Andy Clockwise - Kidwize with Clockwize
Andy Martin is an extremely talented and personable performer absolutely oozing with personality. We saw Andy with 4 different hats on during the day (and no, this wasn't during the performance), and in all cases he adapted very professional to each role.
Recently I had a discussion on the TalkMagic Forum about the importance of presentation over capability - and really this lecture left no doubt whatsoever to the answer to that question. It's just so much about Presentation.
Andy's lecture was the first of the day - and to be honest with you I wasn't sure what to expect. A talk on the do's and don'ts of performing kids magic. Andy was dressed in the clothes he uses for his kids shows, (effectively clown like chef's trousers, and a smart polo shirt with his logo embroidered on).
The talk started with a 10 minute video clip of his first performance, and I don't think he would mind me telling you that it was absolutely awful. Don't get me wrong it was very amusing to watch - but there is no way you would have hired this guy to perform anywhere on the strength of this disastrous performance. He then went on to explain how he changed over the years and all the pitfalls to be avoided and the things that really work. All in all it was not just an extremely entertaining talk, but one of those lectures that you know may just come in very useful one day.
He ended the talk with another clip from a more recent show which quite frankly was of such a high quality that it could have been on primetime TV. You watched how the kids changed from being a little apprehensive at the beginning to all being 100% enthusiastic about what they were seeing. They were like putty in Andy's fingers.
As I mentioned before we saw Andy in action 3 times during the day. His lecture, A close up session and he was also part of the evening performance that was open to the general public. In addition to this he was very approachable on one of the stalls, generally mucking about and selling lecture notes by the dozen.
At the end of the night I found it very hard to believe that Andy Martin [aka Andy Clockwise] was the same person that did the disastrous kids show seven years earlier that we had seen in the lecture. You just wouldn't believe that this guy had ever been anything but the total professional he now is.
In short Andy's lecture - and all his performances were nothing but an inspiration to every magician that
