So, I little while ago I decided to resurrect The Best Birthday Ever! magic show, specifically geared to the birthday party market.

It’s a fun, 40 minute show where the birthday child is the real star of the magic show. They perform in all (but one) of the tricks in the show, there are prizes and balloons for all of the kids and the parents get a DVD of the performance they just saw – starring their child!

It’s called The Best BIrthday Ever and I truly believe it will be for kids all over SW Ontario.

You can find out all about the package here.

“What’s the deal”, I asked, thinking that I’d be going with him to set-up or assist on one of his Trade Show Holograms.

“You’re my back-up. Just in case I can’t get mine, I’m sending you.”

Ohhhhh-kaaaaaay. So I changed and decided to go and get the photo. First though I logged onto the web, filled out and downloaded the application. Papers in hand, photo taken, I set out to find my guarantor.

Thursday 3pm: I had my passport in hand and I’m on the phone to my wife.

“Hi, honey. I have a gig.”

“Great! Where?”

“The Caribbean.”

“What! When?”

“Tomorrow night. I leave in three hours. Love you, Bye.”

As it turned out, it wasn’t just me. There were two other performers going as well. London juggler Steve Seguin and a local face painter. We were told the event was a kid’s birthday party on a boat. That’s it. I had two hours to prepare a 40 minute show for kids whose age, gender and nationality I didn’t know and pack it into a carry-on size case that would double as my on-stage case. The agent who booked us, in spite of calling me every half hour worried that we were not going to make it, is notorious for not having a lot of details about clients or shows.

Thursday 7pm: On the road (me, Steve and the facepainter) to the Detroit Airport hotel. Arrive. Dinner. Sleep.

Friday 7am: Depart Detroit Airport for St. Maarten. Lunch is available on the plane for $5 US but all I have is $5 CAN. He takes it. (this comes into play later)

Friday 2pm: We land and are met by a concierge who gets our luggage AND fast tracks us through customs. Yay! He then escorts us to a much smaller plane for the short jump to St. Barthelemy, French West Indies.

Friday 3:30pm: We land and are met by our client, Helen of Essential Yacht Services. She packs us into a cab and off we go to the hotel – on the beach! However there isn’t any time to assimilate ourselves to the surroundings because we have to be onstage by 6:00. Back in the cab for a short ride to the pier.

Once at the pier we unload onto the dock and wait for the tender (one of two) to take us to the boat, um, ship, The Excellence III. As it turns out, the ship is too big to fit in the St. Bart’s harbour.

Friday 5pm: We board. Greeted by five crew members, all in white, asking us if THEY can assist US n any way. Sure. It’s just this case here, but thanks. Oh, and I have to take my shoes off. Don’t want to take a chance on scratching the solid teak decking on all three levels of the yacht.

We are escorted upstairs to the top deck and shown the party area. It’s a nice sitting area with lots of room and we are to perform in front of the bbq buffet they have laid out. After we’re all set-up, Steve and I decide that he should go first, do his 30 minutes and then it’s my turn. The face painting will take place before the show.

But where are the kids?

Friday 5:50pm: The kids arrive. Four of them. The 9 and 8 year old son and daughter of the Russian dad who rented the yacht and two 7 year old Swiss twin sisters whose family were his guests. That’s it. Four kids. None of whom spoke English as their first language. Also, as it turned out, the 9 year old was a bit precocious and his sister just wanted to watch (not volunteer). The twins were fun but they needed a translator. No parents. They were below deck having a spa day and another, fully prepared meal. The buffet, entertainment and event on deck was only for those four kids! Although we had about 6-8 staff watching the show, they were the ‘babysitters’. Also, it wasn’t a birthday afterall. It was a Halloween party (in May).

The kids enjoyed the show but the face painter got seasick and couldn’t do her best work.

Friday 8pm: After the show and some food we were back in the tenders enroute to our hotel. We decided to walk down the beach and have a larger meal by the water and about midnight we called it a day.

Saturday 10am: Breakfast on the hotel terrace and then we basically ‘killed time’ waiting for the return flight at 2:30pm.

Saturday 2:30pm: We say goodbye to St. Bart’s and settle in for the long trek home although this time around, I was smart (so I thought). I made sure I had $5 US for the lunch on the plane. However when the flight attendant got down to me – she had run out! Run out! And to add insult to starvation, the connection in Philadelphia was so rushed that I didn’t have time to get anything. Lunch (dinner) didn’t happen until midnight, at Tim Horton’s, after we crossed the border into Canada. Nine and a half hours on pop and cheap airline cookies!

But it was a lot of fun. We figured out that the client – the dad (whom none of us met, BTW), spent in excess of $10,000 to fly us down and do the show, over and above the half a million he spent renting the yacht for the week.

Lessons learned: Yes, I am ready for any show, anywhere, anytime for any audience.

(But make sure to pack a lunch first!)

I have always been a big fan of the theatre. I love going, I love doing, and I love performing ‘on the boards’, and this past weekend I had the opportunity to perform to a sold out house at Theatre311 in Listowel, the home of Paddyfest. The crowd was fantastic and I was able to get a great video of the show thanks to my friend, magician Timothy Drake.

Theatres presents a very comfortable ambience for me to work in and it was a pleasure to entertain all me new friends with some new magic and illusion. Thank you to Steph and Justin for inviting me. Unfortunately they have sold Theatre311 and mine was the second to last performance they will host.

Each time I walk onstage I have a responsibility to my audience to give them the very best show I can. Every time. That’s my job. It’s a career I chose 40+ years ago and it’s still one I cherish all these years later.

You see, together as a group, me as the entertainer and you, as the audience share the one thing more precious and more rare than anything else in today’s world – time. Time is the one thing that can’t be recycled, is never returned and can never be recreated. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. Forever. So, when you chose to share your time with me, I’m honoured. Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, by the way.

The truth, most of the time, audiences don’t really have a choice whether or not to watch my performance. Very often the I am chosen to entertain them by the event organizer. I am either a) the After Dinner Speaker; b) the Birthday Party Magician or c) one of the acts on the Children’s Stage, etc. There are other examples but I think you get the picture: no one really knows who I am (and sometimes doesn’t care), but I’m a pleasant diversion for 30-45 minutes. The time we share together is forced so let’s make the best of it.

A performance in a theatrical setting is a whole different scenario. Weeks before the performance, you read about the show. You talk about it with your friends and family. You think about it some more and then check your calendar, go online or make a phone call because you have decided to go to that show You have chosen to spend 90 minutes of your day with that entertainer! And, in my case, share the experience with your kids!

The responsibility for me is to deliver. Big time!

But my job, now, is much easier. I don’t have to ‘sell’ myself as hard. I don’t have to worry about gathering everyone to the stage. I don’t have to worry about any competition for their attention. You chose ME!

You chose to share your precious time with me and it is my honour to share my time with you. I trust I won’t disappoint. No, I know I won’t disappoint!

In the next couple of months I have three theatrical performances: February 11 - Theatre311; March 13 – Meaford Opera House  and March 16 – Gravenhurst Centenial Centre.

Please come and share some time with me.

What is great about the Snowfest is that for the last two years, all of the entertainment has been inside this giant igloo (really a dome) and since it was in an enclosed space, everyone who was inside had come to see the show. I like that!

Everyone had a great time – especially this 3½ year old who was trying to tell me her glasses kept falling down!

I hope to do it all again next year.

It was a fun experience. Both Timothy Drake and I set-up and ran the cameras

Right before the show, I needed to make an announcement about the taping of the show. As soon as I got centre stage, I heard someone whisper, ‘There’s the magician’. Their colleage answered, ‘No, he’s not’, to which the first one countered, ‘Well then, the magician must be training someone’.

Anyway, it was a three camera shoot and one of the results can be partially seen here:

Click here to view the embedded video.

During the discussion phase, they discovered that I was also an Alumni of Fanshawe (Broadcast Television ’87). Bonus! Then they decided to do a cover story on me to promote the Homecoming.

Thinking back, I’m not sure if I was honoured, flattered, embarrassed or confused. I do know that the first thing I said to them after they asked was “Are you sure?”. I guess I was humbled.

Anyway it turned out to be a great feature. A lot of people saw it and it even got me a series of shows in Newfoudland-Labrador two years later.

Oh and in case you are wondering, I am not resposible for choosing the cover shot. As a matter of fact, I was just goofing around. I’ll never do that again!