Making the groom disappear at a wedding

I walked around downtown with a huge carpet and a strange looking book while waiting for the wedding guests to clear the lobby, and I got some pretty weird looks.

On Saturday I did some magic at a wedding. The bride and groom wanted to surprise all the guests with a magician, and they also wanted to participate in some illusion magic themselves. We met and practiced in secret twice before the wedding, and on Saturday the groom disappeared. First the couple took the stage and showed a big piece of cloth, which was then wrapped around the groom. When the bride unwrapped this, the groom was gone and instead, I was there. From my place, I could not see anything until I appeared out of the cloth, so I could not really tell if things went well, but I was told later that the illusion went great.

土曜日に結婚披露宴でマジックショーをやった。新郎新婦はゲストのサプライズでマジックを用意した。一緒にイリュージョンやりたいと言っていたし。結婚披露宴で、新郎さんが（マジックで）消えた。披露宴の前にも2回会って、一緒に練習した。新郎新婦さんが披露宴でステージに上がって、デカい布を広げて見せた。新郎さんが布の中に隠れて、新婦さんが後でその布をとったら、新郎さんがもういなかったが代わりに僕がそこにいた。僕の隠れていた場所から最後まで何も見えなかったから、どうなったか分からなかったが後で「大成功だった！」と言われた。

After that I ran around between the different tables and did table magic while the bride and groom where away changing clothes. I covered 11 tables in 30 minutes, and everyone was very happy. Weddings are nice in this way, everyone is happy to start with so you get great reactions.

その後、新郎新婦さんがお色直しに行っている間に僕がテーブルを回って、テーブルマジックを見せた。30分で11テーブルを回った。皆喜んでくれた。結婚式とか、皆がやる前からもう喜んでいるから、リアクションが良いんだよね。

After the bride and groom came back, they had me produce a present for one of the guests who had his birthday very close to this day (if not exactly on Saturday). I produced a bottle of wine from a balloon, which is probably the most common magic trick when it comes to this type of  "produce a present in front of lots of people".

新郎新婦さんが帰って来てから、その日の近い日のお誕生日の人にプレゼントを渡すこともあったから、僕がマジックでプレゼントを出すこともあった。風船からワインを出すマジックをした。大人数の前でプレゼントを出すマジックなら、一番よくあるマジックだと思う。

My training bottle, and the remains of the surprisingly sturdy balloon.

A few months back, one of my magician colleagues did exactly this trick in our magic bar, and managed to hurt himself very badly. The floor was covered in blood, the bottle was covered in blood, and he had to be rushed to a hospital in the middle of night to be stitched up. He could not do magic (or wash the dishes in the bar etc.) for several weeks, and he spent his vacation in Korea with a huge bandage around his finger and lots of stitches. He recovered just fine in the end though.

何ヶ月前に、マジシャン同僚が同じマジックをやって大怪我した。床が血まみれになった。ボトルも血まみれ。救急車は呼ばなかったがタクシーですぐ夜中もやっているクリニックに行かないと行けないことになった。その後もしばらくマジックも洗い物も出来なかったし。韓国旅行でずっと指が大変なことに見えていたし。結局きれいに治ったけどね。

Ever since that incident, people in our magic bar have been reticent about using that method for producing bottles or presents, haha. I have done that trick many times before, but this time was the first time after the blood bath incident. I think I was a bit nervous, and for the first time I had the dreaded "boooiiing" [sound of balloon not exploding] happen to me (the balloon not breaking when you want it to)... It broke very soon afterwards, and I was told later that there were at least some people who were still very much fooled, haha. While the execution was not perfect, at least I finished with a bottle that had not even one drop of blood on it, which is good.

その時から、うちのマジックバーで誰もそのマジックやりたくなくなった（笑）。僕もそのマジック何回もやったことがあるが血まみれの事件の後の初めてのパフォーマンスになった。やっぱりその血まみれのボトルを思い出して、ちょっと緊張していたみたい。僕の初めての「ば～いん」ってなった（割れて欲しいタイミングに風船が割れないってこと）。手が速くて、その後すぐ割れたけど。後で話を聞いたら、全然分からなかった人も結構いたみたい。ボトルに血、一滴も付いていなかったし（笑）。