570: Dan Witkowski - Cereal Genius

This week’s guest is another of those who is long overdue to tell his 40+ years of experience. Dan Witkowski and his company, MagicCom, has created unique magical experiences for the NFL, Coca-Cola, General Mills, the medical field and even the Whitehouse. Dan tells a lot of interesting stories from his experience of creating and producing not just one, but two halftime shows for the Super Bowl in consecutive years.

Dan has been an infrequent guest in the past having been on at least two convention report podcasts where he was attending and giving his assessment of the daily activities. So it was a delight to have a much more in-depth conversation with him here.

The quality of this recording is not up to the standard because it was recorded in the car using WiFi from a grocery store where I was parked. The power had gone out in my usual studio which meant that I needed to quickly find an alternative location. So the parking lot was the best I could do as we spoke to each other over a Skype connection.

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315: Day 4 - MAGIC Live! 2016

Day Four Schedule - August 17, 2016

24 hours - The Back Room
9:00 a.m. Registration
10:00 a.m. - Wednesday General Session for Maroon lanyards
   The Drink That Schooled Einstein - Michael Weber
   Raise Your Level - Ken Weber
   The Magic Shop - Bizzaro
   Teach-in the F.B.I. to Read Minds - Ian Rowland
   ON AIR: How to Get Yourself Booked on Television - Steve Spangler
   The Illusion of Reality - Curtis Hickman
10:00 a.m. - Wednesday Focus Group for Black lanyards
   Close-Up Clinic - Nine Master Teachers, hands-On
   Improv for Magicians - Navaris Darson of The Groundlings
   20/20 Hindsight - 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 5 subjects
11:00 a.m. The MAGIC Shop open until 6:30 p.m.
11:15 a.m. - Wednesday Focus Group for Black lanyards
   Close-Up Clinic - Nine Master Teachers, hands-On
   Improv for Magicians - Navaris Darson of The Groundlings
   20/20 Hindsight - 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 5 subjects
12:15 p.m. lunch break
2:15 p.m. - Wednesday General Session for Black lanyards
   The Drink That Schooled Einstein - Michael Weber
   Raise Your Level - Ken Weber
   The Magic Shop - Bizzaro
   Teach in the F.B.I. to Read Minds - Ian Rowland
   ON AIR: How to Get Yourself Booked on Television - Steve Spangler
   The Illusion of Reality - Curtis Hickman
2:15 p.m. - Wednesday Focus Group for Maroon lanyards
   Close-Up Clinic - Nine Master Teachers, hands-On
   Improv for Magicians - Navaris Darson of The Groundlings
   20/20 Hindsight - 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 5 subjects
3:30 p.m. - Wednesday Focus Group for Maroon lanyards
   Close-Up Clinic - Nine Master Teachers, hands-On
   Improv for Magicians - Navaris Darson of The Groundlings
   20/20 Hindsight - 20 slides, 20 seconds each, 5 subjects
5:00 p.m. - Dinner break
6:30 p.m. - Live on stage II
9:00 p.m. Live On Stage II
10:00 p.m. Farewell party until 1:00 a.m.
11:00 p.m. Special Presentation

This is just a small piece of all the magic tricks Luis Piedrahita can perform, I wanted to translate it so that more people can enjoy his beautiful performances

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:00:13: - Mel Kientz, distributor of the free daily news brief - "Magician's Life", gives his perspective on this year's MAGIC Live!

00:06:24 - Mark Ginther gives us a couple suggestions for shows to see while visiting Las Vegas (HIT: Xavier Mortimer).

00:09:05 - Simon and Ginny Aronson chats about their intimate close-up magic group in Chicago that was featured in a recent news article.

00:18:11 - Bizzaro talks about his participation in the General Session plus some of his roots in Texas.

00:26:23 - Mark Mason is wrapping up his dealer's booth and his association with Penguin Magic and the one-day events (Magic Expo) where he deals. Plus he gives some advice on a throat losenger.

00:30:47 - Busy trade show magician, Scott Tokar, talks about this convention and his views of MAGIC Live plus some trade show worker tips.

00:41:09 - FISM 2015 winner and July 2016 MAGIC Magazine cover boy, Pierric, chats about his experience of attending MAGIC Live for the first time and for that matter, his first time in Las Vegas. He chats about his FISM competition experience.

00:47:01 - Richard Hatch, of H&R Magic Books, tells us what he has seen or heard that has been some of the top tricks at this convention. Dan Witkowski joins us to give us his perspetive of MAGIC Live, too.

00:58:36 - Peter Samelson gives a quick review of the final night show plus what made this convention memorable for him.

01:02:07 - Fielding West, one of the 'cover boys" from MAGIC Magazine, talks about the importance of using a metronome when practicing.

01:13:14 - Luis Piedrahita, star of Spain's TV show, "The Anthill" tells us how to pronounce his last name, plus an overview of his presentation from his General Session.

01:23:51 - Stan Allen is listing the names of people who are in attendance who have appeared on the cover of MAGIC Magazine over the past 25 years. There were over 70 celebrated magicians here tonight.

01:28:47 - Stan Allen talks about this all being over and his plans for the future. Thanks, Stan!

#200 - How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Last year we brought you "The Night Before Christmas" read by a handful of popular magicians. It was so well received that I asked a few more guys (and gals) to read "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas". See if you can pick out the voices of: Boris Wild, Bob Cassidy, Docc Hilford, Tim Ellis, Tim Trono, George Tait, Rocco Silano, Eric DeCamps, Mandy Farrell, Ice McDonald, Steven Bargatze, Marc Salem, Rick Merrill, Richard Osterlind and, as the Grinch, Eugene Burger.

As I attended several magic conventions over this past year, I took aside a few guys and gals to chat on the podcast. But many of the people graciously agreed to record something special just for this very special podcast. I hope you enjoy hearing their reading of this Doctor Seuss classic. This was one of the most difficult podcasts to edit and took the longest time to gather all the voices to do this one which ended up being one of the shortest ones, too.

This special podcast is my Christmas gift to you for listening for these past few years to the previous 199 podcasts. I wish all the best to you and yours for this holiday season.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. (please note: this RSS Feed subscription system may not work with Android systems). Remember, you can download it through iTunes. See the preview page by Clicking Here.

570: Dan Witkowski - Cereal Genius

315: Day 4 - MAGIC Live! 2016

#200 - How The Grinch Stole Christmas

Magic & Martinis Thursday...with the Grinch!

The Magic Word