The final show for the 2016 Melbourne Magic Festival was a stellar performance of “Best of the Magic Fest”. Consistently selling out over the years, audience members seem to know that this final show of the festival means ‘anything goes’ among the performers. This show also brings plenty of surprises as guest performers are often thrown into the mix with the performers who had already been announced. Nicholas J Johnson hosted (as always) a fast paced and fun show for the closing of the 2016 Melbourne Magic Festival.

A bunch of friends and I sat up the back and laughed and cheered on some of our favourite magicians as they presented thoroughly entertaining magic to an excited full house. Cards and coin magic seemed to dominate the evening, with offerings from Tim Ellis, Nick Kay and Raymond Truong stunning the audience and gathering more excitement from the crowd as the show progressed. I was particularly delighted to see some whimsical magic from the charming (and suavely dressed) young magician David Chandler who magically transformed the audience into a crowd of 5 year olds as he presented some storytelling magic. After all, everyone loves a good story! LJ the magician (another young star on the magic scene) presented some witty magic that he regularly presents on the streets of Melbourne. Last but not least, there was a magical showdown between the stars of the magic duo ‘Dom and Dumber’ (Dominic Chambers and Bayden Hammond) who each regarded their mind reading abilities to be superior. Their task was to read the minds of the assistants at the close up table and be the first to guess a word the assistant was thinking of. The magical showdown did not disappoint, and the evening ended with all audience members laughing and wanting to see more.