The Karl Le Fong Gathering celebrated its fourth year last weekend in Glasgow City Centre.
Picture the scene; the United Kingdom’s most enthusiastic, obsessed and passionate lovers of all things related to Card Magic, Sleight of Hand, Theory, Performance Artistry and good old fashioned late night conversations.
This is a weekend Convention thatknew how to celebrate magic.
This is the brainchild of Peter McLanachan, Neil Stirton and John Henry Blackwood
Magicians I have been friends with since I did my very first lecture in Edinburgh a few years ago – this was for another dedicated collective called “The 9♦️ Group”.
I was invited to attend this weekend to present my new Lecture SYNERGY. I am delighted to share that it was well received.
The event kicked off at 11 am Saturday morning with new attendees invited to perform. Peter Machlancan started off with a lovely premise about Time Distortion. This effect was a favourite of Michael Skinners.
The other performers were:
Michael Neto
Jason Ward
Cameron Gibson
Sean Harrington
James Went
Fritz Alkemade
Ian Kendall
My friend James Went FOOLED ME with his lovely routine ICANN. Caught completely off guard. I love these moments, it reminds me why I love card magic so much. Beautiful premise and clean handling.
One of the highlights was a young man by the name of Sean Harrington.
He comes on and presents his beautiful act with coins. His handling and execution was sublime, the effects ultra magical.
The last two performers were Fritz Alkemade and Ian Kendal
Roy Walton made a surprise appearance with his daughter Julia.
Speaking of Roy Walton; this Gathering is named after one of his card tricks – Karl Le Fong. If you look st Roy’s Book, you may notice that many of his routines are named after films; Laurel and Hardy, WC Fields etc. It was great seeing him again along with another legend of Scottish Magic Andre Galloway.
I am truly grateful to have had this opportunity to create these images. As many of you know, I am passionate about Photography and to create these moments of these two legends is very special and important. Their presence this weekend made this event sparkle with energy. Everyone was delighted to have seen Andy and Roy.
I must acknowledge Roy’s daughter Julia for taking time to support her dad in being at the event.
After the first timers president their routines, the event kicked off with a wonderful conversation featuring Gordon Bruce and Eddie McColl.
Gordon is one off the great personalities and characters in Scottish magic.
He was influenced as a boy by Roy Walton and Andrew Galloway. He had wonderful stories to share about his life. Stories about Dai Vernon, Larry Jennings. He comes from a generation of magicians who saw all the greats. He saw Fred Kaps and was greatly inspired by this Dutch Master. What is interesting to me is seeing how the past and present fuse together in a spirit of great fellowship. This is what makes are craft so wonderful, the future can only stand on the shoulders of those who came before us. I feel this responsibility for myself and it was wonderful seeing Gordon and Eddie share and discuss the past for this gathering.
After Lunch, it was time for my presentation. I spoke and shared my journey in magic through the lens of Synergy. This is my new lecture and it features a fascinating look at how my journey and magic has and to change with the challenges of life; being deaf, losing my hearing has and a big impact on my life so as a result, I felt the need to confront his head on and not allow it to derail my passion for magic. My style has changed and so has my approach to magic, how I think, create and perform. I was happy sharing my journey with the Gathering at Karl Le fong, if only to inspire and say, its not the end of the world, life goes on and we still be EFFECTIVE.
The last presenter of the day was Woody Aragon.
Woody is from Spain and a very engaging performer and presenter.
I loved his opening lines;
“I cannot talk about magic without first creating magic”.
This meant, he presented a short 20 minute show to create the atmosphere, good fun, strong effective magic and personality. He then went into his conversation and philosophy. We were singing from the same Hymn sheet although we expressed ourselves differently.
It is this difference and celebration of diversity which made for a fascinating conversation about the experience of magic. Woody is a master at combining sleight of hand with a wide range of principles, strategies and creates wonderful magic. All in attendance were engaged with him from start to finish. It was an excellent conversation, I was at the back creating images and fortunately, I was wearing my new Hearing Aid so I got a good grasp of his conversation.
The Convention entered it’s final stages with late night conversations, seasoning and just good old friendship.
A big congratulations to Peter, Neil, Jack and all involved in making this great weekend of magic
Here are few more images to enjoy.
Until next year.
Thanks for reading.
