What the Heck is a ComClave?

As I write this, it’s 4.30am Saturday morning, May 17th 2025 and I can’t believe the incredible reaction we had to announcing this extraordinary event.

Less than twenty-four hours ago, while chatting with David Williamson, I mentioned that we had plenty of time to write the first blog for attendees, as it might be a month before we sell enough registrations to have an audience that would read it.

Here we are, just twelve hours after launching the website and revealing what all the ‘C’ stuff is about, and the event is almost sold out. So, I thought I’d jump in to talk a little about how this all came to pass and reveal the question on many lips: WTF is Paul doing at a comedy event?

It all started where it will end next year, on Mac King’s patio, where John Archer and I were concluding a short tour that began at the final Winter Carnival of Magic in Tennessee, followed by several shows and shared apartments, before being house guests of Mac and Jennifer, then heading home to pretend to our wives that we hadn’t just had the most wonderful time on the road.

Driving from LA to Las Vegas, Mac, John, and I stopped for breakfast at Peggy Sue’s 50s Diner just past a dusty off-ramp from the I-15. Over breakfast, we began chatting about what we were all up to in the following weeks and months. John was hosting a major magic gala back in LA, I was heading for Germany to host a small workshop with Luke Jermay, and Mac was working on a new idea for his show.

The conversation evolved from there as we toured the spectacular dinosaur park behind Peggy Sue’s, which revealed that the Jurassic Era apparently smelled mostly like turtle shit and stagnant pond water (still free to visit, not surprisingly). As we chatted, we continued bouncing between our future ventures, brainstorming ideas for Mac’s new trick, auditioning potential gags for John’s MC gig at the AMA awards, and discussing the topics I planned to cover in Germany.

Once in Vegas, the never-ending conversation continued in this vein as we joked, laughed, and shared our ideas freely. Somewhere in all of this, while handling broken glass and poorly made cutting tools, someone commented that this process of testing, trying, and making each other laugh might make a great event for magicians interested in comedy and the process of other comedy magicians.

That’s when Mac said, “We could have it right here!” and we were off to the races.

A few lunches later, the idea was shaped into a list of topics, a potential schedule, and thoughts on how attendees could gain the most benefit from an event like this. Then there was the list of speakers/hosts that was a who’s who of comedy magicians, good friends who we felt might be willing to take the chance on coming to Vegas, whether we sold enough tickets or not.

In other words: Who would want to take part and be willing to help with the organisation and would come whether there was an official event or not?

The result was that the first six names we called all said yes, and we had our inaugural line-up for the Comedy Magic ComClave, which perfectly reflects the group of friends who regularly light up Mac and Jennifer’s home with laughter.

With our friends all on board, we spent the next two months talking on Zoom and exchanging emails about how to give attendees the best experience and an opportunity to learn how other performers develop and hone ideas from a funny remark or crazy idea to a paid performance in front of an audience.

This is where I come in.

As Mr Archer is keen to point out (regularly), I’m not a comedy magician; in fact, I don’t want to be a comedy magician. But like all performers in our field, I have built up enough funny lines and bits to punctuate and enhance (hopefully) the magic I perform, and spending time with these friends has often inspired ideas that end up in my performances. Part of that process is rewriting and retrying those ideas with friends; John and I regularly pick apart each other’s material, not to undermine it, but to look for missed opportunities, whether in terms of method or ways to make those effects more entertaining and effective. Having worked with Luke Jermay (and our friend Manuel Beissel) to create a format in Germany filled with valuable information and essential insight from some of the sharpest minds in magic, I felt I could help apply those principles to the ComClave along with lessons I’ve learned directing feature films, theatre, documentary and producing multiple TV shows and magic specials.

So, I started to wonder what topics might be most interesting to attendees, using my own perspective as a starting point.

• Where do ideas come from?

• How long does it take to work on a new bit before testing it in front of an audience?

• How long does it take before new ideas start to work?

• What’s the longest you’ve worked on a new idea before deciding to give up on it?

• How is comedy magic perceived on the comedy circuit?

• New bits tend to tighten rather than expand as they evolve—are there exceptions to that?

• When working with other performers, discuss the process of reviewing each other’s acts afterward—how often do you contribute to each other’s sets?

• Do other performers sometimes take offence when offered notes or ideas?

• How often do you go too far with a joke and have to retune it?

• How many bits evolve from audience interactions and unexpected moments?

• How difficult is it to take chances in a world where people take deliberate offence or seek to police what’s funny?

Each performer is different and brings their own perspective and way of working and this group of friends possesses a creatively diverse mixture of opinions that should inspire anyone joining us in March 2026.

We are all really keen for this to be a multi-way conversation with speakers and attendees and to discuss the ideas being shared during comedy clinic sessions, where speakers/hosts can offer honest opinions to help with ideas, providing decades of experience to assist in developing your own material for future shows.

That’s how we got here, and that’s how I became the moderator of the Comedy ComClave, where my primary job (on the day) will be to herd cats in live conversations and try (probably unsuccessfully) to keep us on some kind of track as the discussion weaves from subject to subject and funny story to funny story.

In the coming months, I’ll be reaching out to attendees about questions you’d like to ask and what you’re hoping to gain from this experience to help us shape talks and events, but there’s one thing I can guarantee: we are all going to have a blast.