Close Up Magic – London

Last night I performed at The Royal Hospital Chelsea, home of the Chelsea Pensioners. The event was a showcase for the Royal Hospital to demonstrate to potential bookers the fantastic venue. They had a number of entertainers throughout the night although it was undoubtable the pensioners who joined us who were the highlight of the evening, taking full advantage of the free bar.

I spent the evening mixing and mingling with the guests performing close up magic, mind reading and psychological magic in the stunning great hall. There were a couple of hundred people there so I only had about 5 minutes with each group (10 minutes is probably my preference). I performed two routines with each group generally starting with a routine involving influence and then moved onto mind reading. I also performed some telekinesis, moving objects with the mind. This involved bending metal such as keys and coins, I would ask people to take coins out of their pockets and watch them bend in their hands!

I had a fantastic evening and managed to pick up a couple of further bookings for next year. It was a real pleasure to perform for the pensioners and I look forward to going back soon to perform more and have a drink with them in their club.

A massive thank you to Jo and everyone at the events team, it really was one of the best organised events I have performed at. I look forward to seeing you all again soon.

Corporate Magic – London

On Thursday evening I was booked by Virtus Contracts to perform at their annual art exhibition they put on for their architects and clients, the event took place at Tanner Warehouse, Bermondsey. They required a close up magician to mix and mingle with their guests as they viewed the art work and ate and drank. I was booked for 3 hours and I performed for approximately one hundred people throughout the evening.

The event was a very relaxed, casual affair with people arriving after they had finished work, grabbing a few drinks and chatting, mingling and networking. Throughout the evening I mixed  with small groups of people, usually 3 to 5 people at a time. As a general rule when  I perform close up at events of this nature when I join a group after introducing myself I will explain what it is I do and the nature of my psychological magic and mind reading. Then I’ll get into the performance, I’ll start with a quick warm up to see who in the group would be best to work with. This usually entails predicting the way people will behave or think. A simple example; I may write something down then ask someone to name a playing card. The card they name will be the same as what I wrote down. I often do the same with numbers, i.e write something down, ask a person to name a number between 1 and 100, they name the same number as I wrote down. Once this is out of the way I moved into the main part of my close up performance. As there were quite a lot of people to see in quite a short space of time last night I kept things simple and performed a number of mind reading routines, I asked people to think of names of old friends it would be impossible for anyone else to know, I then described the friends and told them the names they were thinking of. I also asked people to draw pictures I then duplicated their drawings. In the final hour a number of people asked to see something else…….at this point I attempted a little telekinesis, moving objects with the mind! I asked people to remove change from  their pockets. As they held the coins I made them bend in their hands! I ended the evening on a final routine for a number of employees of Virtus, demonstrating the empathy between two people, causing them to act in the same way despite having their eyes closed and not knowing what the other was doing. This is a very strange routine and needs to be seen to be believed.

I managed to pick up a couple more bookings for later in the year from this event which was fantastic. All in all it was superb evening and I had a lot of fun performing for everyone. A big thank you to everyone at Virtus for the booking. I look forward to seeing you all again.

If you’re after a close up magician in London for a corporate event please contact me on 07814 135569 or email for more details.

Christmas party magician London

Christmas is always my busiest time of the year. Often performing two or three shows a day from late November through to early January. Last night I performed at the Haymarket Hotel, London for the Christmas party of Quayle Munro, a London Based investment company.  The event was for 45 people who would be having a sit down Christmas dinner.

I started the evening performing some close up magic as people arrived for a drinks reception. This gave me an opportunity to chat and meet people and get an idea who would be the best candidates for the show I was to perform later. Throughout the meal I performed my dinner show. This is like my stage show but performed on a much smaller scale, designed so it can be performed anywhere with out too much preparation and space required. I performed the show in two acts of 20 minutes each, the first act as they sat down and the second act between the started and the main course. I would always recommend starting early for events like this as people do have a tendency to drink a fair bit and a show can be hard to perform later in the evening! The show involved influence, psychological deception and mind reading, ending in a display of empathy between the CEO and the lady who booked me, basically I taught them how to read minds much to the astonishment of the audience.

It was a fantastic evening with a really lovely group of people in beautiful surroundings. A big thank you to everyone at the Haymarket Hotel for all your help and an even bigger thank you to Emma and Quayle Munro for the booking. I look forward to seeing you all again at the next event we discussed.

If you are a London Magician for your Christmas party or any other event please get in touch to discuss your event and to get a quote.

Edward’s style of magic is a lot more than card tricks, (although he does at time use cards), and bunnies from hats, and general tricks better suited to children. Edward performs a genre of magic known as mentalism, best described as magic of the mind, or even Jedi mind tricks! This is the closest thing to real magic you will ever witness. In a typical show Edward will read thoughts that would be impossible for him to know, control the future, influence the present and at times he will demonstrate telekinesis (moving objects with his mind). No camera trickery or stooges, like you might, rightfully, suspect when you see a TV magician. All this and more will happen directly in front of you. 

No matter what your requirements may be, London magician Edward Crawford’s  act will guarantee your guests a truly unique and memorable experience. Each performance is suited to the client’s needs and it can be assured that your guests will be amazed, amused and astonished.

Christmas magician London

Another day, another Christmas party! This time on a day when the trains were on strike so I made the decision to drive into central London. I had to be their for 1.30 and leave by 3.30 to get to another booking in Stevenage. The traffic wasn’t too bad, finding somewhere to park on the other hand was a nightmare. All the car parks were full but after driving around in circles for an hour I found a parking meter practically outside the venue. Only problem was that the maximum time to stay was 2 hours and I needed at least two and a half. in the end I had to prepare everything in my car, rush in the second I was due to start and be sure to end exactly on time, very annoying as I like to spend time after a performance discussing my show with the guests. Anyhow, enough complaining about driving and oarking in London and the train strikes……

I was hired to perform close up magic and mind reading during dinner for 60 people. The event was for employees of The Royal Bank of Canada and was held at Cafe Du Marche, London. The guests were sitting on 4 large tables so I gave each table their own private show. Each table received about 3 separate performances using individuals from each table to assist in feats of mind reading and psychological illusion. Some routines used just one person others between 5 to ten people. In this way I could assure that nearly everyone got to be involved in at least one routine. I’ll always ensure that I don’t perform for people whilst they are eating at dinners of this nature so whilst certain tables were being served food I would be performing on the other tables that were still waiting. It’s always fun being able to go back to tables a few times as it gives me a chance to get to know people and discover who the best people will be to work with, therefore I could give a final performance on each table with an ultimate piece of mind reading using a perfect candidate, literally reading their thoughts! The whole afternoon was a lot of fun, the perfect Christmas party.

Here’s what the client had to say in an email and in a google review:

“Just wanted to say an enormous thank you for last Friday. You were absolutely fabulous and we thoroughly enjoyed every moment that you spent with us.”

“Edward is simply fantastic. He baffled and amazed us all, repeatedly. He was the perfect addition to our Christmas party!”

Thanks to Royal Bank of Canada for the booking and to the Cafe Du Marche for being so accommodating. 

If you’re after a London Christmas magician please get in touch to discuss your event.

Corporate magician London

On Thursday night I was hired by Fulham Football Club to perform at their end of season party for their stadium and team staff. The event took place at Craven cottage (the home of Fulham). The event had a fun fair theme and I was asked to mix and mingle with the 100 or so guests performing close up magic and mind reading. I was originally hired to perform for 2 hours but ended up staying for about 3 and a half hours as it was such a fun evening (I later regretted it when I remembered I had to drive 3 hours to Somerset that night to be ready for a tradeshow performance the following day!).

Throughout the evening I performed for small groups of 2 to 5 people at a time. Some people were seated, others standing. This does make a difference to the routines I perform. If people are seated I can utilize the table they are seated at, if they are standing everything has to take place in peoples hands. My favourite routine of the night was a new one I have been working on. I handed a number of guests solid metal nails, they were asked to test their strength and found to be quite solid. Using a combination of mild hypnosis and influence I managed to get a number of people into such a strong state of focus that they could physically bend the nails in the hands. This works on the same concept as the storied you hear of someone lifting a car when in a state of emergency and a loved one is trapped in side. This is the first time I have performed this routine and it was an absolute joy to see it work so successfully.

It was a fantastic evening with a really lovely group of people. I look forward to seeing them all again, hopefully to celebrate their rise to the premiership.

Here’s what they had to say:

Edward was fantastic! He arrived early to prepare and instantly wowed the General Manager and the Events Managers with his magic. He was professional, entertaining, engaging and had everybody stumped! Brilliant addition to any event, big or small. Two weeks later and people are still raving about Edward’s tricks. Thank you!!!!