Ondrej, Dominik, and Pavel attended the Cardistry Con 2023 (CC) in London. The venue was called The Crypt on the Green. It was an exciting experience since only Ondrej had been to Cardistry Con. This blog post explores what happened at the Con and our eventful trip back to Prague.
Introduction
Planned for London, only a two-hour flight from Prague, we knew we wanted to go and get to know the cardistry community. We booked a stand in the dealer room and brought multiple Butterfly decks.
Every CC attendee is gifted a “swag bag” when they arrive. It includes decks from various producers. This year’s swag bag contained Dan & Dave’s Damn Good Cards No. 7 or Happy Sad Playing Cards by Joker and the Thief.
One more deck in the swag bag stood out. Which one? Our own Black & Gold Unmarked Butterflies. Yes, we sponsored nearly three hundred Black & Gold Butterfly decks. And the best reward? Seeing the cardists being amazed by the cards and taking them for a spin. You can watch Matt Fox doing absolute magic with them.
The events of Cardistry Con 2023
So much happened during the Con. We have summarized all the important events below.
Everything started with a video by Michael Stern, the Con’s MC. He ran into the church dressed as Ali-G.
Oliver Sogard from dealersgrip arrived dressed like a priest and held a sermon for cardistry.
Noel Heath, Jack Paton, and Samuel Pratt blew everyone away with their new “Gosh” video. If you love cardistry and sleight of hand, this is a must-watch.
Dan & Dave and Michael Stern tortured themselves in their live rendition of the Hot Ones show.
Shivraj Morzaria presented his brand new cardistry video showcasing his first-class skills and his new Shiv Echo Playing Cards, produced in collaboration with Lotus In Hand.
Azlan Valentine absolutely destroyed everyone in the paddidle contest.
The biggest hit of Friday was Missing New York’s unique Holy Playing Cards. The cards have several holes, opening the doors to new ways to perform cardistry with them.
Once again, Azlan Valentine blew everyone away by playing the organ.
Anyone screened a behind-the-scenes video about their new deck designed by Benjamin Edgar and their new cardistry video with Alexander Gerstenberg.
Bizau Cristian released his new cardistry magazine, The Flourish. He also gave a thought-provoking speech about the current state of cardistry and presented his ideas on growing the cardistry community.
Dan & Dave revealed and released the newest Smoke & Mirrors deck in the dealersgrip x S&M series.
Yoann Fontyn gave a speech about the aesthetics of card magic.
Nathan from Missing New York presented a second brand new deck. New Collage Playing Cards produced in collaboration with Fontaine Cards.
Ben Earl performed his mind-blowing card magic.
A few cardistry videos premiered at the Con - Komorebi’s, Four Corner’s, Goos Playing Cards', Lewis Caldwell’s, and Salvador Gonzalez’s. Cardistry Xperience screened a look back at their event from May 2023.
The official program ended with the announcement of next year’s venue. The 10th anniversary Cardistry Con will take place in Tokyo, Japan.
We Made a New Friend
We had to pack everything at the end of day two. We were left with some bricks of unsold decks, and we needed to get them back to Prague.
We got lucky and met Keshav from Galaxy Decks, who helped us with the shipment. His cards were also included in the swag bag.
The Adventure (Trip Back to Prague)
This does not really relate to the Con itself, but it was quite the experience.
Dominik and I (Pavel) had our trip back to Prague planned for Sunday evening. When we arrived at the airport, everything seemed fine.
Then the first delay of twenty minutes appeared. Then came another thirty-minute one. In no time, our flight was delayed by three hours. They finally let us board the plane. We sat in it for another hour just to be informed the flight got canceled.
Being stranded in London Gatwick at 11 PM with no free flights to Prague until Wednesday, we needed to come up with a different way home. We found the only flight with free seats. It had a layover in Frankfurt.
As we had to buy tickets, we needed to contact Ondrej. We discovered he was in the middle of his Magic Castle lecture. We could not reach him on his phone, so Dominik came up with the idea to contact Ondrej’s friend Say Jay. She happened to be at his lecture!
With that said, we were able to buy the tickets for the flight. We traveled across London at 3 AM and boarded the plane to Frankfurt at 8 AM.
We landed in Prague at 2 PM, almost seventeen hours later than expected.
The End
Cardistry Con 2023 was a unique and exciting experience. We loved meeting our old friends and making new ones.
We intend to attend more conventions. If you are ever at the same one as us, come say hi!