Magic Conventions

 I am a big believer in continuous learning and improvement. So one of the things I invest in is Magic Conventions. These have grown into large events that usually span 3 or 4 days. They are crammed with magic from morning to midnight - with shows, lectures, dealer rooms, exhibits and people constantly performing in the lobby, the bar, the session rooms, etc. You are surrounded by creative people who are all trying to improve and further the art in some way or the other. And it is a great place to meet your magician friends from all over the world.

Though they tend to be expensive since besides the substantial entry fees, you also have to fly to the destination and figure out a hotel to stay in, etc. they are super fun and definitely worth going to. One of the biggest Magic conventions is Magic Live and it is usually in Las Vegas in the month of August. I have attended a couple of times and this year I will be there with my son Vineet and my long time magic friends and convention buddy Praveen Kumar, whom I first met in Bangalore (he actually was a volunteer in one of the magic shows I was performing).

And one of these days, I hope to make it to the biggest magic convention in the world - the Blackpool convention in February. I also usually bring back something new from the convention that soon makes it into the show - this is how I keep my shows modern and fresh as the years go by.

Summer is here with us - do call me if you are having any celebration and let us make your party an unforgettable one with an amazing magic show.

Best age for Magic Shows

 Magic shows are suitable for a wide variety of age groups and events. For adults I have the Mentalism and Mystery show that is perfect for anniversaries, special celebrations like festivals, seasonal parties and also corporate events. For kids and family audiences all kids above 4 years of age will understand and appreciate a magic show and will be amazed. I just finished a magic show for a 10 year old and it could not have gone better. All the folks - kids and adults alike were engaged and amazed at the magic. For this age group I even teach a trick and show them "how magic works" and this makes them appreciate the magic show even more. For kids who are under 4 years this is a difficult environment and I know some magicians specialize in pre-school events, etc. I usually accept these shows only if it is a mixed audience and there are many kids above 4 years of age and/or adults watching the show. In some shows the parents sit with the kids and this works very well also.

Remember each show is tailored to your needs and the length and content are chosen according to the age group and your needs. With summer coming up, let me know if you have needs. I also do magic shows at summer camps and festivals all over the Northern California Bay Area. So I look forward to meeting you at one of the shows soon. Check my web-site www.amazingvijay.com for details about various types of shows.

High Tech Magic

With the rapid advances in high tech it is hard for us to comprehend what is truly magical. For example, in the last few weeks I have been trying Tesla's FSD (full self driving) and it is truly amazing !! You just enter your destination and hit "Full Self Drive" and it takes you there without you doing anything at all except watching the road to see if it makes any major mistakes, which it has not yet!! Keeing my fingers crossed but this feels truly magical.

I also recently acquired a 3D printer for home use and using a few AI and other tools tried to convert a 2D photo into a 3D statues and again it did an amazing job. All these advances in technology feel truly magical. And those of you who know Steve Jobs probably remember that when he introduced his iPhone for the first time, he called it a 'magical device", which it truly was in those days. Nowadays we take smart phones for granted and everyone seems to have one. 

If you do hire me to entertain you at your party/event with my magic show, I can even show you a couple of tricks using an iPhone! If you have any thoughts or ideas do visit www.amazingvijay.com or send me an email at amazingvijay@yahoo.com.

 Kudos

I wanted to take a brief moment to talk about why I spend so much time and money learning and performing magic. Yes, I do charge for my shows but it is NOT the money that keeps me going. In fact the money I make goes mostly into the hobby - learning new stuff, attending magic conventions, going to lectures and buying the latest and greatest magic tricks. If you are a magician you will quickly realize that kudos or genuine praise from the audience is what keeps you going. I have plenty of quotes on my web-site about praise I have received but here's a few more recent ones:

• Everyone was very enthusiastic about your show! The kids had an absolute blast, and our team is so happy with how perfectly the event came together. Thank you for your amazing contribution!
• Thank you so much Vijay! You made my granddaughter's event truly memorable!
• Surprisingly entertaining even for adults. Vijay came on time, and the show had really good tricks that left kids scratching their heads and even grownups in a lot of cases. The show was also funny and there was a lot of interaction between kids and the magician. o be honest Vijay performance turned out to be the highlight of the birthday party.

After each show, I make sure to thank the host and ask what they thought about the show. And many times the kids watching will themselves tell you how they felt, what they think they figured out, etc. And many people choose to include a tip along with their payment. All of these forms of praise or feedback is what keeps me going and also what makes the show better and more amazing each additional year.

As we start 2026, I hope to meet many of you at my magic shows - whether it is adult party, a kid's party, a corporate event, walk around or at a public park, please do come by and let me know what you thought about the show.

Summer Magic shows

 I was fortunate this summer to entertain literally hundreds of kids in a series of Summer camps. All of them were "Illusion shows" where it appears like a young kid from the audience is actually floating for a few seconds. All kids also get a flier at the end of the show that teaches them 3 magic tricks. Most of these shows were also outdoors but luckily it did not get unbearably hot.

Apart from performing I also had the good fortune of attending the World championships of Magic in Italy called FISM 2025. Of course I was a spectator - not a contestant 😀 The contestants are the best in each country and compete in various categories like Close Up Magic, Mentalism, Stage Manipulation, General magic and even Inventions. It happens once in 3 years and I have attended the last 2 of them. The next one is in South Korea and I will probably not go to that one (just taking a break).

And finally I have acquired some new magic effects that I look forward to introducing in my shows later the year. Have a great rest of the summer 20205 !!

I did my Deluxe show, Illusion show, Walk around show and Mind Reading show all in one month

Like many magicians I offer different types of shows depending on the event type and your personal preferences. A lot of my shows are family shows and. this can be augmented with Balloon twisting. Recently I have formalized a new adult show called "Mind Reading and Mystery show". The surprising thing was that in February and March 2025, I had the good fortune to do multiple shows and we managed to do at least one show for each type and they all went great. My focus on all shows is to make it interactive and ensure that everyone has a great time - "have fun". While venues like Close up are naturally interactive, the platform shows are not and you have to make an effort to keep the show interesting so the audience feels like participating and have fun with you. This may even involve special custom magic effects for that show. This has been my specialty and what I have done for the last 30 years. I continue to go to magic club meetings, lectures and conventions to keep updating my magic knowledge and have a lot of fun doing this.

Do give me a call if you have any special event coming up and I would love to provide a customized entertainment package.

 Magic for Holiday parties

As you know we are approaching the holidays and many companies and even people have holiday parties so you can spend quality time with your friends and family. And of course, many people are looking for entertainment for these parties. If you are in this camp, I hope you have already booked a magician, balloon artist, face painter, etc. This is a busy time for us magicians and charges usually go up as demand increases. 

A magic show is indeed a great choice for your holiday parties.It can bring everyone at the party together to watch some fun entertainment . It also gives you fun topics to discuss later in the party or in future parties like how exactly did he make my card rise out of the deck, or jump to a wallet. Or in the case of my shows, often it is to discuss how I bent the spoon using the power of my mind. Another comment I hear often is - how did he keep a group of young kids so engaged for a whole hour?

Anyway, whatever it is you all do at your holiday parties, have fun and enjoy meeting your friends, co-workers and families. HAPPY HOLIDAYS 2023 !!!

It has been a while

I have been so busy doing magic shows that I have not posted anything on this blog in a while. Well it is March 2018 and the weather around the Bay Area is getting slowly warmer and the days are getting longer. I am sure many of you have Birthday parties coming up or other celebrations. Do consider hiring a good magician to entertain all of you. Magic is a skilled entertainment form - as opposed to consumed characters, etc. I just performed a magic show today and once of the audience members remarked to me that the best thing about a magic show is that it brings everyone in the party TOGETHER to watch something fun. I AGREE 100%. That is part of the fun - to sit and watch something together. In the last few months I have performed shows in India, in Atlanta and of course all over the san Jose/San Francisco Bay Area.

If you live in Cupertino, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Palo Alto, Mountain View or Saratoga, you are so close to me that I would love to perform at you next party. Hope to see some of you this coming Summer months.

Fall 2016 Magic shows

I am not sure exactly why but the start of September seems to always be the start of the magic show season after the summer holidays. Though people are home during the summer and school starts in August, I think most people settle down in the new school year and plan many birthday parties and magic shows for September and October and then of course the busy holiday season kicks in.

Magic is quite popular these days with both the Penn and Teller show and the Masters of Illusion show going strong on TV. I hope many of you are watching these shows since they are quite high quality. I have added some new effects to my magic shows and I hope you enjoy them also. More and more people are asking for the illusion ,magic show where it appears that I make a member of the audience float for a few seconds. This can be done outdoors or indoors and has been very popular among the kids 7 years and older. Adults love this effect also.

I hope you make plans early if you need a magic show in September, October, November or December. I hope to see many of you in my shows. 

Three magic shows in one day !

It is true - I actually did 3 back to back magic shows in one day. While there are probably many full time pros who do this, for me it was a first. Luckily there was enough time to get from one place to the next and more importantly the first show started 'on time' which is a pretty rare occurrence. The shows were for different age groups of kids and that means I had to pack carefully in the beginning of the day. I did forget to bring a couple of things but nothing major and all the shows went without a hitch. In fact, one of the customers was so happy, she immediately wrote a great review on yelp.com.

So while I prefer to do 1-2 shows a weekend and not to work every weekend either, sometimes things do not work the way we want. Ultimately when I stand in front of a group of kids and adults who are eagerly waiting to watch a magic show, I just love this feeling and it always brings out my best. And as I do more shows, I am getting even better at involving all the kids in a show and making them all work with me. I also did some balloon twisting for 2 shows yesterday and that is a lot of fun also. Whether it is a simple heart balloon on a stick, or a sword or a more complex figure, they all bring so much joy to the kids :-)

Come watch my magic show at Santa Clara library Northside Branch on Nov. 7 at 2:00 p.m

The Santa Clara library Northside Branch is celebrating Diwali this year on Nov. 7. I open the afternoon festivities with my magic show. This is a great chance to have some Diwali fun and also watch many of the events incl. my magic show. So please come if possible and bring your whole family with you.

For us performers this is a great chance to interact with the greater community as opposed to doing private birthday party shows. I am looking forward to a fun filled interactive show. Here's the link to the day's events.

http://santaclaraca.gov/Home/Components/Calendar/Event/19131/67?curm=11&cury=2015

BTW, this is busy season coming up - so if you are looking for a magician in November or December it is time to call and reserve now. Check out my web-site www.amazingvijay.com for various types of shows I offer.
 

Magic shows in new school season

Well summer vacation 2014 is over and schools are back in session soon. I have had some magic shows and some vacation as well. Now I am back to doing shows and available on weekends as before.

Here are a few tips if you are considering hiring a magician for your child's birthday party:

• Focus on quality - not quantity. There are many magicians and many styles and many prices too. What you want to stay focused on in the best possible show you can get - after all you do not do this everyday
• Plan well in advance - I have started offering a discount for people who book early. I think this is well deserved.
• Make sure you let people attending the party know what time the magic show is planned. I have been to many parties where I am the first one to show up :)
• Try and watch the show yourself - this will let the other guests know that this is an important event. It is very hard for a magician to perform when people are chatting loudly about what stocks to buy.
• Enjoy and have fun - take some pictures - so you can save the memories !

Hope to see you at one my upcoming magic shows. Do stop by and say hello.

Full review of my Illusion show from a real customer last weekend

Instead of me describing my show, let me allow a customer to describe the show in her own words:

We invited Vijay to perform at my daughter's 10th birthday party where we had about 35 people attending including adults and kids, all the way from kindergarten through 8th grade. Vijay put on a fantastic show for all that were present and it turned out to be simply a wonderful evening !

Grownups and kids alike were all kept entertained, engaged and excited about the next magic trick that was about to unravel before them…whether it was cards…lights….soda…bent spoons...or rabbits….and finally culminating with my daughter - the birthday girl - levitating in mid-air !!

Vijay is a great entertainer/performer and kept the show extremely interactive, calling upon kids individually to come up in front of the audience to help perform the next act. The Birthday Chronicle that he custom compiles specifically based on the birthdate of your child is a unique keepsake, outlining special news events that happened on that day.

Thank you Vijay for making my daughter's birthday this year such a memorable one for us !

Hope you enjoyed this review. Read many more here: https://plus.google.com/109496903957532265581/about
I am doing many magic shows this summer - I do hope we get a chance to meet at one of my shows. If you have any questions about the show, do email me at amazingvijay@yahoo.com
 

Magic shows for mixed age groups

How do you do a magic show where we have kids of different age groups and also adults watching? This is a great question and it is something I have to deal with often when I do magic for a first birthday party or an adult celebration for a key milestone birthday or special anniversary, etc. The answer is to have something for everyone. I usually start every show by explaining why magic works - yes, you have to see my show to know what this means. This is of course interesting for everyone. This is followed by a few effects that will amaze young and old. Only then I go into effects for younger kids but then I return to some effects for older kids and adults like when I bend solid spoons with my mind or predict something they have just thought of.

In short, if you watch my show, you will see that people of all age groups are engaged and they all love to watch a live magic show and be entertained and amazed. Let me end with a couple of actual customer quotes related to this:

"We had Vijay perform at our daughter's Birthday yesterday and to our surprise he had captured attention of kids and adults alike for the next 45 mins...."

"Vijay is really amazing, kids and adults enjoyed the show equally. It was a very memorable birthday party. This was our second time to have Vijay for a birthday party. I will highly recommend Vijay for fun filled birthday parties"

To read all the customer comments click here:
https://plus.google.com/109496903957532265581/about

I look forward to meeting you at one of my magic shows this summer - 2014.

 

Yelp and their Reviews

Yelp.com is a good site to find out about various businesses and read actual user reviews. This works for restaurants, hotels, etc. But somehow their system appears broken when it comes to Entertainers like magicians. I have a yelp business profile and 14 VERY GOOD Reviews from real customers. But somehow their ratings engine has decided to hide these reviews. Thankfully if you really want to, you can read these reviews by clicking on the link at the bottom of their page. But I decided to make a picture and show some of reviews here. Hopefully you can see here how much people enjoy my magic shows... click on picture to see the full text or view them on my web-site www.amazingvijay.com

 

Magic Show at Elks Lodge, Gilroy

About 2 weeks ago, we had the good fortune of performing a full evening of magic at the Elks Lodge in Gilroy. Accompanying me were my 2 good friends - Carlucci and Ken King. All 3 of us have been together at the magic club, IBM Ring 216, San Jose for many, many years. There was walk around magic and a full stage magic show. Carlucci produced his cute rabbit which of course everyone wanted to pet. Ken performed some solid magic incl. the classic Linking Rings. I performed my abbreviated stage show which included some jedi style spoon bending and concluded with my "floating" child illusion. The audience seemed to have a lot of fun and I enjoyed performing with my friends. During my walk around I performed a couple of effects using my iPhone and people loved this. After a very busy July performing many magic shows, I am taking a break in August and focusing on other things. But if you a need a magic show, do call me.

Repeat Magic Shows

So do you see the same magic show if you invite me to your party after you see me at your friend's party? This is a great question and the answer is 'it depends on what you want'. Most magicians including me have many different effects they perform and can change at least 50% of the show quite easily. In fact I know so much magic that I can perform 2 completely different magic shows - with 90% different effects in each show. But that is probably not what people want. They book you because they like you and your show. This means that they may want to see some of the main effects again. So I always ask people a lot of questions when I get booked and then decide what to perform after I find out all the details about the party. I also regularly add new effects to the show and swap out some older effects, so if you have not seen the show for a while you will definitely see new stuff if you book me even if you have seen me before.

This year, Rocky the Racoon is not performing in all my shows. But we have some other new effects. You must see the show to find out what is new :-) Speaking of shows, Spring season has arrived, the weather is getting better and many more people seem to want magic shows at their party. Hopefully I will see you this quarter at one of my shows.

My very own iPhone Magic App

I am very proud to have just released my very own magic trick for the iPhone called MagicThinkACard. It is a very simple app that anyone with an interest in magic can learn and perform. In fact most of my customers so far have been non-magicians though some of the magicians have liked it also. You basically show 3 playing card images on the screen. Flip them over. Ask the spectator to take the phone, go somewhere you cannot see and touch one card and remember it. They then flip the card back and hand you back the phone. You can immediately read their mind and tell them the card they are just thinking about. As they say - no mirrors, no magnets, just simple magic, once you know how :-)

You can buy this little App for $0.99 at the iTunes App Store and it runs on your iPad also:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/magic-think-a-card/id556211184?mt=8
or
http://www.amazingvijay.com/iOsApps.html

Enjoy and if you buy it, please post some feedback on the iTunes App store.

iPhone magic becoming more advanced

So what if I want to do a card trick when I don't have a deck of cards? The answer is "use your iPhone". Hard to believe but true. I can actually show you a virtual deck of cards and shuffle it - looks very realistic with sound too :) I can finish this performance with an amazing prediction trick that you must see to believe. It is pretty cool if I may say so myself. I also found another great magic effect called Magic Wallet. If you ever see me - do ask me to perform these for you. I am sure you will enjoy the performance. I do not do these in my regular shows - they are better done one on one.

Speaking of shows I did several shows in January and February and they have gone very well. Do read reviews from my customers at:
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?q=amazingvijay&hl=en&cid=14991854654008109352

If you are considering organizing a birthday party or an anniversary party or a block party, do think about having a magic show. It is great fun for all ages.

Happy New Year - 2012

Happy New Year to all my friends in magic. Whether you are a fellow magician or a past or future customer, I hope you have a great 2012 and enjoy a healthy and prosperous new year. As the year wrapped up, I had two magic shows on Dec. 30 and 31 and the shows went off very well. Both shows had a large holiday crowd and the shows were received very well.

As we head into 2012, I will be adding a couple of new magic effects into the show. So even if you have seen the show recently, there will be new things for you to enjoy. I hope you saw the recent tricks I have added with the iPhone - if not, do ask and I will show you. They are a lot of fun. I know last year, I was booked solid in January and February, so if you are thinking of having a show, do let me know as soon as possible. I do hope we get to meet at one of my magic shows in 2012.