Magician Daniel Martin, named last year’s entertainer of the year by Campus Activities Magazine, took the Reeve Ballroom stage Jan. 31 to perform for a crowd of captivated students and community members.

With over 200 people in attendance, Martin said he was extremely happy to be doing a show in Oshkosh.

“I’ve toured the world doing magic shows and I’m so excited to be here with you tonight,” Martin said.

Martin’s grandparents noticed his sleight-of-hand skills at a very young age and averted his attention to magic to distract from his hobby of pickpocketing.

“When I was just 6 years old, I could already successfully pickpocket people,” Martin said. “My grandparents noticed and got my first magic set. It was love at first trick.”

Martin opened the show by selecting a random audience member and asking them to think of any beverage in the world. When the audience member said, “orange Fanta,” Martin pulled a can of Sprite out of a brown paper bag that had been sitting on stage.

Martin then emptied the can of Sprite completely and held it upside down to prove nothing was left in the can.

Just when the audience thought the trick had failed, Martin, then with a clenched and shaking hand, rose his hand from the bottom of the can to the top.

Martin lifted the can high above his head, poured a stream of orange liquid from the can that was just emptied and handed the drink to the audience participant.

After a sip from the cup, the audience member said, “It’s orange Fanta.”

Sticking to the roots of magic, Martin somewhat regrettably performed a few card tricks for everyone.

“Card tricks are great, but I like to think outside the box and perform tricks that are more original,” Martin said.

After downplaying the originality of card tricks, Martin found a way to make one card an audience member picked disappear from the deck and magically appear folded up in his mouth.

From that point on, the show continued to escalate with Martin not only doing magic tricks, but also engaging with the crowd comedically.

As Martin glanced out into the crowd in the middle of one of his tricks he saw a screen illuminating an audience member’s face Martin immediately dropped what he was doing and called on the girl to come to the stage.

Martin proceeded to take her phone, take a video and then blow up a balloon next to it. He then quickly let the air out of the balloon, revealing the phone trapped inside.

Freshman Tierra LaCrosse said Martin’s performance completely changed her opinion on magic.

“Before the show I kind of believed in magic,” LaCrosse said. “He did some crazy stuff though that was hard to explain, especially the video at the end.”

Martin closed his show with a prerecorded video he brought to Oshkosh of him showing us his house in “MTV Cribs” style.

As the video played Martin mentioned and showed things in his house specific to the Oshkosh show based on the audience participation such as the orange Fanta, which was the only drink in his fridge at his house.

Freshman Briana Dickinson said the video was her favorite trick of the night.

“My favorite part of the show was definitely the video,” Dickinson said. “It was incredible how he tied the entire show together.”

Dickinson and LaCrosse were not the only members in the audience blown away by Martin’s performance. Junior Aaron Wojciechowski had trouble explaining exactly what he saw.

“I really couldn’t see what he was doing or how he was doing any of his tricks,” Wojciechowski said. “I could always sense something coming or the punchline coming, but as to how he did it, I was clueless. It was a truly amazing show.”