This year marks my 40th year (that's FOUR DECADES!!) working at/for the Western Fair.

Way back in 1977 I got a call from one of my magician colleagues who told me that I was going to get a call from Channel 10, our local television station, about performing on their stage at the Fair. He told me they called him but he didn't want to do it and he reccommended me!

Sure enough, by days end, the producer, Jim McKinnon called and offered me 12 shows for the run of the fair at the amazing fee of $1200 (I think).

I was to be the first act up every day because I had the most equipment to set up - a whopping 3 illusions (one of which I dropped after the first show) - and it was esier for the stage crew to preset my stuff. Which they did! I had never had a stage crew. Heck, I'd only really started doing magic two years earlier!

Working at the Fair was the best thing that could have happened to a magician starting out. I did a show every day, sometimes for 20 people and sometimes for 2000 people. I worked in the rain and I worked with Mr. Dressup! I had to learn to get on stage on time and come off stage on time. I learned how to work a mic. I learned how to stall.

I learned my craft.

I did the next 11 years on Stage Ten until they decided to switch it up for three years and bring in my friends The Evasons and some guy I had never heard of named Rick Thomas, who later went on to have his own show in Las Vegas.

I came back to the same newly named Park Stage bacause the television station pulled their sponsorship, and continued to work directly for Anne Eadie. Anne was Ms. Western Fair. She booked all of the entertainment, ws the spokesperson for the fair, later became Jim's wife and upon retirement was honoured in having Stage Ten renamed The Anne Eadie Park Stage.

As you can tell by the photos, a lot has changed over the years. I've had 10 different assistants (before I went solo), different looks (please excuse the blue spacesuit - it was a bad phase!), and a lot of fun. The last photo, 2005, was also the first year my son was on crew. He went on to crew the stage up until moving to Toronto to work full-time in the production industry.

My last run at the Fair was in 2009. The next year, however, I got a call from my son to tech the Youth Talent Search Finals and thus began a ten year run as a production technician, setting up and running sound and lights at various stages around the Fair. 

And it contiues this year. I'm at the Kiddieland stage tech providing support for my old frinds Doo Doo the Clown and Craig Douglas, as well as new friends Aaron Matthews and Christina the Hula Hooper.

See you there!