On Saturday April 4th from 10:30-11:30am I will be performing at the Lil’ Sproutz Children’s Boutique performing mingling magic. The entire event runs from 10:00am-2:00pm at Evangel Church in Kelowna BC @ 3261 Gordon Drive.

Lil’ Sproutz is a new West Kelowna company that sells gently used and new children’s clothing. For more information about the event or Lil’ Sproutz please contact Sarah at (250)212-9227.

Yesterday I stopped by CupCasions in Kelowna. I’ve hear about them all the time and since my customers often need catering I thought it would be worthwhile to check out. I picked up a sample box of the mini-cupcakes of all different flavors and they are delicious. I can see these things being a hit at any event!

I mention in my birthday party guide that cupcakes are a great alternative to serving cake because everybody gets their own, for children each piece is identical so you aren’t fighting over who gets what design, and they’re a breeze to serve, plus they taste good. Yum.

Cupcakes are perfect for any wedding, meeting, or grand opening. I’m told that CupCasions can customize them however you want. If you’d like them to match your mood or theme of your event it’s no problem. No magic required- I don’t know how they do it.

Janet, the owner of Cupcasions, was kind enough to give me some $10 gift certificates to pass on. If you have an occasion coming up and you’d like to turn it into a cupcasion email me at alikzam@gmail.com and I’ll send you one in the mail. I only have a few of them though, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.

For more information contact:
CupCasions
#170-2000 Spall Road, Kelowna BC
Tel: (250)860-3690
www.cupcasions.com

Today I had two library shows in Kelowna as I mentioned in yesterday’s blog post. I explained how I was going to be including a brand new magic routine in my show, and I’m pleased to announce that it went over great! The kids were interacting, laughing, and were very amazed. I couldn’t have asked for more. I have one more library to perform at on Thursday, so I’m looking to perform the routine at least 1 more time. I’m probably even going to adapt parts of the routine into other routines that I have.

But something interesting did happen at my second library show today. While performing my cut-and-restored rope illusion, I managed to somehow turn it into the cut-and-restored finger trick. While cutting the rope I accidently cut part of my skin off too! Ouch! I was able to quickly clean myself up, and get back to the show though. I played some music to keep the audience interested while I took a moment to clean off my hands and get bandaged up. The ladies working at the library were quick to grab me some papertowls and gauze which was a huge help!

But like I mentioned yesterday there’s something to be learned from it. I’ve updated my small first-aid kit to include gauze and tape for starters. Also, it’s always good to see how you handle yourself in those types of situations so that you’re better prepared for them in the future. I always record my shows so I have a recording of the incident so I can see how it looked to the audience. I watched the show tonight and besides a brief break, the audience could hardly tell anything was amiss! When I got home I had an email from the client sitting in my inbox that read “Great shows. You mastered ‘the show must go on’. Hope all is well.”

And yes, I’m keeping the trick in the show for Thursday’s audience!

Many people are paralyzed by failure.

I’ve never understood this. I would much rather take a risk on my own terms. Bad things are going to happen in life. It’s just a fact. Things we have no control over. At least if you go for something and fail, you attempted something that very few other people ever do.

At a young age I learnt that failure can be a good thing. When I first started performing there were times when I had spectators that I couldn’t control, or times when magic wouldn’t go as expected. I remember vividly a time when I was 9 years old and a trick went horribly wrong and it brought me to tears. In the end though it really wasn’t such a big deal, and I really believe that it made me stronger.

I could give you example after example of this from my own life but I’m sure you have your own examples. Think back to these times when you failed but you gained so much more out of it. My online friend Tom Beleware said something interesting the other day “The good thing about life is, it has a one-sided score board, the failures never count.”

So get out there. Get inspired. And try…

Tomorrow I’ll be performing at two local libraries and I’m performing a brand new routine. Each show is going to have between 60-100 kids plus adults. This new routine is outside of my comfort zone, and honestly I’m a little nervous about it but that’s exactly why I’m doing it.

I’ll let you know how it goes!

Failure: The Secret to Success

Wow! I just got home from a show this evening and I had a BLAST.

I perform lots of kids audiences, and lots of adult audiences but it’s less common that I perform in a stage situation with a few hundred people where there’s a mix of adults and kids. It was great to be able to mix up the adult material, and the kid show material, and perform a full 45 minute set.

Before the show some of the kids had finished their dinner early (as most kids do) and they were running around the place. I got them all together at the edge of the stage and I performed some close-up magic to keep the entertained before the rest of the evening continued. Kids are unpredictable, and speak their mind, I love it. I had some fun performing some silk magic, and showing them some ‘magic bubbles’.

The stage show started shortly after and I right from the start the audience was very receptive and I knew it was going to be a great show. It was a church group, and the venue was just down the street from my home. I’ve performed there many many times and so it kind of felt like I owned the stage.

The show went off without incident, and I had some great volunteers throughout the show. After the show many of the people came up to me and told me stories about how they had seen me perform years and years ago when I was just a little guy, and I was still performing with my mom as my assistant! When I was 8 and 9 years old I performed at every community and charity event I could, and to this day I get comments all the time from people who had seen me during those starting years. I hope that in another 10 or 15 years I’m still crossing paths with these people who saw me when I was just starting out.

I often tell others that I love magic because it helps others break free from their normal day-to-day routine and makes them feel better. Tonight I was selfish and the show made me feel great as well. Magic is a powerful.

Do you have extra noise in your life? Well, I’ve noticed it my life recently, and I’ve been taking steps to correct it. For example, I’m a huge fan of RSS. In the past even been proud of how many websites I keep up with on a day to day basis. But today I’m slowly eliminating websites that aren’t thought provoking, or don’t provide me with information that I can act upon. I’ve turned off email on my blackberry which helps me better focus through other tasks like writing this post. And I’m removing myself from online discussions where the people participating seem to have no respect for the human on the other side of their computer screen.

These changes have helped me become far more efficient, and have freed up huge amounts of extra time. I’ve been able to spend more time with friends, family, and creating new video clips for the web.

Motivational speaker Brian Tracy makes a great point in his live presentations. We all have 24 hours in a day right. From top athletes, to presidents, to entrepreneurs. How we use that time is what’s important.

Are there areas of your life where you’re killing time? You may have a hard time finding the problem areas at first. I know I didn’t realize how much time I was wasting on a day to day basis.

I challenge you to free up some of that time and use it doing something more meaningful. You might be surprised. I promise you’ll be happier for it.

(But don’t stop reading my blog. Free time up in other ways! I appreciate your attention it’s the most valuable thing you can give to me.)

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I just recently got some brand new business cards printed up. I got them printed by a local print company in Kelowna. They did some posters for me in the past and I was pretty happy with them.

This time I wanted to get some new business cards printed, but I wanted really nice business cards. I was looking around for a special kind of textured laminate paper, and I was able to provide Ehmann Printworx with a sample and they were able to make them for me.

In the end the cards turned out really nice and I’m quite happy with them. I’m looking forward to handing out all 2,000 of them. I’ve already handed out a few dozen, but of course the first few are always the easiest.

“Siegfried & Roy: The Magic Returns” airs Friday at 9 p.m. EST on ABC.

Uh oh, Well it turns out that Masters of Illusion on MyNetworkTV was reschedule to a new time but lots of people didn’t know so they missed the show! Well, fear not my American friends because you’ll still be able to catch the full episode online for download from the official MyNetworkTV website. First go to their website, then click on “Full Episodes”.

The newest Episode hasn’t been posted yet, but I’m sure it will be available in a few days. I’ll try and post any clips that appear on youtube on my blog as well.

You have to admit, that new Britney Spears song is pretty catchy.

I got excited when I heard over at The Magic Newswire that Ed Alonzo was going to be helping Miss Spears with incorporating some magic into her new circus themed concert. Wicked stuff!

Gossip central of the world “E!” has been all over the story as well.

If you head on over to candies.com you can put in your information into that box in the lower right corner, or some bogus information, and you’ll see a short video clip montage of their rehearsal. Lots of circus stuff, but there appears to be a couple moments where they show magical apparatuses. I’m not sure if this is what the E! commercial was referring to or not. We’ll have to wait to seen.

[Edit: Below is the video that was previously "locked" at the Candies.com website. Thanks itricks! ]

First Look at Britney's 'Circus' Tour

[Edit #2: Looks like an extended version of the above video was released today. Its, like, twice as long, at 2 minutes in length. Haha ]

I came across this really funny video of comedian Louis C.K. on Conan O’Brian talking about how everything is amazing and yet nobody is happy.

The whole world around us is amazing, and yet some people will just never notice. I hope the clip made you smile