Showing posts with label Montreal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Montreal. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 30, 2017

The Magic Collectors Weekend Report


I'm not sure if I've had a guest blogger on here, or if I have it's been a while. My friend Blair Marshall who is a great Magician/Illusionist from Canada, attended the Magic Collectors Weekend, and I asked him if he could share his experience with the readers of TheMagicDetective.com. I discovered that John Cox from WildAboutHoudini.com had a guest blogger do a write up for his site as well. I decided to wait a couple days before I put this up to give folks enough time to see his write-up. I purposely chose to use a similar format, but have done my best to give you different photos and different content.

And now, Take It Away Blair...

Mike Caveney started the day by doing an awesome job telling The Egyptian Hall story to the gathering here in Montreal for the Magic Collectors Weekend. Egyptian Hall was the magic collection of David Price Jr.. To read more about Egyptian Hall, follow this link


What an amazing kick-off to our day at the McCord Museum and the opening weekend of their Illusions: The Art of Magic exhibit. Prepare to see some really incredible images I took during my time at the exhibit!


Here are some of the photos of the amazing magic poster collection at the Montreal McCord Musuem we saw during the Magic Collectors Weekend. The exhibit represents approx. 10% of their collection. They are beautifully displayed and the exhibition halls are well themed. A big thank-you to Christian Vachon, the poster collection curator, for the love, care, and attention to detail that he gave to this amazing exhibit. BRAVO CHRISTIAN, BRAVO McCORD!!!





If those pictures were part of the 10%, what else is there??? As part of the MCW we were taken "behind the scenes" by the magic poster collection curator Christian Vachon and down into the vault where we saw some amazing HUGE posters . Merci Christian!


The attendees to the MCW were taken to the library by Geneviève Déziel of the Montreal McCord Musuem where we got to view some of the Houdini artifacts from the collection (not shown to the public).

This is the former student union hall where it is said Houdini gave his last talk to the McGill students on spirit mediums, he died just a few days later.

The museum may eventually do a Houdini exhibit.


We did not know the programming for the Magic Collector's Weekend here in Montreal.  Little did I know that the Friday evening event was about the early years of Doug Henning. After an opening talk by Michael Grandinetti, the stage was taken over by Brian Lumley and Maya (Lesley Fitzpatrick-Walker ), two of Doug's very close friends and assistants from the "Spellbound" days and on. Brian was a carpenter (still is) and built sets and props for Spellbound.  Maya was part of a two woman magic act called Mars and Mayo who worked with Doug.

I had met Doug Henning prior to them in 1969/70, and I had performed on a magic convention show with Maya and Mars in 1977. So it was great meet them and to reconnect with Maya again. (ed note: To read more about Maya, visit her site where she talks about Doug http://www.mayafair.ca/previous-incarnations/)

On Saturday evening, after the show The Allan Slaight Awards were given out. To read more about the awards please visit http://www.magicana.com/news/blog/and-award-goes-0

Julie Eng and David Ben, along with their support team, did an awesome job pulling together the Magic Collectors Weekend here in Montreal, folks from all over the world attended, making it truly an international event. Thanks Julie and Ben!!!!!
Blair Marshall and Julie Eng
 Thanks BLAIR for the great photos and report!!! Also, please go to http://www.magicana.com/ to see all the wonderful articles and videos of magic history they offer and subscribe to their magazine. Also, visit http://www.musee-mccord.qc.ca/en/exhibitions/magic/   to learn more about the exhibit.
And finally, Please check out John Cox's site to get even more perspective on the weekend.. http://www.wildabouthoudini.com/2017/05/magic-comes-to-mccord-museum-in-montreal.html