Looking back on the last magical twelve months, it’s time to take a look at the Top Ten Magic Moments of 2014. There were so many fun memories to choose from, including appearing on the Today Show, performing for the Kids Foundation Ball at the Grand Hyatt in Melbourne with a grand illusion show, doing close up magic as a vampire at the Adelaide Museum, performing for the first time on the luxurious Cunard cruise line, doing an extremely creepy Halloween performance at a St Kilda Comedy Night, and participating in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge…
But there can only be ten top moments, so here they are from ten to one:
10 – DIGGERS & DEALERS FORUM
This annual event takes place in Kalgoorlie, WA, and is the most important of its kind in the Southern Hemisphere. Tim was invited to be the feature entertainment at the massive closing night dinner on August 6. He was warned by the organisers that this was a very tough “seen it all” crowd and told it was okay to cut the show short if he felt the audience weren’t into it… but together with his beautiful assistant Natalie, Tim performed a full 45 minute Grand Illusion Show including the Levitation and The Houdini Trunk to a tremendous audience response.
9 – THE MEGABANGNA WORLD MAGICIAN FESTIVAL
Tim headed over to Thailand in September to appear in Bangkok at the World Magician Festival. In addition to performing he also lectured and judged the magic competition. It was truly a flying visit with Tim lecturing the day he arrived and flying out the morning after his last show.
8 – THE LUKE PRIDDIS BALL
The Luke Priddis Foundation helps thousands of kids across Australia with ASD. With his own personal connection to Aspergers, Tim was thrilled to be asked to fly to Sydney and entertain at their annual fundraising ball. It was an amazing night with many parents sharing the challenges of raising kids on the spectrum.
7 – SALVATION ARMY VIDEO
Back in August Tim was asked if he would lend his voice to narrate an animated Christmas video for the Salvation Army. After a recording session in their amazing studio in Blackburn it took several weeks for the animation to be completed but the result was more than worth the effort with a beautiful re-telling of the Christmas story.
6 – MAGIC vs MUSIC: THE AUDIENCE ALWAYS WINS
Since creating MagicSports back in 1991, Tim has always wanted to do a truly improvised magic show. He finally got that opportunity back in July when he presented this crazy show at The Melbourne Magic Festival. The audience brought their own music along and DJ Nat mixed the soundtrack live as Tim improvised a completely different show every day.
5 – IMMACULATE DECEPTIONS
One night in November Tim was approached to present a show at the Bally on High Festival in Northcote. Only catch was the deadline… they needed the artwork and all promotional materials by the next morning! Tim worked all night and came up with the new show ‘Immaculate Deceptions’ which included a trick he’d always wanted to do: a signed and destroyed bill is found restored inside a borrowed watch. This was also Tim’s first show to have it’s own full colour programme!
4 – THE 2nd BEIJING INTERNATIONAL MAGIC CARNIVAL
In September Tim was flown over to China to represent Australia at the Beijing International Magic Carnival. He spoke at the press conference about the future of magic and Australia’s connection to Beijing through the art, then lectured, judged the close up magic competition, and performed on the massive arena stage to a live audience of over three thousand.
3 – THE FINAL VARIETY COLLECTIVE SHOW EVER
For four years, every Wednesday night, The Variety Collective has presented an entirely new show without missing a beat. Tim has presented brand new material on many of these shows and was honoured when asked to be a part of the very final Variety Collective show ever. As it was the Christmas show, Tim created a special act including a Christmas costume change and a very odd Christmas gift prediction. It was a sold out show and a very emotional send off to what had become a Melbourne institution.
2 – THE USA TRIP
Every two or three years Tim is able to slip in a tour of the USA and that’s exactly what happened last March. As well as lecturing, Tim attended two magic conferences (FFFF and MagiCon), performed two full length public shows (Wizardz Magic Theatre and Theatre of Dreams), saw some great shows in Vegas (Teller’s The Tempest and Cirque du Soleil’s Love and One), and performed a week at Hollywood’s famous Magic Castle.
1 – 1 DEFINING MOMENT
After months of preparation and development, Tim was finally able to launch his new autobiographical show ‘1 Defining Moment’ at The Melbourne Magic Festival. The show was extremely well received with many performances sold out. Tim was especially pleased by the emotional responses the show elicited from the audiences including reviewer Julia Irwin:
“Although there were many highlights, arguably the most affecting came from local Northcote magician, festival founder and artistic director Tim Ellis, with 1 Defining Moment.
Ellis masterfully conjured both humour and pathos in a largely autobiographical series of defining moments leading up to the ultimate revelation.
Set to a poignant soundtrack, the audience was quickly moved from tears to laughter and back again. A truly magical performance.”
