On December 14, 2022, Ring 216 held its Stage and Parlor competition in person for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Audience members attended both live and on Zoom, and all magician were allowed to cast ballots. There were six performers and only one competition division.
Tom Collett opened the proceedings by making colored streamers appear and disappear and defying gravity with a glass off water. A spectator mixed up a Rubik’s cube for Jonathan Chen, and it was found to match the arrangement of two other cubes; then all became magically solved. David Martinez demonstrated three psychic abilities, including drawing the animal a spectator was thinking of. Jeffrey Friend told a spooky story of a chain letter that was destroyed and made whole again. James Chan found a spectator’s card on Instagram and pulled it out of his phone. Meriam Al-Sultan pulled off her woolen cap and, under the close supervision of two spectators, caused a candy egg to disappear and reappear from it several times, then drew from it glass of water.
When all the votes were in, the scoring was very close. First Place went to Meriam Al-Sultan and Second Place to David Martinez. The MC for the evening was Gary Goldberg.
