Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #1280: MagicCon Prep

Episode Date: September 26, 2025

In this podcast, I talk about the things I have to do to prepare for an upcoming MagicCon (in this case, MagicCon Atlanta).

I'm plowing my driveway. We all know what that means. It's time to drive to work. Okay. So later this week, I am leaving to go to Atlanta for MagicCon Atlanta. And while I normally do a podcast about each MagicCon that I attend, I thought today I talk about what we do to prepare for MagicCon. Yes, today's topic is MagicCon prep. So this is the behind the scenes of what we do to get get ready for MagicCon. So I will talk, mostly I want to talk about my experience, what I do behind the scenes.

There are, in fact, entire teams that put this together that spend all their time putting this together. I have another job that I do other than MagicCon. So I do some prep for MagicCon. I'm more talking about what I do for prep,

since that's what I know. But there is a very dedicated team that spends a lot of time and energy making MagicCon as awesome as they can. And one of the themes for today, by the way, is if you've never been to a magicon, they are awesome, you should go to a magicon. So anyway,

okay, so what exactly if I'm going to a magicon, and I go to most magicons, normally if there's three in the year, I go to two, on average. But anyway, what exactly, what is

Magicon? What do we need to do to prepare for Magicon? So, the thing that I often do, is a list of items, that I do. I'm on a panel, usually, sometimes more than one panel. I've been on community panels as well as official Wizards panels.

I normally, if I'm going, I do a talk which I will get into that I have to write and prepare. I sometimes will do, there are game shows, like this time I'm going to be on a game show. There are sometimes live games play that I've been on. I'm not doing it this time, but I've been on live games

before. There are sometimes Q&A's that I've done. I will be doing one Q&A this time. There are some events I have to attend. There's some schmoozing I need to do. And then I do meet and greets where I will sign things and take pictures

and talk with the fans. Okay, so let's sort of walk through. And there's, I'm sure, a few miscellaneous things I haven't mentioned that I'll do. Oh, I do press interviews as well. I didn't mention that. So that's something else that I have to do.

Okay, so, but what of these things actually requires prep? Not all of this requires prep. Some of this as I show up. That stuff doesn't require lots of prep. But, okay, let's start with the panels. So if I'm on a panel, so for example, on this particular one, I am on a preview panel. So I am on a preview panel.

We're going to show off things to come. So how does that panel work? So most panels, I guess there are a couple of different type of panels. A preview panel is mostly what we call sort of a teaser panel or something in which we're going to show you things you don't know, usually magic cards you don't know or talk about magic things. We're going to reveal information you don't know. Then also there's panels where we sort of reminisce.

We talk about, like I was on a panel once about all about Ravnika and the innovations of Ravnika. Sometimes it's a panel about the making of a particular set. Oh, well, we all worked on such and such a set, and let's talk about the making of that set. So, in general, there are ones that are more future-facing and ones more past-facing. And then every once in a while, we will do something more open-ended. My panel this time is a preview panel. So preview panels, the way preview panels work is we have to figure out what we're telling you. So, okay, here's the upcoming sets we're talking about.

Here's what we're saying about each set. Usually, the closer the set, the more we tell you. So, for example, for the panel for Atlanta, you know, we spend the most time talking about the next set to come out that the players don't know, which is Lorwin Eclipse, for example. So we talk a whole bunch about that. And we're going to talk about other sets that follow. But essentially, you talk the most about the closest thing. And then for each set, you've got to figure out what are we saying and what are we showing and what information do they get. And kind of as things go along, you get less and less information.

But we're always sort of clear on what we're doing. And then, so the way the preview plan starts is just what is being said. Not who is saying it, just what is being said. And then once we figure out what is being said, like, okay, who are the best people to say these things? And so we start putting together a panel. So I was asked, like, Greg, Greg is in charge of all the panels. so he and I will sort of figure out what is happening. Greg sort of figures

out Greg Collins. He figures out what panels are going to happen. But then individual people running their individual panels like Blake Resteson runs the preview panel. So Blake's the one that reached out to me to say, I like to have you on the preview panel. And so and then basically it's like

we're going to talk about the following things. Okay, what does it make sense for me to talk about versus somebody else? Now there's a bunch of sets next year. Well, I work on all the Indian universe sets and I work on a bunch of the universes beyond sets. So I have my hands in a lot of different things. So it's very easy for me to talk about different stuff because I had some involvement with a lot of stuff. So what happens is we have our first run through. And the first

run through is just everybody who's going to be up on stage in a room will have slides and we'll have a slide deck, if you will. Meaning the slides as we think they'll be, usually the slide Dick early on is not, it doesn't have all the things yet, but it, the first version is everything we think that we know we have that we can get at the time. Some things, like U.B., for example, Universes Beyond, we're working with our partner, make sure that our partner's happy with what we're showing about the property we're doing. And anyway, so the first thing is like a walkthrough, which is, okay, here's a, here's the host, like, we had two hosts for this one. And the host figure out who's going to say what and they introduce people. Now, there's a couple

different types of panels. A very common structure we do is everybody walks and saves their seats and everybody gets in their seats. We're trying something new, or actually we started trying it at Pax West, where they call people up on the stage and you only go up for your portion and then when you're done talking, you go off stage. So only the people that are talking at that moment are on stage. We're something we're trying. Just to have a lot of people talking makes it a little less, I guess, busy on stage. So what happens is you go that first run through and then each person sort of says, okay, here's the section you're responsible for.

And then you need to figure out what exactly it is you want to say about that. For example, you know, the I for the preview panel, we were talking about Lauren Eclipsed, We were talking about, for me, I've talked about there's a Marvel set upcoming next year that I led. I talked about that. We talk a little bit about all the different sets. There's another set that I led during the year that I get to talk about. And anyway, we sort of walk through and figure out what exactly are the things that we want, like, what are the points that I would like to say?

Some of it is, what are we showing to make sure I hit those things? So some of it is like, oh, we're showing this. What do I have to say about showing that? And some of it might be, oh, are there things about this set that I kind of want to hit? Are there certain points I want to hit? And so we'll do kind of a loose run-through where you're kind of off the top of your head figuring what you want to say. Usually we walk away from that meeting and they'll post sort of the run-through. It's kind of like a spreadsheet.

And then you'll go into your sections and you'll type, I think I'm going to say something like this. you're not beholden to the exact speech you're more like here's the bullet points I want to hit some people like having a more written out speech I like bullet points I'm not when I talk I mean I will know the things I need to say but I feel I'm better if I

I know the general gist of what I want to say and not that it's exactly written word for word so for example I'll look at my sections in the preview panel and go okay, I'll say this, I'll say this, I'll say this, and I'll sort of mark down what I do. Then, and also what can happen in the first, for example, in the first panel, we can re-figure out what we're doing. Originally, I wasn't going to talk about one set, but I was really excited by it because

it's a set I led, so I said, hey, I think I can do something fun with this. So that first meeting, you can sort of sometimes build some stuff out, and you can change things up. I ended up talking about a part that I originally wasn't going to talk about, but I had a fun thing, so we moved things around. Okay, the second run-through, everybody sort of has written down their general talking points, and the second run-through is, okay, we're actually going to run through this, we're going to have actual slides, but we still will stop in places and go, oh, that's not working, maybe we should change something. So the second run-through is somewhat of a real run-through, but with a lot of notes and stopping.

And the reason of that run through is you're starting to get a gist of what you want to say, but you're sort of making sure we're hitting things. And if you're missing anything, sometimes, for example, like when I go and through making my notes, like for the Marvel section, I realized that what I wanted to say, the slides were slightly out of order to match the point I wanted to make. So I went and said, okay, I wasn't adding any pictures. Actually, I did add one picture, but normally I wasn't changing anything. I wasn't changing what we were showing.

to the order of what we were showing. Now, I did get a note. I walked through my talk with Aaron. He gave me a good note and that I was missing a good point. So I went back and said, oh, I want to make this point. We don't have an image for that point. Can we get an image? And we have to find an image and clear it through our partner. But we did. We got the image for that so that I can make that point. And that all comes the second run through. Like I said, it's a little bit rough. but you're really actually trying to start to gel what it is you're going to say. Then the third run-through, and normally there's three run-throughs, that's normal for a panel. I've had panels with more than three.

I've had panels with less than three, I guess, but three is normal. The third panel is kind of the full run-through, and the idea there is we don't stop. That if something goes wrong, I mean, if something goes horribly wrong, we can stop. But the idea generally is just continue. on. If you stumble on something, just act like you're really on stage and just go through the thing. We don't normally stand up, we're still seated. Like, we're not walking through things, but, and then sometimes at the event, either we will show up the day before or we will show up early of the day we're doing it. And there might be a smidgen of, okay, like,

you don't know the stage work until you actually get there. Oh, like, for example, when I was at Pax West, we ended up being seated where we thought we were going to stand. It's like, oh, okay, you're not going to stand. Like, you just make sure you understand the nature of what's happening and where you go. And if there's multiple people coming on, who's sitting where, and just work out the general gist. It doesn't take very long, but we need to do that. Okay, that is a panel.

So panels, panels are probably the most, well, not the most. I'll get to the most in a second. Panels are a decent amount of prep work. There's a lot of planning ahead of time. And the thing about panels is, it's all. planned out what we're going to say. Like, it's, not that there can't be spontaneous moments, especially

I like having spontaneous moments. So, like, a good example is, and this is from Pax West, but we had a Spider-Man panel that I had done. And when I got there and there was an audience, one of the fun things was we were doing some handouts, and I realized I could be a bit more

playful with the audience, so I was. So I never had done that during the run-throughs, but I saw the opportunity when I was live with the audience and you know that'll happen um and i i have a background in improv and and you know stand up and like i i'm more than comfortable at winging things on my feet so stuff like that i'm happy doing okay so that is previews um as far as game shows uh normally uh we will do one or two run through of the game shows um like i was uh many years ago uh in what was it philadelphia uh we did a game show where it was 25 words or less, basically.

And so it was a matter of making sure everyone understands the game and how it works. We didn't run through the actual things we're doing the actual day, but we came up with not the real things we were doing, but so we could walk through and practice doing the game show. In Atlanta, I'm on Um Actually, which is from Dropout. I've never done, um, actually, but I've watched Um Actually. My daughter's a big Dropout fan of Rachel. So she showed me, I'm actually, they once didn't.

I'm actually on magic already, like a taped version. So, and they actually didn't, I'm actually at another show, but I was like on, I was on stage doing a panel. But I was very excited to, I love magic trivia. So I'm going to be on this particular one. They don't want me to know anything. They want me to sort of be spontaneous. I'm aware of, I've seen the show, so I'm aware of the structure that I'm playing in. But there really was no prep for that.

So something depends on the thing. As far as games where I'm playing in games ahead of time, like I did Game Nights Live in Vegas last year, that actually had a decent amount of prep. I got my deck ahead of time, so I spent at lunch, there's a lunchtime commander game. So I was playing in the lunchtime commander game. I was just playing for my deck to get familiar with it,

to be aware of what the cards were and what the combos were, and like just getting a general sense of how my deck played. And then I had to show up two days early. I talked about all of this in my, my podcast on that MagicCon. But anyway, we had a day where we were playing through and figuring things out.

We had a day for staging. But that had a lot. There was a decent amount of prep work to do that. Okay. The thing that probably is the most time-consuming for me is whenever I go to a MagicCon, or most of the time,

I do a talk. And the way the talk works is I have an hour and I can do whatever I want. I can talk about whatever we want. Normally, I clear the topic through Greg, but I don't think I've ever pitched a topic and Greg said, no, don't do that topic. So I have a general sense of what makes a fun talks. So the idea of a talk is, normally there's some history to it. I'm talking about something. Recently, I've been doing a lot of top 20, top 20 best mechanics, top 20 worst mechanics. For Atlanta, it's top 20 most influential sets.

and so the idea is so I build them I have a Mac at home so I build them in Keynote and I build them and run it off my phone for those that have never seen one of my talks I use a lot of slides a lot of slides for example in Atlanta I'm not 100% done I'm close to done but I am over 800 slides right now and basically my rule of thumb is the more time I have

the more slides I will make. So I think I'm doing my final run-through today. So I might add a few slides in my final run-through. But I'm going to be between 8 and 900 slides, which is, there's a talk a while back that I did at GDC, the 20 years, 20 lessons. And that one, which I'd done infinite prep on, I had over 1,000 slides.

So anyway, the idea is I have a talk. And the point is not that the talk, whatever it is that I'm talking about, best mechanics, best sets, whatever. I mean, there is actual thought going into trying to actually do that. But the larger picture is I'm trying to be entertaining. I'm trying to tell fun stories. So a lot of what I'm doing is I am trying to not just pick things or whatever,

but I'm also just trying to make fun content. I want to be entertaining to watch. I want you to have fun. And these talks are filmed. So, if you're not at MagicCon, if you are at Atlanta, this is 7 o'clock on Saturday night, come watch. But if you're not in Atlanta, or even if you are and you're doing something else, it is taped, and you can see it, I don't know, like a week or so later, it'll be up online so you can watch it. In fact, you can watch my old talks. The interesting thing about the talks is, it is a, I'll say it's more scripted.

It's not that I have an actual script. In the moment, what I say, there's some variance, you know, when I run through it multiple times. I don't quite say the same thing every time. But it is much more planned out. The reason I have so many slides is I'm going to tell this thing at this time. I talk about this. Like, it's the closest I get to a script. Once again, it's not exactly scripted up.

But it is, I have a very exacting order that I'm going to do things. And the other thing that's really different from, like, you, obviously, you guys listen to my podcast. My podcast is more like, I have a rough topic, I have both points of what I want to say, and then I'm telling the story, and I'll do whatever I'm going to do. And if ideas come to me, you know, I'll drift sometimes. Like today's podcast, I have a list of all the things I want to talk about. But, you know, I mean, I roughly follow the list, but I'm, I do a lot of bouncing around.

There's a naturalness to my podcast where I'm just talking about the thing I want to talk about. And if I get into tangents, I get into tangents. When I'm doing a live talk, because I'm doing slides, there's a whole visual component. It's a lot more locked in. It's a lot more direct of what I'm doing. And, oh, the other thing that'll happen is usually after the, after I do the talk, I will do a podcast sort of version of the talk. But they're very, very different. And the talk itself has a lot of visuals.

so I would recommend both watching my talk and if I do it on the podcast also listening to it you'll see they're really not the same thing and they kind of show up the strengths of each of the medium as a performer I like to lean into the medium and so the way I do a podcast is really different than the way I do a talk. They're just very structured.

The other thing that I can do in a talk that's a little bit harder to do is I can set up actual jokes and things So there's definitely things in my talk where I'm specifically, you know, leaning toward humor. Not that I can't be funny on my podcast, but that's more organic humor. Okay. So how long does it take for me to do a talk? It takes a long time.

I'm very exacting in my talks. I spend a lot of time. I normally start six weeks maybe before the event, just so I have a lot of time. And this is mostly done on weekends and sometimes at, you know, at night. I will just go on. I'll go through the way I do a top 20. So, for example, I was doing the top 20 most influential sets, expansions, most influential expansions is my talk. So I made a list, and then I went on to, we have a, the pit is where all the R&D sits, and we have a thread online.

So I'll go into our thread and say, okay, guys, I'm doing this talk. What do you think are the most influential sets? everybody will list stuff. And I'll end up getting a list from everybody that's more than 20. I think my list when I put it together was like 35. And I also had made my own list. So I put my list up, or sorry, I didn't put my list. I made my own list, but I didn't put it up because I didn't want to influence anybody. So anyway, I take my list and I take other people's lists. And the idea of my list is initial thoughts. I mean, when other people suggest it, like, oh, yeah, that's a good idea. and then I sort of narrow it down

and what I did is I made things that had to be there I absolutely top 20 I made things like maybe they're there and they made a list like I don't think these are going to make the cut and then when I did that I think I had like 10 automatic includes I had like 15 maybes and then I had a bunch on the other side

so really what it was is narrowing down so what I would do is I would build each section like I knew my number one, and so I worked on that first. In fact, I knew my one and two right away. So I would, I go, I know I'm going to do this and I put it in. Once again, well, my list is, I'm trying to be accurate with my list. There's a little bit of give toward what has good stories. So, well, my list, I think, is a pretty good list. If I was fighting for two, for two cards, you know, for two sets for one slot, and one of them had a better story, I might pick the

better story. In the end, this is more about entertainment. I mean, I am, I am, I am, I am, trying to, not that my content is true, I'm picking sets I think are very valuable sets, and I explain why I think they're valuable sets in the talk. But once again, more so than anything else, I'm just trying to be entertaining. The entertainment value is number one. I do try to be educational.

I have a lot of, I love magic history, and I have a lot of knowledge of magic history. So I am trying to teach people things. So, if you watch my talk, you'll learn things that you may or may not know. Some of the stories I tell in this talk, I do, I have told, on my podcast. So some of them you might be familiar with. The nice

thing about the talk is, A, there's pictures with it, so you can see people and stuff like that. And because they structure, sometimes I will work things a little bit differently, so there'll be some stories you might have heard, but maybe there's extra details, or I'm telling a little different context than you know.

But anyway, the talk can take, usually a talk is at minimum tens of hours of work. I mean, it's tens of hours, it's not like 100. hour. But like, it can be 20 hours, 30 hours, depending on sort of, I mean, on some level, I work on it as much as I'm able to work on it. And so, usually what happens is I build all

the individual pieces, then I put them in order, and then I do, I do passes where I go through and go, oh, well, this story's a little better if I show you this, you know. And one of the tricky things, the two big tricky things about doing visuals. One is, I'm trying to be historical. So when I'm talking about all the expansions, I want to show you the lead designer slash vision designers and lead developer slash set to set designer and so i want to show the people that led the set which means they need images um some people it is hard to find images in fact one of the sets in my top 20 is legends so there's a guy named steve conard that led legends i know steve i I worked for Steve, but I haven't seen Steve in 25 years.

I went online. The internet has no pictures of Steve. And there's some pictures of Steve Connors, but I'm like, oh, is that just an older Steve Connard that I haven't seen for 25 years? I don't think that's... So what I ended up doing is Laura remembered that she had taken pictures of him at an event back in like 95. And so we went back and found the book, found the scrapbook that Laura had done.

And then I took it. And even then, it's not the greatest picture of him, but it is a picture of him. Some people who I'm still in contact with, I will write to them and say, hey, here's the best I can do online. Do you want a better picture than this? And if you do, give me the picture. And then some people will then send me a picture so that I have a picture that they're happy with. In general, I like people, I mean, especially people I can talk to, I like to have them be happy with a picture I'm using for them. but there's some people who I don't have contact information with and I haven't seen forever and I just find the best picture I can.

The other thing that's tricky is sometimes I'm talking about a concept and then I'm like, okay, I need a visual to talk about this concept. And some concepts are easy. Some concepts like lend themselves to a visual but some of them are like, oh, you know, I need the concept of time went by quickly.

Okay, is it a speeding clock? Is it a... What shows time went by fat? And then I got to figure out the visual for that. And anyway, there's a lot of stuff that goes into my talk. I spend a lot of time on it. It's the thing I do. It's definitely the thing I do for MagicCon that takes the most time.

And it's the thing that I think is my favorite thing that I do as far as has the most polished to it. Anyway, I'm excited to do this talk. The one thing is I haven't had a chance to do all the runs. Often what happens at the event at night before I go to bed, I'll do run-throughs of it just to sort of make sure I understand the information, like remind myself all different slides, I have in different orders. I have jokes built and I just have to remember the jokes are there and stuff like that. Okay, other things that I do, I talked about doing press interviews. The only prep I have to do with the press interviews is I have to schedule them.

One of the things that we do for everything, so basically ahead of time I get sent to schedule. One of the show managers will map everybody's time out and then send, send a list of, here's where everybody needs to be win. And I need to, I get pretty busy, so I need them after schedule. So not only am I doing my panels and my talk. I have my signings. One of my jobs is to do a certain amount of time in the Black Lotus Room. Black Lotus are the people that is kind of the nicest ticket.

And one of the perks is you get a special place you can hang out and you get to schmooze with wizards people like me. So I spent some time there. I also spend a some amount of time. I block off time so I can walk the halls and see people. So if you really want to meet me, I have signings that you can come to called Meet and greets. And I'm happy I'll sign autographs, I'll answer questions, I'll take pictures.

You can come to that. I just recommend coming a little bit early because the lines can get long. If you see me in the hall, feel free to stop me. I'm happy to take a picture. But be aware, I might be on my way to somewhere. I might have to do it quickly because I'm busy. But I'm always happy to say hi to people and take pictures and sign autographs. but oh but I have to map my time out

most of the time the things that mapped out is done ahead of time by the show manager or one of the show managers but I have a few things like press that doesn't get decided until very very close to the event so I have to map my schedule and then double check for stuff like press the only thing I do for press is

I just have to make sure that I know if there's any sort of hot button issues I just will walk through and make sure that I'm aware of everything we're saying about whatever. There's a little tiny bit of prep I do on press, but usually I'm fine. I mean, I do tons of press, so usually I'm just fine. But I have to schedule it out.

Oh, there also is a talk before we go called Know Before You Go, K-B-Y-K. And it's a meeting that's a mandatory meeting that everybody attending the event must go to. Usually there's a morning meeting and an afternoon meeting. You can pick the one that's easiest for you. In fact, this time, I went to the morning meeting, but it was early in the morning.

So while I drove into my car, I listened to it while I drove into my car. So instead of podcasting that day, I attended the meeting. And I would say about 70% of a No Before You Go meeting is the same stuff they say every time. This is what a MagicCon is. Here's the basic things. So a lot of it is stuff that I already know, I've been to a lot of magicons. But the other 30% is like,

oh, here's what's unique about this venue. Here are events that we have never done before that were doing for the first time. Here are opportunities you might not be aware of. Here are, you know, whatever, whatever the information they have to get across to us. Sometimes it's also like, oh, here's where the food is at. You know, just sharing with us information.

There's a whole packet they make that we have access to. So online, I could look at the packet. And also I have to make sure, like, Do I know my hotel? Do I know all the component pieces I need? Well, certain magic on things are pretty consistent from time to time. Oh, the other thing that I have to do is I get there a day early. Although it used to be, the show is Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

It used to be I would get there a day early and I had the whole day to, like, figure out where things were, check out the venue. Now we started to doing things for Black Lotus. So I have a Q&A on Thursday and then there's a Black Lotus first look at night that I'm, I'm going to be part of. Sometimes I have to get up and say things, and when that happens, usually we'll have a meeting ahead of time. But sometimes if we're running,

if we don't have the way to do that, I just show up a little bit early and then I run through my lines. That doesn't take too much prep. Stuff like the Q&A, there's really no prep for the Q&A. I mean, other than like the press, I just need to make sure I'm aware of

what's out and what's known. The good news is because I do my blog, and I talk to players every single day. I have a really good sense of what people do and don't know because they ask me about it. So more so than most people at Wizards, I'm pretty up on what is public knowledge and what is not. I always like to have a little refresher

to make sure I'm aware of everything. And the other thing I need to make aware of is I like to know I'm on some of the panels, but there's other panels that are saying things that I don't. So I try to also figure out, oh, what else is getting said, so I'm aware of what gets said. That's more for my day-to-day job than it is for the MagicCon.

Oh, the last thing that I have to do is part of my schedule is one of the things that I like to do is I like to play in events. A, because I like to play an event, that's fun. But B, one of the things when we ask people about MagicCon is that one of the things they value very highly is the fact to do things that you can't normally do. So we run a lot of unique events that are unique, like Gavin has the unknown event. That's the only place you can do that. And there's a lot of influencers, for example, like Brian David Marshall and Loading Ready to Run. There's just people that do their own unique event that you can go do their event. I've done a few of those.

I did an event once, although I think that was a Black Lotus event. But I occasionally do those. There's some prep work if I'm going to run an event. I don't run events all that often. More often than not, like I filled in for the unknown event for Gavin. He had to go to a wedding, so Matt Tebek and I filled in. There wasn't a lot of prep for that. I need to know the general risk, just the general gist of it.

But that does make a lot of prep. And then, yeah, so the final thing I need to do on site is I need to do a quick run through the day before. Where are all the things? Where's the mana stage? Where's the black lotus room? Where's all the places? Where's the press room? Where are all the places I'm going to need to be?

And then I actually make a schedule and I double-checked my schedule and I have to to cross-reference it with not just the show stuff but press and just make sure that I mean that that's the last piece I guess is just make sure that I'm well aware where I need to be where and when and like I say I also schedule some time not only is my Black Lotus time scheduled but I started scheduling like floor time because it's really important me yes it's fun to meet all the Black Lotus folk but I also want to meet people that aren't Black Lotus folk so I actually schedule time to to walk on walk the floor so if you ever see me like I say you can say high. I also like to see

we have a lot of retailers and stuff there and it's always fun to see that. So I like to have a little time to see that. So anyway, guys, that is all my prep work that I can remember. Once again, sometimes individual shows, there may be something new I'm doing

that I've never done before. Maybe that takes a little extra prep. So for Atlanta, for those that are going to Atlanta, although I'm not sure if this is going up in time that you'll hear it before Atlanta, but I am going to be in the preview panel. I'm doing my talk. I'm doing unmatchually. I'm doing some, I'm doing some meeting greets. I'm doing some black leather stuff. So when I get back, I will do a podcast all about

how all of that went. So now you can hear about me preparing for it ahead of time, but not knowing what's going to happen. So I will do a podcast where I walk through everything that happens, and you guys can hear all about it. But anyway, guys, that is my podcast. magicon prep. It can vary how much, like I said, the talk is always a lot of work and the panel usually is a decent amount of work. But other than that, it's not too bad. And I really do enjoy do magicons. I enjoy all the stuff. I know it's work putting stuff together. But the payoff is seeing the enjoyment for all of you because it's super fun. But anyway, guys, I'm now at work. So we all know what that means means at the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic,

it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you all next time. Bye-bye.