First ever Uppsala Magic & Comedy or What I Did Last Weekend

Friday the 25th to Sunday the 27th was the dates for the first ever Uppsala Magic & Comedy festival, an opportunity for people to see some high class magic and comedy. There was also the opportunity to see the Swedish Championships in Magic so many magicians were at the festival for that reason as well.
The person that we have to thank for the festival and its success is Johan Ståhl who created and organised the festival. Of course also all the magicians and other artist at the festival helped making it a huge success. Finally the audience was important to make the festival the greatest magic & comedy festival in Scandinavia, all from the youngest children to senior citizens where there.
I was myself to some degree involved in organising the competitions so I didn't get to see all of them but I have been told that they where over all quite good. Unfortunately it was as always difficult for the people competing in the mentalism category although they had very good acts.

Johan Ståhl the person responsible for everything and probably the one who slept the least.

There were some acts for the very young. Zillah och Totte was a big success with the youngest children.

Tom Stone, one of the greatest magicians in Sweden and known among magicians all over the world, both performed and gave a lecture about how people are being fooled.

You could also learn magic either from Magnus Vihagen if you were a little bit younger or from Andreas Mattisson if you were more interested in manipulation. It was also possible to buy magic tricks from the dealers, some who came from so far away as Denmark.

From even further away than Denmark was one of the stars of the festival Inez from Spain. She had a very pleasing combination of comedy and great magical moments in her acts.

The two greatest international stars was without doubt David Williamson and Yu Ho Sin. They represent two completely different forms of magic. I learned that some thought that David Williamson was too pushy and harsh towards the spectators he brought on to the stage. I was on the other hand impressed by that in my opinion he never crossed the line even though he was pushing it. Yu Ho Sin on the other hand didn't need any spectators on stage. His act is pure magic and the manipulations that he is doing are not possible, that's how good he is.

The photos were taken by Theresa Kriegler and she will probably write something about the festival on the blog TrixxBox (in German)

If you want to read more about the festival right away it is possible to do that at Magi-arkivet (in Swedish) There you will also find the results from the competitions.

Helping out

I have been away, I have been in Prague. And I choose to be emotional for a moment, I love that city. I feel very much alive among all the history and culture. My Czech still needs a lot of work but it is getting better. Perhaps I should start to look for a well paying job in Prague because that is probably one of the few ways that I could be motivated to get a proper job.

While I was in Prague I met some old friends and some new friends as well. Some of my magical friends are going to do a show in a theater in Prague and we discussed a few ideas about different effects. It will be interesting to see what they will do in the end.

Now I am back in Sweden. I have spent today helping a friend with shooting a tv-pilot with the working title "mentalisten" (the mentalist). I did most of my work in the background. Though it was not all carrying bags, I did do some consulting and had a hand in one very good effect. Unfortunately I am not able to go into details but I am sure no one who watches the show will be able to figure it out, the camera crew were not able to figure it out and they were all magicians.

I actually did more magic today than I have done in a very long time because we had people around us all the time. I even performed on the train back to Uppsala. This day was a good day.