On Saturday, June 20, 2026, Phillip Zmijewski joined nine family members and close friends for The Magician’s Study, the invitation-only close-up magic show hidden somewhere on the Las Vegas Strip.
Phillip Zmijewski Joins the VIP Front Row
The group reserved the VIP front row, the seats closest to the performer and, as they soon learned, squarely inside the act itself. By the end of the night, everyone in the group had been drawn into the performance.
“It was, without exaggeration, one of the most entertaining nights I have spent in Las Vegas,” Zmijewski said.
Our group was a full family affair: my two sisters and their husbands, my mother and father, and a few close friends, with me making ten. We had reserved the VIP front row—the seats that put you closest to the performer and, as we would learn, squarely inside the act itself.
By the end of the night, every one of us had been called up to take part. It was, without exaggeration, one of the most entertaining nights I have spent in Las Vegas.
The Mystery Before The Show
Part of what makes The Magician’s Study unusual begins long before the magician appears. The show is not sold to the general public.
You cannot simply buy a ticket; you first have to come by a secret codeword that unlocks the ticketing page, and the location is kept hidden until the day of the performance. We received our instructions earlier that day—the venue and a password to get in—which only sharpened the anticipation.
Stepping Into The Study
Inside, the room looked exactly like its name: a study. Shelves of old books, busts, and antique curiosities lined the walls, lit low and warm so that the whole space felt less like a theater than like the private library of someone with eccentric and expensive taste.
Chairs were arranged close together in just a few short rows, curved around the small performance area. The farthest seat in the room is only about ten feet from the magician; from our VIP front row, there was almost no distance at all. Intimacy is the point.
This is not a stage seen from a crowd of hundreds—it is a very small group of people in a small room.
Enter The Magician
The magician made his entrance wearing the now-signature rabbit mask—an odd, angular thing that he wore just long enough to register before pulling it off. From there the evening became a blend of two shows at once: a close-up magic show and an audience participation comedy act, performed by the magician.
His interactions with the audience were constant, quick, and aimed directly at individuals. The humor is sharp and adult—this is a 21-and-over show, and the magician does not soften his edges—but with our group it never felt like anything other than fun.
He never told us his name. That, too, is part of the act; the performer’s identity is kept a secret, and he plays the mystery for everything it is worth.
The Vip Front Row—and Being Called Up
Booking the VIP front row is the difference between watching the show and being in it, and our group got the full version.
One by one, eight of us were called up to take part. Being pulled up on stage changes the experience entirely.
From the seat you are trying to catch the method; standing next to him, holding a card or a coin or a borrowed object, you are close enough that it should be impossible to be fooled—and you are fooled anyway, completely, which is somehow more astonishing rather than less.
The Magic
The show includes card magic, sleight-of-hand and larger illusions, the mix this kind of intimate room is built for. The technical skill was obvious even from inches away, especially because the audience sat close enough to watch every gesture.
A key trick involved cutting a woman in half, performed so close to the front row that the illusion felt even more impossible to unravel. My sister was asked to participate, but she was frightened for the woman in the box and could not even watch.
Ten of Us in The Room
Going with a group of ten turned out to be the ideal way to see this show. So much of the night ran on interaction, and our large group gave the magician a deep bench to draw from.
The fact that we were family and old friends meant the jokes had extra weight—he could play us off one another, and the laughter in the room was at least partly the laughter of people who already knew each other’s tells.
For our group, the secrecy, the small room, and the constant audience involvement made The Magician’s Study feel unlike a standard Las Vegas show. It worked because it felt personal. We did not just watch the performance. For much of the night, we became part of it.
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