Close Encounters of the Magic Kind

Once a year, for the past twenty years a very special event takes place in a quiet suburb of Rochester, NY. It’s called Close Encounters of the magic Kind (CEMK). It all started in 1972 at a restaurant called the Heritage House. It was a close up magic show held twice a year, once in the spring and again in the fall. Tickets were sold in advance to the public to see close-up magicians perform from tables set up in different locations around the restaurant and party house.

In 1982 magician Keith Walker and a few other local magicians turned CEMK into a close-up magic convention. Many of the magicians that were involved in the original CEMK, also attended (Fechter’s Finger Flicking Frolic (4 F’s ) convention, which was a little over an hour away in the neighboring city of Buffalo, NY. This of course, is the famous close-up convention started by Eddie Fechter, which was held at his place, The Forks Hotel in Buffalo and the convention has since moved to the Holiday Inn in Batavia, NY. A smaller city located between Rochester and Buffalo.

Since the 4 F’s was held in the spring and was considered the best conventions anyone ever attended, Keith started to formulate a sister convention in the fall that would be in the true spirit and style of the 4F’s. The formula was simple, an invite only close-up convention for working magicians, that had excellent food, great lectures, and restaurant and bar full of lay people to perform for in the evening after the daily activities.

The first CEMK convention was held in the party house section of the restaurant attracting 150 performers from all over. In attendance were magicians like Sid Lorayne, Walter Cummings, Frank Garcia, Meir Yedid, Darwin Ortiz, Richard Kaufman and list goes on and on. The convention was a great success and well received by everyone. One of the beautiful things about this convention was the opportunity for magicians to exchange tricks and ideas between each other during the day and then to be able to test them out (if you dare) for the public in the evening.

In 1986 the Heritage house was closed and reopened as The Jade Palace, a Chinese restaurant, that owner Jimmy Sun welcomed the idea of still having the convention held at his newly renovated restaurant. There was a new obstacle though, the party room was also renovated and became an expansion of the existing dinning room and a room in the basement was turned into the new party room that was considerably smaller than the original. Keith decided to limit the convention to 60 people and looking back, was probably a good idea over all. It made the convention more intimate and less of a madhouse it became.

In the next few years the Jade Palace was awarded its 5 stars and became one of the best Chinese restaurants in upstate NY and Close Encounters of the Magic Kind became one of the best close-up conventions in the magic community. To this day the convention has pretty much not changed, and for good reason. Why change a good thing?

Close Encounters of the Magic Kind’s 20th anniversary will be held November 7-9th, 2002 at the Jade Palace restaurant in Webster, NY. Featuring Bob Sheets, Gazzo, Garrett Thomas, Bob Bengle and Rocco. For more information go to www.cemk.50megs.com on the web or contact:


Johnathan Blades
205 Brookview
Rochester, NY 14617
Email: Johnathan_blades@yahoo.com


Keith Walker
78 South Estate Dr.
Webster, NY 14580
Phone: (716) 872-4019
Email: kw@vimfg.com