Best vs Favorite

Shows like the Pure Magic we had today are why I love this crazy life so much.

We had just an awesome big responsive audience right from the top of the show, our actual performance was nearly flawless (I never say things like this, but dang I was proud of today's show) and we had one of our longest meet and greets to date.

Sometimes it's discouraging throughout the year trying to look like we have a full crowd in a beautiful 1600 seat theatre but during summer time we really do get big crowds. It's so cool getting to offer something that's family friendly and affordable here in Myrtle Beach. Especially on days when it rains and everyone is bummed they can't be on the beach we are a great inside, out of the weather, option that all ages can enjoy.

After every show we always meet everyone in the lobby and personally thank them for being there. I've never understood why some people choose to not meet their audience. They are literally the reason we have a job and we do what we do. It's for them.

And nothing makes us happier during meet and greet than seeing faces we've seen before. We have so many families come back to see us year after year because we're always here ready to entertain them. When they can comment on how much they love the new material because we change it every year because we know they'll come back.

That's the best part about earning our place here. We did the work over the years and continue to do so to make Pure Magic a staple here on the Grand Strand. Every year we gain more traction and more fans who tell us they can't wait to come back and see us again.

We don't want them to just enjoy the show, we want them to enjoy getting to know us. A compliment we get over and over is much people love the personal stories in our show to learn about who we really are. And that's what we want. Even if they can't remember what we did in the show, we want them to remember how we made them feel.

And that got me thinking about the words best vs favorite when describing a show. Or even just things in general. Being in magic, people always want to ask us about other shows. So when someone asks me about the best magic show I've ever seen I always have to give them two answers. The best and then my favorite, because those are two very different things.

In my opinion Penn & Teller's show was the best one I've ever seen. I have never been fooled so many times and so shocked at how quickly 2 hours went by, the magic and staging was just completely over the top. I always tell anyone heading out to Vegas to check out their show.

But Terry Evanswood has my favorite magic show and that's not just because the magic is good, it's because of the way the show makes me feel. Like we've said plenty of times, Terry is the reason we decided to choose this town to call home for our show. We actually just got to visit with them this past weekend and see the show 4 times. 4 times. I promise you I absolutely would not sit through another magician's show, even the "best" show I've seen, 4 times. But we did because how much joy watching his show gives us, how inspiring it is, how you literally just forget all the things that are going on in your life while watching his show.

And because this is my favorite magic show, I tell EVERYONE to go see it.

I hope we've made an impact on our audience in that way to help them escape their realities and just enjoy themselves as much as I do during my favorite magic show. Because in the end I think that's what's the most important.

My Escape

Last night I was selfish.

Brandon and I have had more opportunities than usual lately to travel due to lots of people booking us for outside shows. It has been exhausting but certainly a change of scenery going back and forth from Myrtle Beach between theatre shows.

We had another show in Columbia, this one for a big family reunion. It wasn't a simple outside show, this one was a bit more involved than usual with costume changes and bigger tricks. We got there fine, everything was going great, and then about 30 minutes to show time we received some really bad news.

Entertainers understand this, but most muggles don't, when something horrible is going on, or we're sick, or depressed, or whatever is going on in our lives... the show just must go on. There's no option. When it's just you there to perform and make an evening extra magical it's all on you.

It's hard to explain the pressure of that situation. Trying to help others escape their realities when all you wanna do is escape yours.

In the time that I should have been changing into my show clothes and getting into a good mindset I was instead crying in a back room and just wishing we could go home. And it was angry tears. The hardest to get under control.

Thanks to a magic sister who lets me vent, I finally wiped my face, touched up my makeup, and put on a smile to face everyone.

But internally I was still falling apart, why do these people get to just sit back, relax, and have a great evening and forget about their problems?

(I apologize, I wasn't raised in the entertainment industry and I know I shouldn't ask these things aloud. It's almost rude, of course that's what our job is for.)

But last night, last night changed everything.

There's an important part in Pure Magic that I'm sure I've touched on before where we talk about how our show is for others. It's to help people escape from everything going on in the world and just experience wonder for a little while.

Last night, that wasn't true. That show was for us, for me.

I have ALWAYS felt guilty because as much as I love the magic, I know on the daily that Brandon is 1,000 times more passionate about it. He breathes it 24/7 and sometimes I need a break. It's made me question if I'm making my life an illusion sometimes and it wasn't what I really wanted to do despite how much I love performing.

But while we were performing (I started out angry performing, that is definitely a thing) I worked SO much harder and literally had one of the best shows I've had in years. The show was near flawless, the audience was so gracious and seriously enjoyed themselves and so did I. I completely forgot about everything. All that stupid crap that had me so worked up was nothing compared to the thrill of performing and being happy on that stage truly doing what I know we were meant to do.

After the show and we finally packed up and reloaded the car to head back to Myrtle Beach I looked at Brandon and said "That was exactly what I needed. That performance was completely therapeutic."

Me, I said that. The only thing that could have fixed my problem in a million years was performing magic onstage. Not my normal escape, which is usually Disney World or Stephen King books, but just performing.

So last night I was selfish, and it was completely life changing for me.

In other news...

We just released our latest promo video this morning! So if you want to come escape your reality with us check it out!

Why Myrtle Beach?

This coming July marks 7 years of no longer being tourists but locals here in Myrtle Beach. This was a decision that Brandon wanted to make for a long time but it just took the right opportunity.
But we didn't just pick this town, this town chose us.

Photo by Katie Shuler

Brandon was inspired at the age of 16 by Terry Evanswood. Terry talks about how he grew up vacationing in Pigeon Forge and there never being a magic show there and how eventually he set out to change that. Brandon immediately connected with that and chose Myrtle Beach.
We both grew up vacationing here, granted I wasn't into magic at the time so I wouldn't have looked for a show, but Brandon did and never really got to see one.

Vacationing together in Myrtle Beach in 2010

Sure people have come and gone for short stints over the years but not an established show.
There hasn't been a big year-round theatrical illusion show that was always here when you came back. A friendly face you could get to know and watch the show grow and change everytime you vacationed again.
With that goal in mind we had been planning what is now Pure Magic a LONG time coming.
For years we started thinking through what material would work for the clientele that comes through this area. The great news about being around here is we were already on the right track, having grown up being tourists ourselves.
We knew we had to keep growing the show so we worked hard to earn and make our illusions. You can't do a big illusion show without the big boxes.
We took every opportunity we could to help get our names out there and in front of the right people around the state. Surely it would happen one day, but to be fair we were still only 17 and 20.
Then the fall of 2011 rolled around. Yet again another magic show that was suppose to open in Myrtle Beach was having problems and they were now without a magician. A magic friend who knew this was our dream called to inform us and off to the races we went.

The theater that never made it past marketing

We did an audition in that friend's warehouse for the whole theatre staff of The Pat Boone Family Theater and their families. It was nerve wracking to say the least but somehow we made it through. They loved us, they hired us. This was it. We made all our plans to go, told everyone we were finally moving. It was time to go to Myrtle Beach.
And then... nothing. It fell through. We were devastated.
But back to the old grind, find another way to get there.
Oddly enough some of the people from that theatre were joining a church that wanted to run a theatre on the side (yes this was just as bad of an idea as it sounds)
But who cares? They wanted a magic show. They wanted us. Leap of faith. Myrtle Beach here we come!

July 17th, 2012 we moved into our first little apartment and July 21st we opened the show. It was hands down the fastest, craziest transition of my life. I graduated highschool and moved right out within a couple of weeks. We moved 3 hours away from all our family and walked into unfamiliar territory but hey we had a dream.

Our very first billboard of just us here in Myrtle Beach

Grand Illusions featuring The Magic of Brandon Wagster & Hannah Lynne at the Grand Theatre on the Grand Strand.
And what is one word I wouldn't use to describe this experience? Grand.
Lord, it was far from it. Starting out the show was great, I mean hello at 18 and 21 we were starring in our very own illusion show in the town we wanted to be in! We were head over heels happy.
We had at a young age already accomplished something that people way older than us were still dreaming about. This was our chance and we were making it happen.
But oh how quickly the mighty can fall. A church is not a theatre. They are two very different things that run very different ways. We weren't the only show playing there but ours definitely caused the most problems. We were a magic show in a church theatre. I mean what could possibly go wrong? Well obviously a lot of the congregation left with our dark sorcery in their building and it just went on from there.

The run of Grand Illusions lasted for the summer, we only did 19 shows and sold less than 200 tickets. All together. Yep, you read that right. All together. Like I said a church is not a theatre. They had no idea how to market, Brandon did as much as he could in person going to hotel presentations and meeting with lots of small business owners in the area.
But that wasn't the worst part, as shows were going worse due to bad business decisions the shows obviously started trailing off with smaller and smaller audiences. The management made a decision that if we didn't sell a certain amount of tickets by 3:00 they would just cancel the show.
AND NOT TELL ANYONE.
Do you know what that meant? Brandon and I would stand in the parking lot and wait for people to show up so we could personally apologize to them that our theatre canceled the show and didn't bother to call them. It was the most humiliating thing we have ever done.

Standing in that infamous parking lot years later

We had reached an all time low. Our confidence is still bruised from this fiasco. When it was finally time to just part ways with the theatre it was bittersweet.
Our show was over but so was our torture.
Now one thing people don't really tell you when you move out is how careful you should be with your money incase you take a big risk like us and it flops horribly. We had a little bit to float but not much considering we made next to nothing at the theatre. But we made a little splash in the big pond that is Myrtle Beach so we accomplished something.
With it being the end of summer and no way to jump straight back into another theatre we started gigging around town and back in Columbia again. Because you do what you have to do to get by. We got engaged in November and were married by January. We didn't see a point in waiting when we knew we were soulmates.

Brandon proposed to me on the beach in front of the Sky Wheel

Honestly the next couple of years are a blur. Somehow we made it by but barely. We were fortunate enough to pick up a big summer gig at a resort to keep us floating atleast. But there comes a time when you just feel defeated and are ready to give up.
That came at the end of summer 2014. We were done. We found a new town in the upstate of SC and were ready to get the heck out of Myrtle Beach because obviously it didn't want us as much as we wanted it.
We were a month to the day of moving, everything was getting packed. We were living out of boxes and the phone rang. I will never forget that day, I will never forget that phone call. The president of the one and only Carolina Opry theatre, the golden gem, the tip top of Myrtle Beach called us. They wanted magic to be featured in a new show called Thunder and Light.

I. WAS. SO. MAD!!!

It was time to go, we had decided that, the deed was done, the apartment was packed. But close friends from church agreed with Brandon. It was worth atleast seeing what they had to offer.
We auditioned and started that new show within a week and in September off we went on our journey with Gilmore Entertainment. This was just getting our foot in the door. This gorgeous theatre that Brandon always wanted to be in more than anything was giving us a chance.
Myrtle Beach did want us to stay.
We kept our little apartment and started trucking on again. We were just a part of the smaller matinee show doing one spot to start with and it grew from there. But that wasn't enough money to keep us going so we continued doing outside shows.

Over a year later we joined the Christmas show at The Carolina Opry. Another year later we still did the Christmas show and then we were approached about doing our own show as a one night thing in January.
THIS was it. The moment we'd really been waiting for. Our opportunity to impress the bosses and show them we could handle it, we could pull off a full illusion show. It was a challenge, we hadn't done one since Grand Illusions but we poured our heart and soul into that show. An Evening of Magic was our chance. We knew we probably wouldn't get it again. Entertainment doesn't work like that so we didn't take this lightly.

With a non holiday weekend in the off season, a huge crowd, and a near flawless show we made our mark. The emotions and thrills from that night will stay with me forever.
While out at dinner celebrating with our sweet best friends in magic who came out to support us, we received an email from the most important person to impress, Mr. Calvin Gilmore himself. It was short and sweet and worth a million dollars in our minds
"Great job tonight, Brandon and Hannah - couldn't stop watching - pace - music - illusions . We will do more shows"
That was it. We sealed the deal. We worked hard with the marketing team to come up with a magic show title that would appeal to, that's right you guessed it, exactly Myrtle Beach crowds. We all agreed on Pure Magic and started working on an even better show to work with them in mind.
We have clawed, fought, and worked up every ring on this ladder to get where we are today. And everytime we've tried to leave, Myrtle Beach has kept us here. We actually thought about it again a couple of years ago but it further proved to us this is where we're meant to be.

The first show of our 3rd season of Pure Magic

It's so incredible now to have the fan base we do, to have people come back year after year and tell us how much they enjoy the new pieces and how they love seeing us again. And that's what it's about, we don't want them to just like our show, we want them to like us. We do this for them and we hope they realize that. It's so cool to have people come up to us and say they saw us back in Grand Illusions all those crazy years ago and how they are so happy to see us in a new better place and thriving.

Meeting with fans after Pure Magic

We don't have a Vegas show, a Branson show, or any other place's show you can imagine and we will never have that. Our show is for Myrtle Beach. This town has us and we hope it will stay that way for a very long time. I'm glad we dug our roots in here, it has been worth every second.

This is our home. We've worked so hard to build something here.

So why Myrtle Beach?

Because our blood, sweat, and tears have been poured into this foundation... That's why.

Tightrope

After a couple of showings of the new season of Pure Magic I think it's safe to start talking about the new routine I referenced in a past posting.

We created a piece of magic to help tell my story.

I so hope you all have seen The Greatest Showman by now, it's honestly one of the best movies I've seen in years and I'm not exaggerating when I say we listen to the soundtrack atleast 4 times a week even after over a year of it being out. Sometimes a movie and music just speaks to you.

This movie hit home with me more than anything. A story about entertainment, a boy with dreams who grows up into a man who chases them down and the girl follows along and helps make those dreams possible.

"However big, however small, let me be part of it all. Share your dreams with me."

Brandon has always been the dreamer, and while I am the realist, I'm still always there rooting for him and pushing him to keep going no matter how hard the going gets.

I was a normal teenager, going to high school, I finally decided on my major and was heading down the music path. I loved playing music, I still do, and thought I would become a high school band teacher. Oh how I loved marching band, I still miss that. Then came Brandon, the cute guy I was majorly crushing on and despite the fact that I had a boyfriend, my best friend was absolutely in love with him, and that Brandon was 3 years older, it still didn't stop me.

I went to his first magic show on a date to try and make Brandon jealous (it didn't work in case you were wondering) but atleast he was interested in me. The magic he did fascinated me almost as much as the guy doing it. I had hated magic for quite some time at this point but the guy I was watching onstage changed that. I wanted to do that. And most importantly I wanted to do that with him.

A few weeks later we started dating, and little did I know how much this one guy would literally change my life my sophomore year.

I followed him around to shows and things just because it seemed like the girlfriend thing to do, just support him. Once we got two months into dating it was time for him to part ways with his assistants. While it was a frustrating time, it was best for everyone all around and took away a lot of stress. But then the part where he needed a new assistant.

Oh how I begged and pleaded. Obviously this was the way to get even closer to his heart was through the one thing he may have liked more than me (he definitely did and still might somedays haha)

It finally happened, he caved, despite telling me no a thousand times. He didn't want it to cause a strain on our relationship and make us break up (it did but we got back together). I remember starting to work with him and rehearsing and the excitement of it all but I don't remember making that decision.

That big moment when my brain flipped a switch and said this is it, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. I think at first it might have honestly been out of jealousy. I just didn't want him working super closely with a girl that wasn't me for the rest of our lives but then it changed. I genuinely started to love it and obsess over it.

I remember taking my playing cards and tricks into school with me and even rehearsing choreography every second I got. Every bruise was a badge of honor. My friends all thought I was crazy and even started to distance themselves from me but I didn't care, I was having the time of my life.

We were having fun performing around town and even traveling every now and then but I always knew he had big dreams. He wanted to move to Myrtle Beach and have an illusion show in a theatre. While I always thought deep down that it might have been a bit too big of a dream, I was there. I supported.

By the time I became a junior, that summer had changed me. We performed together constantly but we had also broken up which made me even more determined in the magic. I mean how else was I going to spend time with Brandon?

By the time I got halfway through the school year my counselors were threatening to fail me for missing so much school due to shows. And literally over a weekend I switched to online school. Just like that. I changed it all.

I dropped my dreams. I was 100% committed to helping Brandon now chase his. And boy have I followed him to lots of places.

I graduated early, we seemed like we were about to hit it big time and finally moved to the beach on a dream that crashed and burned just as quickly as it had come. And while Brandon may have lost faith in himself and doubted this was what he should really be doing. I didn't. I mean how could I? I had nothing to lose anymore. I left my school path, my family, my friends.

People actually ask me all the time if I regret it, do I ever wonder what life would be like if I had just chosen to keep to my normal track in life? At this point, almost 10 years of being with Brandon. The answer is absolutely not. I think I can very well guess how my life would have gone had I stayed in Columbia. I'm pretty sure of where I would have gone to school, who I would have married, where I would have been going to church...

But that life wasn't for me. I risked it all for him. And every. single. second was absolutely worth it. This wonderful, crazy, amazing, stressful, magical life that we have created together.

That dream of his became our life. And together we walk on this tightrope called life but holding his hand, he taught me not to look down, just take the steps forward despite the fears and we're making it.

We're here. We're in Myrtle Beach doing our illusion show at the theatre he so desperately dreamed to be apart of. This is our circus.

I'll never forget hearing this song for the first time while watching the movie in the theatre. I leaned over to Brandon, whispered "This is my life" and squeezed his hand.

This song literally came from my heart somehow and will forever be my anthem.

Some people long for a life that is simple and planned

Tied with a ribbon

Some people won't sail the sea 'cause they're safer on land

To follow what's written

But I'd follow you to the great unknown

Off to a world we call our own

Hand in my hand and we promised to never let go

We're walking the tightrope

High in the sky

We can see the whole world down below

We're walking the tightrope

Never sure, never know how far we could fall

But it's all an adventure

That comes with a breathtaking view

Walking the tightrope

With you, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

With you, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

With you

Mountains and valleys, and all that will come in between

Desert and ocean

You pulled me in and together we're lost in a dream

Always in motion

So I risk it all just to be with you

And I risk it all for this life we choose

Hand in my hand and you promised to never let go

We're walking the tightrope

High in the sky

We can see the whole world down below

We're walking the tightrope

Never sure, will you catch me if I should fall?

Well, it's all an adventure

That comes with a breathtaking view

Walking the tightrope

With you, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

With you, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

With you

With you, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh

With you

Our Story Without Words

Season 3 of Pure Magic opened this week. That sentence is crazy to type out. To think back to when we were just teenagers with a dream to perform in Myrtle Beach to where we are now feels like an inception of a dream within a dream. Then expanding the dream to wanting to perform at The Carolina Opry. And then going beyond even that to dare dream to have our own show in a venue that's never had magic before. The fact that we've done it and are already in our third year is incredible. I'm so proud of Brandon for always dreaming big, even when I, as the realist, sometimes told him his dreams might be a little too big, he keeps pushing and makes them happen.

Surprisingly the opening went extremely well. I definitely lost sleep the night before after having a rough dress rehearsal earlier that day. It's currently the same show we did last year but having not performed it since October, especially with some physically demanding illusions in the show, it was nerve-racking.

We actually received two standing ovations during the show and most things went off without a hitch. I rarely think there are such things as a perfect show. Not saying it doesn't happen, because it can, just not all the time. Performers who claim to have a perfect show every time obviously don't have very high standards. There's no reason to improve if everything is always "perfect".

While doing meet and greet in the lobby after the show as we always do, we had the opportunity to get to know a group of high schoolers from a theatrical school who came to see us. They were super sweet supportive kids but because they were performers as well they were quite intuitive. One girl came up to tell us how much she loved that we incorporated the story of us into our show.

This version of our show with that "story" was created last March and not one person has mentioned it to us because it is so subtle, it was really more for us. I knew of the two parts back to back that probably seemed story driven but realized another after doing some thinking.

Now I always have to debate on here about whether or not to use the names of illusions and effects, I know it's mostly magi that read my blogs but muggles do too and I don't want anyone looking up secrets just because they know the name of something.

One of our oldest illusions (pictured below) is a rather sensual routine for us. While it used to have some weird danger princess ritual story thing, now it's just more of a back and forth in my decision. It's all tension and me wondering if I want to be with Brandon or not (which then I go in a box and he stabs me with swords... so obvious love story) but still at the end I chose him. Actually now that I think about it, yes, that is exactly our love story. I choose him everyday even though he tries to stab me with swords.

A little later in the show Brandon performs a classic effect of magic but of course with his own personal twist on it. It's no secret in his routine that the ball is meant to be the moon and is inspired by the classic movie "It's A Wonderful Life". So in his demonstration of his love for me, Brandon literally gives me the moon and goes down on one knee. So onto engagement.

The show flows right into the next illusion. One of our newest and hands down the edgiest. Still every time right before we go to perform this one I slightly panic that between the music, choreography, and insinuations, it might be too much. I crawl through his body. It's our raw togetherness piece. But I think because we developed such a passionate but romantic piece for us, the audience always loves it. It was a hard routine to get in the right mindset for and it was one we mostly created ourselves just to make sure that it was purely our emotions involved in it's piecing together. At least that's how I thought it through, I may have overthought it, but it was important to me that way.

As for the current show, in the midst of everything else, that's as much of our story in magic as you get. Of course all of our routines are us but I mean the ones specifically involving our love story. There's a new piece we are creating to add in for this season's show that I hope will be amazing. I will get to tell the audience my side of the story.

I was actually going to tell you about some of it on here, but realizing now how long this entry is, I'll do that in another posting. Sometimes that happens when writing, I came here to get one point across but my heart lead me in another direction.

With this new routine I'm really excited to share this realization and connection to a character that's been on my heart for a little over a year now and Brandon thought of the perfect effect to go along with it... Which we are actually about to rehearse right now so I'll finish this here. We can't wait to share this piece of magic with everyone.