It’s been a long-time coming, but I am well underway in the process of populating the databases for the Illusion Repository! It’s taken a long time because I didn’t know much about creating my own website from scratch so I had to learn all about hosting, Word Press, databases, and more. This in addition to my busy performing schedule and suffice to say it has taken a long time! I decided to use the “Business Directory” plugin for Word Press, but there were multiple bugs and format issues in the early days. It had the potential to be good, but I just didn’t want to publish a lot of data without the plugin working the way I wanted it to. After numerous updates, this plugin is working much better, and I’m confident it will continue to improve; I’ve started populating the databases with actual illusions for the community to browse.
The plan for the IR remains largely unchanged. I plan to start with the non-negotiable illusions – those widely accepted by the community. Illusions that have a debatable past will likely not make the first cut of the list. I’m trying to keep the Illusion Repository (for the first few iterations) at platform illusions and larger. So that means your favorite Jay Sankey closeup trick will not be appearing here for the time being. We DO have the capability of adding those later and will be considering expanding the scope of the IR after exhausting all the possible avenues for larger illusions…yeah, that will be a while!
We desire to have pictures, video, background history, descriptions, and more for ALL of the illusions listed. We are trying to “flesh out” the illusions we currently have listed while adding new ones as well. And by “we” I mean me…I’m still an army of one. That’s ok, I suppose, because I’ve been very blessed to have the support of many of the top names in magic and had multiple opportunities to talk with these brilliant creators at length about their designs. It will continue to be slow-going, I’d imagine, but I want to ensure you each that it IS still going. :)
With that said, all the new friendships I’ve been forming will NOT influence the truth behind the listings. The IR will be an unbiased site seeking only the truth behind the illusions and their creators. I have several criteria for listing new illusions on the IR and if builders/designers/etc cannot meet the criteria, then I cannot list their illusions in good faith. Mistakes are certainly possible, but by contacting the builders and creators directly I hope to avoid as many errors as I can. If you see something that you have a question about, some information that doesn’t look quite right, I’m always open to hear about it! You may continue to email me at illusionrepository at gmail (dot) com.