Hands down, we owe Dan and Dave a ton. Just like thousands of other blokes across the world, we discovered cardistry thanks to their instructional DVDs. The goal of our July California trip was to attend the Cardistry-Con 2017, although we couldn't help but meet Dan Buck in person a couple days earlier.

From LA we ventured to San Diego, where Twins' Art of Play warehouse and showroom are located. Dan held a very exciting tour for us and shared some memories about his Jerry's Nugget decks. 

Dave was busy that day preparing to the conference in LA. By the way, he enjoyed our video.

Next day we paid a visit to Round Two Hollywood - a popular spot for connoisseurs of rare streetwear. It was there that Zach Mueller launched his new Carrots Fontaines pop up shop. That was the first experience of its kind for Zach, as previously he sold his goods exclusively online. The gamble definitely paid off: people lined up for Fontaine cards from early morning, and at a certain point Zach had to introduce a limit of 2 decks per customer.  

The very next day we met Dan, Zach and many of our pals at the Cardistry-Con. That week - in the midst of the summer - Los Angeles was boiling. Three exciting days in a huge air-conditioned building with the most talented cardists from across the world seemed surreal.

80 gigabytes, making a total of 4 hours of raw footage, all fit well in a single 12-minute video.

The cardistry community is relatively small and people know each other from short Instagram videos. Hence attendees grouped together by old acquaintances from previous conferences or by countries. The youngest lads swarmed Zach Mueller, Oliver Sogard and Tobias Levin. Meanwhile Dan and Dave Buck were almost impossible to spot with a deck of cards in their hands - so busy they were organizing the con. Every day was packed with events: stage talks were followed by free jam sessions and contests between cardists.

A trained eye might have noticed a few interesting tendencies. Jaspas and Zach Mueller ignored each other as expected (a beef was sparked by the controversy surrounding WKC 2013/14 championship), Dealers Grip creators from Denmark Tobias and Oliver haven't been seen together. Noel, by the looks of it, didn't notice Zach, and was spending more and more time with a new Anyone Worldwide group: it's the Tobias-Nikolaj-Noel trio who presented their secret video on the stage. Meanwhile Zach himself was busy selling his decks and merch.

Away from the drama and other antics, the cardistry jams everyone craved for were taking place. We were fortunate enough to capture the ambiance of one featuring Andrei Jikh, Matt Fox and Jaspas. It's worth noting, while headliners were nonchalantly chatting and giving away autographs, one of the 'veterans' of the cardistry scene Andrei Jikh was showing some real class. Whenever Andrei entered the building, he was immediately mobbed by a solid crowd of people. His arguably most requested flourish - Sonic Spring - he performed on camera for everyone who asked. Jikh has nothing to prove to anyone, he simply loves cardistry too much. It took us by surprise when he told us he leaves theory11 to focus more on own projects: his cardistry performances are highly regarded in Las Vegas. 

On the sidelines of the Cardistry-Con we managed to film a couple of tutorials with Matt Fox and Chase Duncan. Besides being sound lads, these two have been into cardistry for over 10 years.

Yet another nice surprise was meeting Sweets Kendamas team. If previously we weren't sure of updating our shop with kendamas, the live performance of Cooper Eddie and Matt Sweets made all our doubts disappear.

The whole Cardisty-Con idea was born after the Buck Twins took the risk after the last day of Magic-Con 2014 and dedicated eight hours solely to cardists. The session was named accordingly: Cardistry-Con 2014 - San Diego. Since then, starting from the next year, the Bucks organized conferences exclusively for cardistry.

Magicians, however, were welcomed to the events. There was quite a few of them in 2017!

Our California adventures weren't limited by the conference only. In our final vlog: Hollywood, Universal Studios, Magic Castle and many more.

It was an unforgettable journey and we cannot wait for the Cardistry-Con 2018 in Hong Kong.