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hello America interview with A *** take one
this time and don't suck and cue the not sucking and we're go for
lack of suck
i first really got into magic when a friend of mine right before i went to college
showed me magic trick and wouldn't tell me how it was done and I got so pissed
off
that I decided out of spite when I had all this free time in college I was
going to become a better magician and he was
and so I made a career for for three years my part time job at college
was always doing magic shows never once thought I do a full time job
so is just as much as surprise to me is anyone else that I do this for a living
I went to the University of Texas at Austin which has this liberal arts
program
where the first two years you take whatever you want the second two years
you have to take classes related to a thesis you had to declare
what your thesis was gonna be some people would write a book some people
would
try to get you know some research published or whatever and I thought
wouldn't it be great
if I could get a magic trick published or write a history of magic paper
and so I went into the dean's office and she's you know what do you do for your thesis
and i said well
for the last couple years i doing magic she goes and you wanna do a magic show
as a creative writing thesis what a great idea and without missing a beat I was
like that's what I was thinking
so for the last two years a college I took it was awesome I took psychology
history of witchcraft the languages science fiction
pseudo-science the paranormal it was it was amazing so essentially
I'd I'm the only guy I know was actually working within his degree
I call what I do bizarre magic because its make subs
upside your stance mind reading traditional slide a hand and comedy magic
stuff like fire eating escapes mind reading a
stick a nail in one eye popping out the other I think the first time I got a
call related to Halloween Horror Nights there was some kinda issue with one
other other performers and they needed
open date to be filled and unfortunately I was booked at the time
but I talked to them about the type show that I do
and they seem to really dig it unfortunately didn't work out
that first year but the next year they had a review show where they wanted have
a whole collection of different performers Big Mama
Stevie Starr to regurgitate the magician Kevin James
and they put me in the mix for that so I did a few
of the week's up that run and in the next year they asked me to come back and
actually do
the entire run at the same tier Halloween Horror Nights is not
even in the same league as any of those other things
everything anyone's ever seen is not the same league
as Halloween Horror Nights it is its own unique thing it's bigger than you could
possibly wrap your mind around if you love Halloween
preparing for shows at Halloween Horror Nights is really counter-intuitive
because traditionally I go from college to college it's always a different town
every single day
we just go in we have no idea what that the year's gonna look like we do our
best
with what we can in a very limited amount of time we got three hours
set up and that's it Halloween Horror Nights is the exact opposite we know
exactly what the venues gonna be like
and even though it's the same or some other is the same material
we have so much ability to make things better
it's like this fantasy canvas words like I've always wanted
to be able to take this effect to its logical extreme do this with the music
in
have backup support to allow you know this prop to look even better than it
normally does
and strangely even though we're doing
less chronological material we doing twenty minutes per each show
the amount effort that goes into vince's is ridiculous
you know one of the weird things to Halloween Horror Nights is the event
runs so late on a peak night we'll do six shows were finished around like 2am
you still gotta pack everything up gotta get back home so I'm making it home
3- 3:30 a.m. and after performing it's very difficult to be like well I'm done
with a hard day's work so let's go to sleep right now
so it takes awhile unwinds oftentimes at all by myself going to bed until
4o r 5 a.m. and then and it's very difficult to try to sleep in
until 1 o'clock afterwards quite possibly the thing I love the most about
working holloween
towards is that for six to eight weeks
my entire life is nothing but putting on the shows
weathers the production side weathers the execution other weather is just
getting through the next show
is so intense and so rewarding and so exciting
it is far away my favorite gig that I've ever had the opportunity to work
the a number of people there the intensity in the crowds
the quality of the production is something that very
rarely I get to encounter as I go from college to college
with my usual shows for somebody who spends two hundred days out of the year on
the road
the chance to actually bring my family with me because I get the idea
six-year-old the two-year-old would bring them out and the fact that every single
night for two months treat I could sleep in the same bed
in see my kids every single day just makes it even better
now my kids aren't old enough to even I wouldn't allow them to come in to hop in
a fortnight's scare the pants off
but they do understand the dads doing shows and it's great to get my wife
chance to come out
hangin see how everything's going you know when we first started doing
my bizarre magic show we considered
telling my children whoever they would end up to be that Daddy was in "sales"
until but somewhere they can find it would actually did but I wasn't able to
hide it you know you're editing videos are you sure on The Tonight Show
you can obviously see is oh daddy eats fire and my six-year-old is just at that age
where she notices
that that her dad's not like everyone else like we go out to the park to
people recognize me
and she's and he it gets real quite like
you him still doesn't like yes we
not yet obviously for everyone Halloween Horror Nights is about the houses as
well it should
houses are top notch they have so many of them it's amazing but what really
strikes me is how much there is to do
has nothing to do with houses the scare zones are phenomenal you could show up
spend the whole evening walk around with your friends drinking get a bunch of
awesome scares
and see something nominal Halloween related zones
the scare zones and have a fantastic experience
outside Halloween Horror Nights if I had to pick a favorite attraction
think at this moment I would say the Simpsons Ride because
I was so impressed with the way through the entire line
experience they're setting up jokes that all pay off once you actually get on the
ride
i think thats masterful redesign of the old back to the future ride
Whodini had a principally gone no permanent damage where he would try
pretty much
anything as long as it didn't run the risk of permanently preventing him from
performing for the rest of his life or
or obviously killing him and I've tried to do the same thing so as a result
there are lots risks in the show there's genuine danger throughout the entire
stage
both doing it Halloween Horror Nights but
their all mitigated risks you know it's like I've I burn my lips
eating fire and I've gotten poked in the back against I've scars down my arm
from doing the bed of nails
because it's it's a dangerous it's a sharp pokie being that you're dealing
with everyday
but everything has been the small mitigated risks
for me magic is a vehicle what I love is entertaining people
I love connecting with people I love performing
and none of that necessarily means magic died I dig magic
love magic but if there was a way for me to to perform and connect with people
and not
and not do a trick the entire time I would be fine with that
but nothing I've encountered has been as good as magic
to inspire instant attention to people folksy
orchard I try all the time to explain to people
how Halloween Horror Nights is like nothing they've ever seen
and they just don't get it set the kind of thing you've got to actually
come to the event in order to really get it
and I tell you if you're out there dig if you went to
some local haunted house I'm sure was fine sure was amazing
but you don't have a you don't have a perspective on to you
actually make the trip out Haloween Mecca
at Halloween Horror Nights
yeah
whats that?