About simone
Simone Turkington has performed extensively doing hundreds of shows in the eight years since she seriously took up magic. She has taken her unique style of magic around the US and the world to Australia, New Zealand and the UK. She is a regular performer at the mecca of magic, The Magic Castle.
Simone brings a cool, mod, 1960s aesthetic to her show rarely seen unless you watch a lot of magic videos from the 60s. Her music choices will have your feet a-tappin and her rapport with the audience will leave a smile on your face. She aspires to live up to what she wrote on her childhood magic kit: Prepare to be Amazed.
It began when her father selected a deck of cards as his prize at a carnival shooting gallery, Simone was stunned by his boring choice.
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"It's a *magic* deck of cards!" he told her. "I got it for you."
Noting her enthusiasm for magic on television, he hoped to encourage her interest with this prize. And encourage it did. Using the deck and its instructions, Simone performed her first magic show at school assembly, aged 9, cementing her love of magic and performing from an early age.
In her teenage years other interests took over and magic mostly disappeared from her life. While her enthusiasm as a spectator never waned, it seemed that was the end of magic ambitions for herself.
After moving to Los Angeles, a far cry from Melbourne, Australia where she grew up, she found herself surrounded by creatives and dabbled in acting herself which had long been her passion. Shortly after discovering a new friend was also into magic, the cogs started turning and the idea for a 60s themed magic act popped into her head. With concept in place, she just needed to learn magic.
Living just ten minutes from the Magic Castle in Hollywood opened a world of opportunities, starting with classes and then magician membership at the prestigious private club. Being surrounded by so many skilled and talented performers set a high bar for Simone but this only inspired her to work harder.
Simone quickly moved from novice to pro working private parties, corporate events and opening for comedy and music shows around LA within a couple of years of deciding to pursue magic. After a year of over a hundred impromptu sets to polish her act, in December 2018 she was honored to achieve her biggest goal; to be booked to perform in the Parlour of Prestidigitation at The Magic Castle. She has gone on to perform over 200 shows at the Magic Castle since.
Simone has been featured in KTLA’s LA Unscripted, The Washington Post, Genii magazine and is a regular contributor to the Hocus in Focus column in The Linking Ring magazine. Her performance at a telethon had Jeff Goldblum awarding her 10 out of 10 Goldblums which was a nice boost as she headed off to Australia for the Melbourne Magic Festival with her show ‘Suspicious Minds’. In 2022 she was thrilled to open for her favourite band, Britpop legends, Supergrass. For four years, she was a board member of the Women Magicians Association (WMA) and also a member of the Women in Magic Committee (WiMC) for the Academy of Magical Arts. In 2023 she began a new role in magic as an instructor at the Magic Castle's Magic University.
Simone continues to push her act forward finding fresh, funny, and beautiful ways to shape her magic.
Enomis Myliram Nod - Longtime collaborator