whatever space you want to have but if you say you
• 45:22
  want to do the houdini theater that will be this much money per week or per
• 45:26
  show that's what you pay and then you would pay i think it's three dollars fifty
• 45:30
  per ticket to the magic festival that's what helps to fund the festival you
• 45:34
  can also run a satellite venue and you can have it at any of our recommended
• 45:38
  satellite venues or any venue you want to have out.
• 45:40
  One of the venues we're having is the Little River Mechanics Institute, which is out in the bush.
• 45:47
  So they're going to be having a show as well. They just really wanted to have
• 45:50
  a show. One of our magicians in that area said, oh, I'll do it.
• 45:53
  So he's putting on a show in there. So essentially they just pay a set fee for
• 45:57
  a satellite venue and then they can do the ticketing any way they want and they
• 46:00
  can produce it any way they like.
• 46:01
  So there's not an audition process.
• 46:04
  We get a lot of emails from people saying, please hire me for your festival. We don't hire.
• 46:09
  It's not a magic convention people like i've got a great
• 46:12
  i've got a great 10 minute act in the lecture but well that's wonderful
• 46:15
  but that's not what this is all about you know it's about
• 46:17
  people coming in with creating 45 minute to
• 46:20
  one hour shows and that sort of stuff or maybe you have a different concept you
• 46:23
  know like like with leeko with a little five or
• 46:27
  10 minute show for just four people at a time you know
• 46:29
  one of the things i would like to do i'd like to see
• 46:32
  somebody do as an idea where there's nobody's put
• 46:35
  their hand up to do it yet but to do like a magical tour a walking
• 46:38
  tour of melbourne during the festival taking you
• 46:41
  through the locations where famous magicians around
• 46:44
  the world appeared in different theaters or where magic
• 46:47
  shops used to be and magic happenings and make it a really
• 46:51
  interesting walking tour you know we want to have we've done
• 46:54
  exhibits before with art and collections nicholas johnson did his his pee and
• 46:59
  shell game collection we've had enzo fico did an exhibition about his uncle
• 47:03
  the famous magician bloomin from italy so we've had those we've had a photographic
• 47:08
  exhibit off-site another venue with um.
• 47:12
  A whole range of photographers are taking action photos of Australian magicians.
• 47:16
  All sorts of different ideas. We always like to try new things if we can.
• 47:19
  What about a retail space?
• 47:20
  Like, you know, conventions will have a dealer's hall. Do you have any space like that?
• 47:24
  We usually have enough space to allow for somebody to run a magic shop in the venue.
• 47:30
  We don't run it ourselves because it's just too much work.
• 47:34
  You know, we don't have enough people to staff a magic shop.
• 47:38
  So we will negotiate with someone and say
• 47:41
  look we'll give you the space and we could do this deal and whatever
• 47:44
  and we encourage people to come in and buy
• 47:48
  and it really depends on who's running it
• 47:50
  as to how successful they are understood you know
• 47:54
  i just wanted to circle back to what you said about when people say
• 47:57
  like i got a 10-minute act in a lecture and so forth so last
• 48:00
  year we had eric leclerc and we also had devise dostal who
• 48:02
  is one of the most amazing creators really
• 48:06
  surreal magic never actually put together a show before
• 48:09
  like didn't actually have like a close-up shows before
• 48:12
  but not a stage show so yeah yeah it was
• 48:16
  funny because i i booked him and and he said oh yeah it's all good here i said
• 48:19
  you're in the houdini theater he's like oh how many is that it's 260 he's like
• 48:23
  oh it's just a problem no no it's fine and then later i found out he'd never
• 48:28
  done a stage show before but he made up the stage show especially for the festival
• 48:31
  so you know it's People just push their envelopes.
• 48:35
  And as you said with the Carissa example, they go, well, it's in Australia.
• 48:39
  No one's going to find out if I fail.
• 48:41
  Yeah, but also what I wanted to speak to you is that, I mean, he and I keep in touch.
• 48:45
  And even when I saw him in Vegas and stuff, he's now doing that show that he created in Melbourne.
• 48:51
  I had a few convention organizers contact me afterwards and say,
• 48:55
  we've got Tobias Dostoe coming to our convention.
• 48:58
  I heard he's got a stage show.
• 49:01
  Yes, it's very good. oh okay we'll book him yeah i need to commission tobias if you're watching.
• 49:11
  You know i you know we've had
• 49:14
  a lot of international guests who get pretty staggered by the the
• 49:17
  community that we have here in the scene do you do you feel responsible for
• 49:22
  that do you take any pride in that whatsoever tim i mean no responsibility i
• 49:27
  credit you a whole bunch for that reason you know and when people are absolutely
• 49:32
  staggered you know when i've got someone in the car with me,
• 49:35
  and i'm offering a gig to someone in the back seat you know like giving giving
• 49:38
  them a ride home or something they're like you give them work i'm like of course
• 49:41
  they do they're my these are my people and they're just like wow well one one
• 49:46
  thing we do now we're doing tomorrow night if you're in melbourne come to the
• 49:49
  arts center tomorrow night we're doing magicians at work so magicians at work.
• 49:55
  I won't go in the whole backstory how it developed but essentially what it is
• 49:59
  is every month a bunch of magicians in the Australian Institute of Magic get
• 50:03
  together, and we jam ideas, we brainstorm ideas.
• 50:06
  So, you know, Nick might do a routine, and we give him feedback and say,
• 50:11
  if you try this, and this bit looks a bit weak, try this instead,
• 50:13
  do this, do this, do this.
• 50:14
  And we each take a turn, we do our routines. And then the next month,
• 50:18
  we go up and we do the acts for the public, and the public come along.
• 50:23
  And after every act is performed, the public then write down their thoughts
• 50:26
  anonymously on paper and had it in.
• 50:29
  And the actor gets to read that immediately.
• 50:32
  And then after the whole show is done, we have a theater director or some consultant
• 50:36
  who comes in and gives notes on every act.
• 50:39
  And of course, the magicians give notes to each other as well.
• 50:41
  So that's the sort of cooperative collegiate environment that we like to create.
• 50:47
  So it has been a long time coming. When I was growing up.
• 50:51
  We had a little bit of that because I was in a group called the young magicians
• 50:54
  so we were teenage magicians we worked together and we
• 50:57
  put together a show we didn't realize it at the
• 51:00
  time but that was not how you're supposed to do magic you're supposed to be
• 51:03
  undercutting each other and stealing each other's material that's what you're
• 51:07
  supposed to be doing so i kept that that momentum of like you know working with
• 51:13
  other magicians instead of fighting with them and i created when it's 1980 i
• 51:17
  created magic unlimited which was myself and Duck Cameron,
• 51:20
  Terry McSweeney, and we were cooperative.
• 51:22
  We were trying to sell magic to, you know, we'd go to venues and say,
• 51:27
  we've got magicians available.
• 51:28
  You know, it wasn't just like, here's one magician.
• 51:30
  It was like you'd go to a venue and say, you know, we can provide magicians for your restaurant.
• 51:35
  All the time you know if i'm not available he will fill in and he will
• 51:38
  fill in and you know that sort of stuff so by having a group of
• 51:41
  magicians it was a much more appealing thing
• 51:44
  and it wasn't you know like i would be doing a show
• 51:47
  for somebody and they say can we have you back again next year i said why don't you
• 51:49
  have him next year and have me the year afterwards so your audience aren't like
• 51:53
  oh we've had this guy before we remember him now and so there's that's this
• 51:57
  whole community approach and so this has been evolving when i was running bernard's
• 52:03
  magic shop I was trying to create a community and try to introduce magicians
• 52:06
  to each other. I would love making connections.
• 52:09
  People come up and say, oh, how do you do this move? I go, I don't know,
• 52:12
  but so-and-so does. Hey, come over here. Could you show them that move?
• 52:15
  And I would love seeing them connect with the love of magic.
• 52:20
  And they would work with each other and become friends and help each other.
• 52:25
  And for me, that's what it's all about. And so I've tried to instill that in
• 52:30
  all of the magicians that I meet in the Melbourne community.
• 52:33
  And as Nick says, we do get a lot of visitors to Melbourne. A lot of magicians will visit Melbourne.
• 52:37
  And when they come along to magicians at work or they come along,
• 52:40
  we have a dinner or something like that, or they come up to events.
• 52:43
  They always, always say to me
• 52:45
  afterwards, they say, oh, I wish the magic scene in my town was like this.
• 52:50
  And I'm like, why isn't it? I just don't understand why it's not.
• 52:55
  I mean, I know on a base level why it's not, but I don't understand why it isn't.
• 53:01
  It's because they don't have a Tim Ellis in their city. No, don't put it all on me.
• 53:07
  You have a pretty healthy population there in Melbourne with the millions that live there.
• 53:13
  So I would surmise that has something to do with having a big pool to pull from
• 53:17
  of, you know, professional-level thinkers that can share on that level.
• 53:22
  Some people say Melbourne is like the arts hub of Australia.
• 53:26
  Others sort of will say it's because our weather is like freezing cold in the
• 53:31
  morning and boiling hot in the afternoon and stuff like that.
• 53:33
  So you think, let's not go outside. Let's stay inside and do art instead of
• 53:38
  sports and stuff like that.
• 53:39
  Who knows why it is? But there are a lot of theaters in Melbourne.
• 53:46
  And I did an article for Australian Institute of Magic website a while ago,
• 53:52
  and it was published in Arts Hub, all about how many magic venues there are in Australia.
• 53:58
  I mean, most of them are in Melbourne, but there's also venues in Sydney and
• 54:01
  Brisbane and Adelaide and Perth where you can go and see magic every week.
• 54:07
  And it's incredible for the population that we have. I was talking with Sean Farquhar.
• 54:12
  His venue, Hidden Wonders, is now selling out months and months in advance,
• 54:16
  and he's helping two other magicians in the same area do shows there.
• 54:21
  Now, that venue where he is, the city he is, is much smaller than Melbourne. Much smaller.
• 54:27
  But he's selling so many tickets, which is fantastic.
• 54:30
  So I still think we're not even close to the capacity that we have in Melbourne
• 54:35
  for doing what we're doing.
• 54:36
  But we are thriving. You know, Nick's got his theater, we've got our theater,
• 54:43
  there's Piccolo Teatro, there's Luke Hawking's theater, Anthony De Masi's got
• 54:46
  a theater, there's the Magic Mondays theater,
• 54:49
  there's all these different things happening, images at work.
• 54:52
  Speakeasy Theatre, Storyville. It just goes on and on. There's so many opportunities
• 54:57
  to see magic in Melbourne.
• 55:00
  You can't leave the city and say, I didn't get to see a magician because there wasn't anyone on.
• 55:06
  There's always magic happening here. It's so exciting.
• 55:09
  But for me, the best thing is when it's fresh and new magic.
• 55:14
  We had Dom Chambers, Simon Coronel, Lawrence Leung, and Vyong Sharma in my theater
• 55:20
  in November and December doing shows every Tuesday night that were called the Magic Experiments.
• 55:26
  And they would come in and they would each do one or two pieces that they were
• 55:31
  working on. And then the next week, they'd come back and do the same pieces.
• 55:34
  There's a little variation in the program to be on who's available,
• 55:37
  but they would just do the same pieces.
• 55:39
  And the audience would come back week after week.
• 55:44
  To see the same routines and see how they'd improved
• 55:47
  and what they also did was they had an app so after
• 55:50
  again like with magisa work after each routine was done the audience would go
• 55:54
  onto the app and they'd answer the questions that the magisa had you know you
• 55:58
  might have a you might be like could you see where it went could you see this
• 56:02
  or it's very specific feedback questions they wanted to know so the audience
• 56:05
  would answer their apps and by the end of the whole eight week season,
• 56:09
  the acts were indistinguishable from what they'd started off with.
• 56:14
  You know, Vyom Sharma was doing a Q&A routine, and he'd gone through about 12 different methods.
• 56:19
  You know, it's just changing method. It was just getting better and better every time.
• 56:24
  And Lawrence Long did an act with a comic book, which in the end, it was so flawless.
• 56:30
  You know, you were just like, okay, now all the beats are hitting,
• 56:33
  you know, because sometimes it's not the method, but it's just the rhythm in which you're speaking.
• 56:38
  So by getting to do it every week they could go
• 56:41
  hang on or let's just change that and so instead of saying you
• 56:43
  know i've got a comic book here yeah i've got a comic
• 56:46
  book here or you know just change the the beat and
• 56:50
  suddenly the effect is so much more powerful but that's
• 56:53
  the sort of stuff i love so much the miniature of all
• 56:56
  the detail of magic and just how one
• 57:00
  tiny detail can change everything yep you
• 57:04
  know tim as this interview slowly gets to a close i wanted to ask you as far
• 57:08
  as your legacy goes there's so much that you are known for there is you know
• 57:12
  as far as your routines go six card repeats that you have the runaround super
• 57:16
  routine the melbourne magic festival and all the people you helped i mean what
• 57:21
  would you like your legacy to be.
• 57:24
  Well, ideally, I don't want to die. Nice. I like it.
• 57:29
  You're gonna. Maybe not. No, no, maybe not. I'm thinking science has a chance
• 57:35
  to catch up to mortality.
• 57:37
  This is so much to do. I'm referring to the legacy more like retirement,
• 57:40
  not like, you know, you're dying. But that's the same thing.
• 57:44
  Retiring. Life is dying.
• 57:46
  You just want to be live on TV, nailed into a box, thrown into the Yarre River,
• 57:50
  and then. I guess I was talking about this with Nicholas Johnson yesterday,
• 57:54
  actually, as he was leaving the theater. We had a meeting.
• 57:57
  You know, when you come into the theater and you open the coffin and there's
• 58:01
  a skeleton and you go through there and enter the theater.
• 58:03
  I think probably what I need is the skeleton needs to be replaced with my skeleton.
• 58:10
  That's a good bit. So everyone can meet me and I can greet everybody into the theater as it goes on.
• 58:16
  Whoever owns the theater after I'm gone, I'm still there.
• 58:19
  I think you should leave it to me in your will, Kim. What a good idea.
• 58:24
  And I can live in your $2.3 million house in the middle of Northcote.
• 58:30
  You've got plenty of houses. You don't need it more. You're Mr. Monopoly.
• 58:35
  None of them have a theater in it, and I helped build that theater. Not yet.
• 58:41
  I get frustrated because there's still so much magic yet to do.
• 58:45
  So like at the moment my i'm doing in laneway
• 58:48
  theater i'm doing house of games which is a show all about
• 58:51
  the games we used to play before screens took over
• 58:54
  our lives so for me like even though
• 58:57
  you've got all these different options of magic shows to see most of
• 59:01
  the magic shows are like i'm going to do a show and the public can
• 59:03
  come and enjoy the show and i'm really going to you know
• 59:06
  focus on tricks that the audience is going to like with
• 59:09
  me every year i do a new show in the laneway theater because
• 59:12
  i like making up shows so the shows are actually for me
• 59:15
  rather than the public but it's so they're
• 59:19
  all completely different they're all john different genres and different
• 59:22
  feelings and this show i'm very very happy with
• 59:25
  it's got so much like really heavy hitting magic in it i'm very very proud of
• 59:31
  so please come and see house of magic house of games at the laneway theater
• 59:35
  on saturday nights but also i did a show last year uh halloween called darkness
• 59:41
  is coming and it was a one-off Halloween show,
• 59:43
  which was completely different.
• 59:46
  It was like really unsettling and it had people feeling really like.
• 59:52
  Uncomfortable which is what i'd aimed to do and
• 59:55
  it was just a 45 minute show no dialogue it was all performed just
• 59:58
  with one desk lab as the only lighting and
• 1:00:02
  there was video behind it and audio sounds it's basically
• 1:00:05
  like a serial killer coming to grips with
• 1:00:08
  what he'd actually done with his life and it
• 1:00:11
  had such an impact i thought so i'm going to be doing that again
• 1:00:14
  in fringe festival so that'll be done for nine shows only
• 1:00:17
  in laneway theater around october so again
• 1:00:21
  it's there's just so much different magic to do and i've got the cruise ships
• 1:00:26
  again they're two completely different 45 minute shows again and tomorrow night
• 1:00:30
  at magicians at work there's a piece that um i got this at fism that's a lovely
• 1:00:35
  piece called cauldron do you ever heard about that one it's a can trick.
• 1:00:40
  Essentially it's a coke can you open it up and
• 1:00:43
  pour a drink out and then pour a different drink out then pour a different drink
• 1:00:46
  out so you pour three different drinks out of the one coke can I got
• 1:00:49
  that and I'm like I'll put that in the cruise show I've done
• 1:00:52
  about three times on the cruise show the first time I did it one
• 1:00:55
  of the guests and I was like that's fantastic I guess it's just
• 1:00:58
  a trick can and I'm like that's
• 1:01:02
  a flaw with this trick you know as magicians we look at
• 1:01:05
  tricks like that we're like what a great toy I want to do this I want to do
• 1:01:08
  this but they're thinking you know it's just a trick can and so it made me start
• 1:01:12
  to really like tear this whole routine apart so I'll do it tomorrow night so
• 1:01:16
  eventually what I did was I figured out a way to do it so that the audience
• 1:01:19
  members on stage choose different drinks and those drinks come out of the can.
• 1:01:24
  But then I get to say, now, some people think that was amazing,
• 1:01:28
  but it's just a trick can.
• 1:01:30
  And then I get scissors and I cut the can open, split it open,
• 1:01:34
  show it completely and toss it aside.
• 1:01:35
  And that's after doing a fourth load of pouring sugar out of it.
• 1:01:39
  And so now it's sort of finally working. But it's funny how,
• 1:01:43
  as magicians, we often settle.
• 1:01:47
  We go, that's great. But we don't listen to the audience who are going but it's
• 1:01:53
  just a trick can and you go well yes but how can you explain it they don't have
• 1:01:58
  to they've just explained it that's enough you know link linking rings well
• 1:02:02
  there's just a gap in the ring or something you go but how would that work well i don't know.
• 1:02:08
  They're soaring in half there's two people in different boxes i don't
• 1:02:10
  know so you've got to have them at the end just
• 1:02:13
  going well i think it's what logic traps
• 1:02:18
  yeah and i'm i'm really proud that like in my cruise ship shows and other shows
• 1:02:23
  the house of games as a game show there's a lot of tricks in that the audience
• 1:02:27
  just goes i've got no idea because you've you know it's like if you remember
• 1:02:32
  the old one tamariz wrote the book the the magic way where he said you take them down a path,
• 1:02:37
  they need to detour a little bit and then they hit a dead end,
• 1:02:41
  but they can't get back onto the main path anymore.
• 1:02:44
  You know, they've taken that up so that they now have no possible solution.
• 1:02:48
  And so many times, you know, when we're doing magic, the audience is like,
• 1:02:52
  I think, yeah, and that did a good job. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:02:57
  And they're polite, and you're not doing your job.
• 1:03:02
  As a magician, you have to fool them every time.
• 1:03:06
  You can't just entertain them. Entertainment should be, that happens.
• 1:03:10
  Magic is entertaining, even if it's done badly, it's still entertaining.
• 1:03:13
  But if you do it right and you fool them, then you're a magician.
• 1:03:17
  That's my mission. Every trick, I have to be a magician.
• 1:03:21
  It sounds basic, but it's taken me like 50 years to come up with that theory.
• 1:03:31
  I wouldn't want to ask this, Tim, but there was just something that I think
• 1:03:34
  is worth celebrating, that you were able at your elder, the more elder statesman
• 1:03:40
  of the Melbourne magic scene.
• 1:03:42
  Yes, I'm the oldest one here. Yes, you're right. What are you pushing now?
• 1:03:46
  You're still in your 50s, right?
• 1:03:48
  No, you know how old I am. I do not know.
• 1:03:51
  I've just had my 63rd birthday.
• 1:03:56
  53 and doing upside down. Yes. Straight jacket escapes.
• 1:04:00
  Buddy, I am 41. Just to prove to myself I can still do it. I don't want to live in the past.
• 1:04:05
  Dude, I couldn't get out of bed this morning at 41.
• 1:04:08
  You need a winch. You need people to tie the ankle.
• 1:04:12
  I needed help. I needed to take an oxy before getting out of bed.
• 1:04:15
  I'm sore. I'm old. And you're just going like, I'm going to do an upside down
• 1:04:19
  straight jacket escape.
• 1:04:20
  I'm 63. three who cares like that's i love
• 1:04:23
  hearing the 40 year olds complain you're not even 40
• 1:04:26
  how old are you what you
• 1:04:32
  gotta do you can't live in the past you know that's this that's the that's what
• 1:04:36
  frustrated me is you know people talk about oh you did all these escapes you
• 1:04:39
  did all these illusions and all these things i'm like yeah i don't really do
• 1:04:42
  them anymore and then i was like why not why don't i do them anymore i should
• 1:04:46
  still do them you know within invitations of course but you know.
• 1:04:51
  I wouldn't even escape from a suit jacket, man. Don't worry about it.
• 1:04:55
  You've got to keep testing yourself. You're going to keep pushing yourself. You really have to.
• 1:05:01
  Otherwise, there's a lot of magicians. We won't name any of them,
• 1:05:05
  but you know what they're doing.
• 1:05:07
  They're doing the same stuff. I'll give you one example.
• 1:05:10
  I got invited every year to the Comedians Luncheon that they have for comedians
• 1:05:16
  during the comedy festival, but it's mainly the comedians of my generation who
• 1:05:20
  go there, the older comedians.
• 1:05:23
  So they're very well known and and i remember them growing up on tv and i went there and i was a bit.
• 1:05:30
  Disappointed and a bit sort of disheartened because all they
• 1:05:33
  were doing was like oh you got any work no i don't have any work
• 1:05:36
  no no i'm just waiting i'm just waiting i'm hanging out for the opportunities oh
• 1:05:38
  yeah you got this and they're sort of talking about
• 1:05:42
  yeah that they're not really working much and these
• 1:05:44
  are people who were megastars on tv when i was growing
• 1:05:47
  up but they haven't changed haven't changed
• 1:05:50
  their act they're doing the same material they haven't changed
• 1:05:53
  their look they haven't changed their uh their
• 1:05:56
  style and they sort of you know they're
• 1:05:59
  not specifically just like if they if they want to continue
• 1:06:02
  working to the same audience that's fine but they've got
• 1:06:04
  to go and work in the clubs places like where the the older people go but they're
• 1:06:11
  hoping they can do tv and do corporate and all that sort of stuff but without
• 1:06:15
  changing their material and that's what you know you you look at the singers
• 1:06:19
  the people like madonna or lady gaga and all those people they were constantly changing their look,
• 1:06:24
  changing their act, changing their music, working with younger performers.
• 1:06:28
  Why don't we do that? We should. We do. Well, I do. I try to.
• 1:06:33
  I used to have hair and I don't. Now I got a beard.
• 1:06:37
  But you can have it again. That's right. And my final form will probably be
• 1:06:42
  white beard, 300 pounds.
• 1:06:48
  This is the advantage we male magicians have over the female magicians.
• 1:06:56
  We can age into our wizardly form, but misogynistically as the world is,
• 1:07:04
  we don't allow women to do that. And it's hard enough for them in magic.
• 1:07:08
  They have a hard job in magic. And we sit there and go, oh, well,
• 1:07:13
  we'll just grow a beard and get fat and still do magic.
• 1:07:17
  Exactly. It's a cruel world. Yeah.
• 1:07:21
  I feel like this podcast just got good. Like the gold part of this happened
• 1:07:26
  in the last 10 minutes of overtime.
• 1:07:29
  So there's just going to have to be a second hour in the future with starting
• 1:07:33
  from this point here. We need the loose, unhinged Tim.
• 1:07:37
  That's where you get the real advice, which is what I've just heard,
• 1:07:41
  which is great. We might play this episode backwards. Like we'll start from.
• 1:07:46
  It's a tribute to Elisa Sinclair's act where she ages backwards.
• 1:07:52
  Exactly. Exactly. So look, we can't wait to have you on again.
• 1:07:55
  We can't wait to hear stories from fellow magicians that listen to the pod who
• 1:07:59
  now go to the Melbourne Magic Festival or some who are doing shows in the Melbourne Magic Festival.
• 1:08:04
  We'll keep using Nick as sort of an update, keep us updated throughout the festival
• 1:08:11
  of what's happening and whatnot.
• 1:08:13
  And that'll be great. But I think, and all the links to go and see the show
• 1:08:17
  and the festival and everything is in the description below.
• 1:08:20
  But we're going to end our episode in the way that we always do,
• 1:08:24
  which is by giving our guests the final word.
• 1:08:33
  Thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now but we'll see you again
• 1:08:40
  on the next episode of the magic guys.