I had no idea it had been 2 years since my last update. If you’ve been looking for an updated post from me I’m sorry. I haven’t even been active on my Facebook page either so obviously social media isn’t on my mind very often. you can find me over there at https://www.facebook.com/Marvelous.Matt.Magic

I need to move some newer photos over here eventually, but knowing how lax I’ve been in both places, don’t count on it.

The last two years were a whirlwind. I’ve been working on several new effects for the show, but burnout happens and I haven’t been that motivated. Not that I don’t enjoy magic, because I do, I’m just feeling the effects of overload between my day to day job and the performance aspect.

By nature I am not a social creature anyway. I’d rather be home with a book or a good movie. COVID and the lockdowns made it even worse but I’m finally finding my way out of that hole. In the next two weeks I will be returning to the Norman Medieval Faire again April 5-7th. The last time I was there was 2018 and it was the coldest event they had ever held. The long range forecast this year is mild temps in the low 60’s to low 70’s, minor chance of rain Thursday into Friday and sunny the rest of the weekend.

The wife and I will also be working again for T’ger Toggs at the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival this year. He wasn’t there last year because of a major SCA event he wanted to save inventory for. Many people asked him to return and since we were willing to work, he chose to come back down to vend.

In other news, last fall my wife opened her own faire business as a reseller of Renboots at KCRF. Because of that the owners of Renboots asked her and my daughter to work the tent for them at Norman this spring. This works out for us because we’ll be able to pickup inventory for our next event, the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival since Renboots is based in Oklahoma City. Because of her success at KCRF she will be bringing her boot shop, Olde Soles, down to OKRF this year. We’re borrowing one of T’ger’s other tents for our space and we’ll go down the week before to set everything up.

My next performing gig is The Renaissance Festival of Nebraska. They added a third weekend this year so I chose the last weekend, May 18-19 to return. I like this event. It’s small and family friendly and the owner likes me. I’ve had good reviews from this show so it’s really the audiences bringing me back.

Then I’ll be at the Great Bend Kansas June Jaunt the first Saturday of June. Again, an awesome community show and the organizer loves me. Or more likely I take care of myself and don’t cause problems. My wife is down at this event as well face painting you can see her stuff over at Doodle Faces KC on Facebook (I really need to update her page here too).

In the middle of all this we will be traveling to LA for the Magic Collectors Expo. One of the few non-performing events that happen when I have time available. Lectures on magic history, dealer room, visiting collections in the area, etc. I’ve been to the last two and my wife joined me last year in Cleveland so we’re looking forward to seeing what the organizers have planned for us this year. The event venue is the Queen Mary cruise ship, which now operates as a hotel in Long Beach, CA. I think it will be a very interesting time this year.

Anyway that’s what I have for now. I hope you like it.

Faire season is upon us. Next weekend we begin travelling down to OKRF to work for T’ger Toggs. My wife works for him at KCRF, and we go down and sell a ton of clothes for him in the spring. We’ve had a few minor changes in our schedule due to other festivals and unmovable events. Of the six weeks that OKRF runs I will be down there three and my wife will be there five.

One of those events is the graduation of our daughter, also known as Claire Up There, from college. She will graduate with a Major in Spanish language and a Minor in Music. She is driven to exceed expectations and she certainly did. Next fall she will begin an ASL program and is looking to work as a translator in the future.

The other events are things I’ve done in the past and with COVID infections on the decline events are really ramping up. I’ll be back at the Renaissance Festival of Nebraska for one weekend in May (May 7-8), and I will be returning once again to the Great Bend June Jaunt event the first Saturday of June (June 4th).

Since Christmas, I’ve been working on organizing my magic library. I had run out of space on my previous bookshelves so I went out and bought a used set of three matching bookshelves. I’ve been working recently on cataloging the books in a format I can access online when I’m away from my office. This will be especially helpful when I’m at an event looking to buy books to make sure I’m not duplicating anything.

Anyway, I’ll see you around. Hope you enjoy the show.

Since my last post in April things have been improving. In May my wife and I spent 5 weekends in Muskogee at the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival working for T’ger Toggs, a clothing retailer based out of Kansas City. It was very busy and people seemed enthusiastic about events opening back up. It started out with a mask mandate for participants unless you could verify your vaccine status and a mask recommendation to patrons. By the end of the run, the city of Muskogee’s mask mandate had expired so there were very few people wearing masks.

T’ger was very happy with how Muskogee turned out for him, even if he did have to work long hours during the week to rebuild his inventory.

June meant missing the last weekend of the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival and heading to Great Bend for the June Jaunt, an event held the first weekend of June in several small town along K-96. There were still concerns about social distancing and mask wearing which meant there were fewer vendors than normal. The layout this year, to me anyway, was all wrong. They had me on a temporary stage next to the courthouse where there was no shade. I ended up doing 2 of my three shows there and the final show of the day in front of my wife’s face painting tent (doodlefaceskc) in the shade. That last show ended up being the best show of the day and the small audience seemed to like it.

The rest of June was pretty quiet. I’ve been working on some stuff in my new Magic Room (Man Cave), but nothing that important. In July we made the annual trip up to the family cabin in Colorado and spent a day at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in Larkspur, CO about 45 minutes south of Denver. For us it was mostly a site seeing adventure. We’ve been doing Renfests for so long there isn’t much that is “new” to us. We did run into a vendor or two that we knew from Kansas City but other than watching a couple of shows it wasn’t that exciting. I don’t want to say that they don’t have a street cast, but the characters they do have are so spread out that they might as well not have anybody.

Late August I travelled to Las Vegas for the Magic Collectors Expo. Three days of informative lectures and a dealer room of all sorts of desires. I bought many books and a few poster recreations. The lectures covered all sorts of topics from newly discovered diaries of a young Alexander (before he knew) to the real history of Sawing a woman in half to feather flowers and quick change through history. The best part was the tour through The International Museum and Library of Conjuring Arts, David Copperfield’s private collection.

It’s hard to describe how breath-taking it truly was to walk through this treasure trove of magic history. Things I had only ever just read about I saw up close, props from touring shows of the late 1800’s – early 1900’s, costumes worn by famous magicians or their assistants, a recreation of Tannen’s magic shop in New York just like David remembered it. Amazing! I could have spent hours looking and reading all the tags but since there were so many of us we were guided through on a 90 minute tour in groups of 15. Still my mind longs to go back.

Kansas City Renaissance Festival

As we closed in on opening weekend, I spent a week and a half at the festival grounds getting the Tower ready. Steve usually helps but he was so overwhelmed with his other job that he didn’t have time to help. I made repairs and improvements to the tarp that covers the stage. Got everything hung and taut and it looks better than it has in years. Next year we will (I will) alter the tarp further so that it doesn’t sag in the middle like it does now.

Early in the run, one of the vendors near us was on site in the middle of the week when they heard management talking about the recent building inspections done by the city of Bonner Springs. Apparently ownership/management thought the tower belonged to us and wasn’t going to do any repairs to the structure. There are some cosmetic parts at the top of the tower that are rotting and falling off and were sited in the inspection and they wanted to know why it was on their report. I guess they know now.

Attendance has been down, or at least it feels like it. It’s definitely not the 15-17K average through the gate we used to get just a few years ago and nowhere close to the glory days of 28K+ that made it feel like you were packed tight as you walked through the lanes. Because of where we are on the festival grounds there has to be a certain number of people through the gate to “push” the crowd our direction. I mean I’m not complaining. The people that have come out have been great and Steve and I appreciate them sitting through our shows and leaving a little something in the basket before they leave.

We did have a scare at the tower. Steve got COVID so I immediately scheduled a test for myself. I was negative but Steve ended up missing a weekend so management brought in another magician from the St Louis area. He was definitely not Steve. I won’t mention his name here, but he was most definitely a kids show magician. The following weekend I learned that he was back on a different stage covering for another act that had to cancel due to COVID.

COVID is no joke. Mask up, get the inoculation, keep the people around you safe.

One weekend to go until we pack it all up for another year.

The weekend immediately following Renfest I travel to Columbia, MO to do several 15 minute shows over two days. It’s supposed to be Renaissance themed so it shouldn’t be a tough gig but 15 minutes for me is typically just the warm up.

Construction

Since my last update in January, We’ve completed construction on my room. We haven’t come up with any clever name for it, it’s just my room or the magic room.

Here is the video I uploaded to Facebook a few weeks ago:

Covid

I got both my shots of the Pfizer vaccine and full efficacy will be May 8th. I’m an introvert and even I am looking forward to getting to be around people again.

Faires, Festivals, etc.

Made a brief trip to Central Missouri Renaissance Festival this past weekend. It was good to see many faces I haven’t had in person contact with for more than a year. I talked with the Entertainment Director there, and talks are underway to bring me to the event, maybe this fall after Kansas City (depends on timing), but definitely next spring. I feel I’m a good fit for the event and will bring some new energy.

One thing I did notice is that all acts had QR codes printed and placed near the front of their stages for touchless tipping. I’ll need to do that for Kansas City this fall.

Performing

I performed in March for the Kansas City Magic Showcase’s online show. It was a little rough, I admit, but I was working in a brand new space and had never worked for a camera before. Plus having no audience to work with it made things, for me anyway, more like demonstrating and not performing. I did an effect with new script, an old trick that always plays well (in person at least), an effect I tried at Renfest a couple of years back that I ended up dropping because it needed more work, and a completely new effect with mind reading. I went back and re-watched and there are certainly things I’ll do differently if the opportunity arises again.

Live shows

My first live in person show this year will be at the June Jaunt in Great Bend, Kansas June 5th. I am excited and a little nervous since it’s been well over six months since my last in person performance. I know it will work out just fine, they love me down there. I am working on some new things to present and some old things in new ways.

I had thought I’d be up in Nebraska in May but because of a communication SNAFU on his end the entertainment director/owner didn’t think I was interested. He put me on the list for next year so we’ll see what happens.

KCRF

I was asked this weekend if I thought Kansas City Renaissance Festival was going to happen this fall. I told him, and I believe this, that there is a very slim chance it wouldn’t happen. As vaccinations increase and new infections decrease in the area it will happen. It may look a bit different than previous years. Since it doesn’t start until September, it’s hard to say, but it may have social distancing rules, attendance caps, temperature checks at the entry points. Again, at that point it will be the “normal” we’ve all lived with for the last year and as things return to a new normal we will all adjust accordingly.

Final thoughts

This last year has been hard for many of us that make a living being in front of people. Some will undoubtedly jump in with both feet the first chance they get. Some of us, like me, want to take it slow so that all precautions are taken to limit the spread of COVID and ensure the safety of our audiences.

I cannot wait to hear those words again…”Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you Marvelous Matt!!!”

I realized it’s been a little over a month since my last post. I don’t really have much of an update. Work on my room continues slowly and we hope to have it finalized around the first part of February. It will be good to have a “place” in our home for my things. It will also be a place I can escape to when I need to work on something without the distractions the living room provides. I’ll also be setting it up as a virtual studio so I can start doing some magic online. Speaking of…

I was asked to perform for a virtual show for our local magic club but with construction dragging on and my stuff packed away I told them I wouldn’t be ready in time; maybe next month. I miss being able to perform. My last opportunity was in September when we filmed the Jolly Rogers show which was broadcast on Youtube in October. I posted about it last month.

I can’t wait for things to open back up and get closer to normal now that a vaccine is available. My wife already got her first dose because she’s on our local city council (continuation of government) but because I’m not in one of the “at risk” groups I probably won’t be eligible until late Spring/early Summer. Still I encourage everybody to follow health guidelines: wear a mask, stay socially distanced, wash your hands. Before long it will be over and we can get back to what is important to us.

Contacts are being made for the upcoming year. Spring shows are iffy because of the slow vaccine rollout, Summer shows are better but not guaranteed, Fall shows like KCRF will probably happen. I’ve already been told by one owner/operator in Iowa that even though we were good for them last year his regular people are coming back so they don’t need us. However, the show at the Bellevue Berry Farm outside Omaha is looking forward to having me back assuming they can open safely this year. I’ll keep you updated when I get dates secured.

There you have it, the post telling you all about the absolutely nothing going on in my life right now.

May 2019

The first weekend of May was spent at Renaissance Festival of Nebraska at Bellevue Berry Farm outside Omaha, NE. Because of all the flooding along I-29 this year we had to take a longer route up US 75 from Topeka. It’s two lanes most of the way and I do not recommend it unless you have no other choice. This was the second year I was at this event and I had requested being somewhere other than the children’s area all day. I was not disappointed, four shows per day each at a different stage. Since last year I had figured out how to minimize my props so we didn’t need the wagon, instead relying on a foot locker and a fold-able two wheeler. The shows seemed to go over pretty well and management seemed pleased with the way everything went.

After that, we were back in Oklahoma for the next three weekends at the Oklahoma Renaissance Festival working for T’ger Toggs.
There was one weekend that a strong storm rolled through overnight. Hearing tornado sirens and looking outside to see it eerily quiet is not something you want waking you up at 3am. Turns out that storm had spawned tornadoes to the south of town. It missed largely populated areas but we heard later about several homes that had been damaged.

June 2019

We returned to Great Bend the first weekend of June. This little one day event is a great local festival and I am always grateful that they ask me back year after year. We rented a trailer this year so I could bring the Acupuncture illusion with me as well as all the other equipment this family of performers requires. I only performed the Acupuncture once due to technical difficulties. Trying to fix what was wrong in the blazing sun wasn’t working so I ended up cutting it from the rest of my shows for the day. My wife painted faces all day and was joined by our daughter in the afternoon. Also longtime friend Beth Byrd performed throughout the day handing out tickets to patrons for silly things like being “too darn cute” and did a show followed by a workshop on miming for all the kids. Always a good time.

July 2019

• Spent some time in the mountains of Colorado relaxing with friends and family.
• I fixed the problem with the Acupuncture so that shouldn’t be an issue anymore.
• Walked on broken glass at Kansas City Magic Showcase with Rod Sipe, again.
• Fringe Fest meant performing friends staying with us. Mike and Nancee Micham presented their performance piece “Red Clay Country and White Cloverine Salve” five times during the 14 day run. It’s a rustic story about Nancee’s grandmother and her trip across the dust bowl to a better life in California.

Below you’ll see Mike and Nancee putting their lives in my hands in some dangerous equipment. I can’t say enough about what good friends they’ve become over the years.