Final Evening Gala (Day 5)

The final evening gala was again held at the Olympia theater. After the award of the money collected under the "Share the magic" theme, for the Children's Hospital of Miami, Rogger Miller and Fred Casto were introduced (outgoing and incoming International Presidents).
The show proper started with a traditibal manipulation show, that seemed to be a tribute to Fred Kaps. Unfortunately, due to less that perfect audio, I missed the magician's name. The MC role was taken by Orlando's John Ekin, who did a very good job. The first act was Charlie Frye & Company (Sherry), in a crazy, energetic juggling act. The next perform was Lu Chen, with a modern themed manipulation act. Yumi from japan gave us a traditional Asian manipulation act, very poised and very elegant. Then Charlie Frye (& Sherry) returned, in an act where Charlie carried out many different prodcutions, in his usual high energy way. The evening closed with the third performance in four days by Junge, Junge! This was very different to either of the two previous performances. The best way to describe it is perhaps to say that they used large felt disks with a center hole as troublewits. In other words the disks were folded, placed on their heads, on their arms, et., to represnt different things. This was done synchronized to music, a very entertaining show.

After the show we went back to the convention hotel for one last walk hrough the dealer room and to watch the strolling Olympics. However, by 11:30, half an hour after the planned time, nothing seemed to be going on, so that was the end of the 2006 IBM National Convention.