Magic Competition
I'm a member of a group called the International Brotherhood of Magicians. Somehow, it sounds super creepy and weirdly official at the same time, but it's actually neither. Although it's an international organization, I only meet with a couple of chapters (we actually call them rings). Well, every year, Ring 29 (this is the Little Rock ring) hosts a closeup magic competition! This year, I directed and organized the entire competition.
Since you've never been to a closeup magic competition, you may not know what all would go into planning one. And every time I end up planning it, I remember how much actually goes into the planning 😳.
First, I had to decide how the competition would be scored. I can't just watch all the performers and select a winner at random, so I meticulously created a set of four different score sheets, each for a different aspect of magic:
Technical Skill
Presentation and Originality
Character and Appearance
Non-magician Entertainment Value
You may be thinking "Hey Blayk, that sounds like a lot of time and effort that you should be using for school, work, and your entertainment business. Why don't you just use the score sheets they used last year?" The score sheets they used last year were actually also designed by me, the last time I planned one of these things, and I've learned too much since then, so I wanted to try some new ideas.
After I had a set of score sheets, I had to find judges. I tried to find objective, knowledgable people, who were somewhat experts in the category they were assigned to judge. So I had three magicians judging for each of the first three categories, and I chose two non-magicians to judge the non-magician section.
After that, I had to recruit performers. What if I did all this work, and only a couple of people showed up to compete!? I sent multiple emails to all of Ring 29 (92 members), encouraging them to compete or at least come watch (we need an audience too!).
Then, after fifteen minutes of staring at a wall of plaques at Central Arkansas Trophies, I chose one to give to the winner. When I was finally done making sure I had a table and plenty of chairs and plenty of score sheets printed and pens for all the judges and all the other little things needed for a closeup magic competition, it was time to sit back and enjoy some magic.
There were eight performers, and they all did a great job; there wasn't a weak point in the entire competition. My five judges gave me some really positive feedback on the brand new scoring methods, and the performers liked them as well. We calculated the score sheets and determined the winner, he received his plaque, we clapped, then we went to IHOP and ate pancakes, and I finally returned to my apartment at 2:17am.
This is really just a brief summary of the closeup magic competition that has been on my mind for a few weeks. I know it's not interesting, but I've been so busy with this that I haven't been able to juggle much 😔. But the story does have a lesson: if you are a full time student with two jobs and little time, and you find yourself in charge of organizing a closeup magic competition...just do it the same way they did it last year so you can sleep more and work less.
