8th Beijing University Magic Convention: Nine Days of Magic Across Beijing
From 13 to 22 November 2026, the 8th Beijing University Magic Convention takes over the city with three programme strands and nine separate events — an opening gala, nine new-space productions, two street parades, an industry seminar and a closing showcase for student performers.
The convention is hosted by the China Acrobats Association, the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation and the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, and organised by the Beijing Acrobats Association together with the Chaoyang District Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Sanlitun Sub-district Office and the China Soong Ching Ling Youth Science and Culture Centre. Beijing Fantasy Forest Magic Culture Industry Group is co-organiser.
Opening night: three regions, one stage
The opening gala takes the stage at the Beijing Future Theatre on 13 November at 19:30, and streams live across several platforms. Eight performers from the mainland, Hong Kong and Taiwan share the bill, hosted by Sun Zheng and Xin Wen.
The line-up spans an unusually wide range of traditions. Eric Chien (Taiwan) brings the close-up work that won him the 2018 FISM world championship and, a year later, Asia’s Got Talent; Yang Xiaolei carries the sixth generation of the Gu Cai conjuring lineage, a national intangible-heritage practice, alongside an IBM gold medal; Ma Yanyan arrives with a FISM stage silver and the Monte Carlo Magic Stars title; and Hong Kong’s Zhang Lexian holds a Hong Kong stage open championship and a FISM Asia first place.
They are joined by Tang Mingliang, a specialist in mentalism with an award for stage presence; Zheng Zhongyao, the 2024 FISM Asia champion; Guo Haowei, a gold medallist across the mainland, Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan; and Yi Chenghao, a five-time national yo-yo champion who works the object into a magic act rather than the other way round.
Nine productions in new spaces
From 14 to 22 November, nine original productions run in small venues around Sanlitun and beyond — the format the convention calls “new performance spaces”. The programme mixes close-up shows, a magic talk show and a full-length magic play, with most rooms seating well under two hundred.
Among them: Tang Mingliang’s seventy-minute “Shanghai Story”, Sun Zheng’s “Three Chocolates”, a family show from Liu Quan, Li Chenxin’s “Parallel World”, and Fu Yandong’s “Magic Family” — a stage production drawn from his own family’s history, built on a practice listed as national intangible heritage in 2014.
Magic on the street
Two stilt-walking parade productions move the convention out of the theatre entirely. “Beauty and the Beast” and “The Great Magician” — the latter built around 2.4-metre figures — run through the Sanlitun commercial district on 14–15 and 21–22 November, combining costume, puppetry, music and close-up interaction with passers-by.
Seminar and closing
On 16 November the convention hosts an industry seminar on magic within new cultural formats, bringing together programmers, venue operators, academics and performers to talk about how small-venue magic actually gets built and sustained.
The closing gala follows on 22 November at 19:30 at the Ai Yue Hui Art Space, pairing outstanding student performers with gold medallists from the 13th CMUC New Star Cup — the competition that feeds directly into this convention’s talent pipeline.
The full programme, 13–22 November 2026 (in Chinese).