Hayden Childress
Magician, Mentalist, Urban Illusionist
New York, NY
Website of NYC Magician Hayden Childress. Creator of acclaimed NYC magic show Urban Illusions. Thought provoking magic and mentalism. As featured in Timeout New York and Penn & Teller: Fool Us.
Booking inquiries
info@haydenismagic.com
Please include date, location, and event details.
Hayden Childress blends sleight of hand, psychological misdirection, and surreal analog art into magic that feels personal, cinematic, and impossible
Now Appearing
NYC's Underground MAgic Show
Every weekend in NYC’s East Village 20 guests gather to experience an underground magic show in New York City. Part magic show, part art installation, part social experiment… part something else.
About Hayden
- Profession: Magician, Mentalist, Conceptual Artist.
- Homebase: New York, New York
- Experience: Stage and close-up magic.
- Bespoke commissioned performances for groups like Google, Microsoft, Airbnb, Gatorade, The Super Bowl.
- Creator and performer – Urban Illusions in New York City. A 20 seat magic show that blends surrealism, psychology, sleight of hand magic, and cultural commentary.
- Interests: Analog photography, art, espresso, technology, music composition, world travel
“What a great routine… every moment is just beautiful…”
-Penn and Teller
See It For Yourself
Urban Illusions
An underground Close-Up Magic Show in New York City
Every Weekend in NYC's EAst Village. 20 seats.
Urban Illusions is Hayden’s residency magic show in New York City. It explores the illusions we live in every day using sleight of hand magic.
Expect top-tier sleight of hand magic, analog surrealism with VHS tapes, records and photographs, and a one of a kind atmosphere that lots of people described as “dreamlike” – so Timeout wrote that too.
The closer you look at the show the better it gets. Experience it for yourself.
Private Performances
Tailored for Stage, Close-Up, Or Interactive Settings
Groups like Airbnb, Salesforce, Google, IBM, and Gatorade collaborate with Hayden to create unique experiences for their employees, interns, clients, executive off site events, etc.
Whether it’s mingling close-up performances that escalate throughout the night, a banquet with 500 guests, or a full sit-down show for 20 people in a private room, Hayden tailors his performances to fit that moment.
Have something in mind? Send a message.
Booking inquiries
info@haydenismagic.com
Please include date, location, and event details.
Let Hayden answer your questions
Ironically, as a professional magician, honesty is important to me. Magic is an honest art form where we say we will deceive your five senses as art. You know you are about to see a lie – a trick – and despite that, you experience a real feeling. You are lied to all the time, but in a magic trick, the lie is two sided, because you’ve agreed to be lied to in order to experience the trick. Fun!
Mentalism is simply a genre of magic trick that is themed around the mind. Cogitation. Thinking. Imagine I asked you to pick a word from a book instead of pick a card. That’s mentalism.
It’s a common myth that mentalism involves psychology, body language etc. It’s a fun myth – because it gives a satisfying answer. But the truth is, there is simply no such thing as an expert of the mind who can read people like Sherlock Holmes. We do not exist.
A forest painting doesn’t lose its beauty once you realize it isn’t actually a forest. And I don’t think a mind reading magic trick loses its thrill when you realize I’m not a body language or psychology expert – I’m just a normal guy who tells lies.
I’ve created my work to be experienced in real life, and I feel putting it in a short video form on a telephone dilutes the magic.
That said I’m not anti-video. I have a tv performance on my site and I am currently working on a short film based on my show Urban Illusions.
If you are seriously interested in working with me but need some proof that I’m as legitimate as I say, send a message through my contact form and I’ll send you a raw, unedited video or two from a live performance that expires after 24 hours – just like a magic trick!
Currently I am focused on my residency show Urban Illusions in New York City. We do four shows every weekend. Tickets are $95-$145. Come and experience it yourself!
Yes – if it’s the right fit.
Send a message, tell me more about what you have in mind, and I’ll see what we can do.
I’d say so, yeah. I enjoyed answering it though – so maybe it wasn’t so useless after all.