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Having been refused a trade booth at Blackpool for 2009 I would like everyone to know Tommy cooper magic shop Blackpool will be open til late Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday during convention
Dawn

For those who don't know Blackpool, can anyone give the address and an indication of how far (or near!) the shop is to the Winter Gardens?

The Tommy cooper shop has now relocated and is at unit 10 coralk island
central drive 01253 440338 which is about 5 mins walk from winter gardens

for anyone with GPS look on multimap and type postode fy1 5dw (Note from Mods: Sorry, had to remove that string of data as it screwed up the page format!)open til late thurs fri sat and sunday and discount for anyone attending the convention simply show your pass pass the word you can also pre order anything for collection during blackpool
dawn chester

Hi Alan

As a local dealer - why have they refused you an exhibitor pass?

Just interested to know.

Regards

I understand Blackpool has something like a 4 year waiting list to get a stand!!!

Its strange really because last year there were a few spaces, maybe some dropped out last minute?

Last year some dealers had been barred including Peter Diamond apparently and a couple of dealers were removed during the convention
for alleged breaches of conditions I was threatened with being barred last year because certain individual in BMC did not like my staff member.

(Note from Mods, post edited to sentence case, use of all capitals isn’t OK here.)

I was disturbed to read on another forum (Magic Woods) and have seen evidence that a new clause has been added to the T&C's which will ban any dealer from the Blackpool convention if they exhibit at any other convention five weeks beforehand.

The letter also states that BMC will refund anyone who has paid to exhibit at any other convention during this period. As the Southern Magic Convention is the only convention within a five week period, it appears to be an underhand move to ruin a rival convention at the other end of the country. Does this apply to dealer dems at magic society's?

Nice to know that the hard earned cash from ticket sales is being used in this manner, instead of being used to make the convention better. Seems to be a BIG power trip.

I've also been reliably informed that attempts are being made to lure some of the performers away from the SMC by offering them spots at Blackpool.

This is a very sad state of affairs indeed and I won't be going to Blackpool. I don't want my ticket money to be used to bribe people and I don't want to be told which magic convention I can and can't go to by removing the choice.

hopefully more people will feel the same you are always welcom in our shop

This will backfire as there are several other conventions within that 5 week period. Also there UK and EC laws which are designed to stop such restrictions on free trade. Just musing, the UK Unfair Terms and Conditions Act might have something to say about this as well.

Time to stand back, stop the politics and just concentrate on giving visitors excellent value for money......

Mandrake wrote:

stop the politics and just concentrate on giving visitors excellent value for money......

I could not agree more. It seems that in all of this chaos, the convention visitor is the ultimate sufferer. I'm a firm believer that if you provide a good service then people will go back again and again, as long as the service remains good.

A bit of healthy competition never hurt anyone if they're providing the goods.

Some people should remember why they got into magic in the first place.

OK, no pun intended but let's put the cards on the table.

We've had several threads about Blackpool and the problems currently being dealt with and, unfortunately, some threads have gone right off topic and had to be moved or locked. This topic is seriously important to all magicians and certainly to those who have either already bought tickets for Blackpool or are thinking of doing so. Mike Danata has kindly posted details of part of the situation in what I consider to be an unbiased but concerned manner and if we could carry on in that vein it would be great, if it goes off topic again then it'll be locked and we'll all lose out. There are plenty of issues here and I guess the Dealers will all now be having to make choices about whether to book a space at Blackpool or not. As Dat says the losers here are not the BMC, although they will suffer a downturn in income and loss of reputation which will take years to recoup, it's the punters, the paying customers who support the events with attendance, purchases at the Dealer booths and pay for local accommodation, food and drink.

Quite clearly there is no possible conflict with a Southern Convention preceding a Northern one, vibes and interest from one will help encourage interest at the other. If any convention isn't a success then commercially it will fail so there's no need for any additional pressure to try and adversely affect the competition. At the moment it looks, allegedly, like over-strong tactics are being used and it would be appreciated if someone could pop in here and perhaps advise form the BMC point of view what's happening to try and balance the discussion. So far, all we've heard are the bad aspects so I sincerely hope there are some good ones to be made.

I started in magic because i enjoy it and it seemed to be that magic people enjoy what they do and there were never any any 'politics' then it is sad that one person in a major society can have the power and seem to instill fear into people there was a new society planned in Blackpool called 'The magical Performers society' that never got off the ground because people would rather wait years for a vacancy in BMC many people said I would join but ill never be allowed in BMC if i do.

Magic should be enjoyed by performers and people being performed to, and the politics should stay in the house of commons, I thought Voldermort was wicked

More musings - it looks as though clause 9 is only a recent introduction, which is suspicious, and although there's the offer to reimburse fees paid to attend other conventions with the phrase, 'We cannot be fairer than that!', what about the Dealer's loss of potential profits at those other conventions? What if the Dealers make most of their annual income form Conventions? I think BMC can be much fairer than that, they need to scrap this restrictive practice soon otherwise Arthur Casson will be handling a lot of returned tickets and issuing refunds. This year the BMC convention was preceded by two weeks' of magic and entertainment in the open air, could this have something to do with the problems for 2009?

It's noticeable that two Northern Dealers have now pulled out of the Southern England convention, what if the Southern Dealers did the same for Blackpool - there would be quite a few unused spaces in the Ballroom as a result. As many of the acts at Blackpool are from overseas, will those artists feel it worthwhile to visit and lecture to lower numbers? At the moment there's no listing of the acts booked for Blackpool but if the same act is already booked for another convention, are they being asked to pull out? How about if they, and the Dealers, are booked for a convention after Blackpool - is that still forbidden? What's the view from our overseas members? Equally importantly, what's the view from BMC members?