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Essential Magic Conference DVD Set

Various

Luis de Matos

(Based on 2 reviews)
EMC2010 was a remarkable event and this is an incredible set of DVDs packed with great material!

If you did not register for EMC 2010 you can buy the DVD Box Set from your favourite magic dealer.

The world's first internet conference for magic and magicians is now available in 8 DVDs. Every moment was captured on hi-quality video and audio and is now available on a special EMC Boxed Set of DVDs.

Every lecture and performance given at EMC is on the DVDs, together with our Discussion Panels, Q&As, Bonus Tricks from Max Maven and T. A. Waters and our Passion for Magic videos. That's 16 hours of magical material. Also included are the complete chat logs, hundreds of pages of online chat. Check out what our registrants were talking about throughout the conference. An outstanding source of knowledge and a real collector's item.

It's a never before seen amazing line-up. The 8 DVDs contain performances and lectures from some of the world's top magicians...

Anton Lopez, Apollo Robbins, Barry and Stuart, Carlos Vaquera, Cyril Takayama, Dani DaOrtiz, David Britland, De'Vo Vom Schattenreich, Eric Eswin, Eric Mead, Finn Jon, Gaetan Bloom, Gazzo, Gene Matsuura, Guy Hollingworth, Helder Guimarães, James Freedman, Jason England, Lennart Green, Luis de Matos, Marco Tempest, Max Maven, Miguel Angel Gea, Mike Caveney, Paul Kieve, Paulino Gil, Ponta The Smith, Richard McDougall, Richard Wiseman, Stan Allen, Ton Onosaka, Topas and William Kalush.

Reviews

Joe Diamond

Official Reviewer

Jul 29, 2011

I’m going to be upfront: This is the future of the magic community and it’s fantastic. If you ever questioned if the internet was good or bad for magic, this will show you it can be used for infinite good. This DVD set is from the world’s first internet conference for magicians. Luis De Matos put his production company towards this passion project, and the result is a sixteen-hour collection of talks, performances, and explanations. Think of it as the official TED Conference of magic.

Each presenter gives about a twenty minute talk on their specialty. Luis De Matos talks about TV Ratings. Marco Tempest talks about performing magic online. Mike Caveney talks about an interesting story from magic history. Topas talks about ideas and originality. Barry and Stuart talk about developing material for stage and TV. If this already sounds fantastic, remember there are about thirty other presenters.

While I did not enjoy about four of the talks, I was blown away at all the others. In a usual convention, four weak acts or lectures can throw off the whole convention. Not here. The level of talent, knowledge, and variety here is astounding. Each performer would be a headliner by themselves at a regular convention. While I won’t say who bombed in my opinion, I will say that in this case, it doesn’t matter.

To show what I mean, let’s do the math. Each talk is about twenty minutes. If you get nothing out of four of those talks, that’s one hour. That leaves fifteen hours of material that you will still enjoy and get use out of.

With that in mind, it’s obvious we will all enjoy some acts more than others, so my least favorites probably won’t be yours, and that’s what is great about this. Everyone will get something of quality to them. It doesn’t matter what kind of magic you do, you will find something here that you can use in your act, your research, your creativity, or your collection.

The collection contains eight discs as a box set. Each disc is well edited, shot in HD, has a clear menu, a well written content list on each case so we see what’s on each disc, and it looks great on a book or DVD shelf. It’s easily worth double the already high asking price of one hundred and fifty dollars. In my opinion, it’s not only a worthwhile investment, it’s a necessary investment if you want to excel in the field of magic. Most three DVD sets sell for a hundred bucks, and average about 5 hours of material. This is sixteen hours of material for one hundred and fifty dollars. Again, when you run these numbers, you realize it’s an astounding steal.

Five stars is not a high enough rating for this. Every magician should own this set, and study it for years to come.
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Kolisar

May 31, 2011

The Essential Magic Conference was created with great ambition. They wanted to create an international magic conference that almost anyone could attend. They wanted the lecturers to be the top of their art, the presentations to be engaging, and the performances to be entertaining.

For the most part, they succeeded. The only reason I cannot give this a perfect score is that it is almost trying to be all things to all people. I think that they could have been a little more focused and. perhaps, slightly more selective in the choice of speakers. There is at least one, very well know, performer who may have been asked to attend because to that performer's name recognition and to fill out the time.

That being said, there are multiple performances, lectures, and even discussion panels. Covering topics such as cards, coins, stage, the future of magic and the importance if our art's history.

I watched every minute of the each DVD, and I recommend that you do the same. If you do, I can almost guarantee that the following will happen:

1) You will learn something.
2) You will find a number of ideas that you will use.
3) You will be amazed.
4) You will come away with a new respect for, and possibly a new interest in, a branch of magic that you had previously not given much thought.
5) You will anxiously await EMC 2011 and may even sign up to watch the lectures live.

I understand that $150 is a good amount of money, but you are receiving eight DVDs and about 16 hours of video. This is not 16 hours of performance/explanation (there is some of that in there), it is 16 hours of information that will make you a better magician, performer and business person. But, then again, if you read the list of speakers, that should not come as a surprise.

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