Eric Chien

**Position Reached** | Winner

**Eric Chien** was a close-up magician act from Season 3 of *Asia's Got Talent*. He won the competition.

## Background

Eric was born in Taipei, Taiwan in 1993, and moved to Houston, Texas when he was 4.
He started doing magic when he was in high school. When he was 16, his friend show him a simple magic trick, but he wasn't interested in it. However, after he learned and performed the trick to others, he got a good reaction from the people. Since then, he fell in love with magic and decided to become a magician to give people wonder. Also, he loves to create his own trick rather than imitating what others did.
After he posted a video of his magic routine on the Internet, a magician asked him if he would like to be a magic consultant, whose job is to create props and materials for magicians. As time went by, his urge of performing on stage instead of being backstage got stronger. At about 2016, he started making his own props and stepping forward to be the performer.
In 2018, he won the FISM Close Up Grand Prix competition with an act called "Ribbon", being the first Asian to win that honor.

## Audition

Eric Chien's Audition performance consisted of performing his "Imaginary Coins" act. In the beginning, he created a coin from a drawn circle on a card. Then, he did a coin routine including let coin disappear with just a pinch, grab coins out of thin air, and produce handful of coins out of nowhere. In the end, he put one of the coins he produced on Anggun's hand and turned it back into ink. The coins, the pen, and the card on the table also turned back into ink drawing. Jay Park, Anggun and David Foster all voted "yes". He was one of the act being picked by the judges to proceed to the Semifinals.

## Semifinals

Eric Chien's Week 2 Semifinals performance consisted of performing his "Ribbon" act. Jay Park, Anggun and David Foster all gave him standing ovations. Jay Park said Eric could probably win the whole competition. Eric received enough public votes to advance to the Finals along with Yaashwin Sarawanan.

## Finals

Eric Chien's Finals performance consisted of two sets of close-up magic routine. He first magically switched a silver coin and a copper coin, with one coin firmly inside Jay Park's hand. He then poured colored chocolate buttons into a bowl, from which he produced a small Rubik's Cube, which host Alan Wong scrambled, and a larger cube, also scrambled then solved instantaneously; the smaller Rubik's cube was also found solved under Wong's hand. Both cubes were then transformed back into chocolate buttons. In the end, he turned some of the chocolate buttons into colorful confetti. Anggun gave him standing ovation. David Foster mentioned that Eric potentially could win the entire contest.

## Finale

After being announced that he received enough votes to be in the Top 2, Eric performed a card trick in the Results Show. He had David Foster to pick a card, and later shuffle the deck face up and face down, making the faces of the cards all mixed up. He then had David to fix the card back and shuffle the deck face up and face down again. After that, he took a picture of David holding the deck using David's phone. The photo was later revealed that every single card was facing down except for the card David picked. Jay Park and Anggun both gave him standing ovations.
Eric received enough votes to advance to the Top 4 instead of Siti Saniyah, Shadow Ace, Yang Shih Hao, Junior Good Vibes and Nama.
Eric was announced as the winner of Season 3 ahead of Yaashwin Sarawanan, Power Duo and Maniac Family**,** winning US$100,000 and one-year complimentary flights from VietJet Air.

## After The Show

* Eric competed in Season 14 of *America's Got Talent*, where he was eliminated in the Semifinals.
* Between 2019 & 2020, Eric toured with *The Illusionists – Magic of the Holidays* as “The Manipulator”.
* Eric appeared on *Penn & Teller: Fool Us* Season 7 Episode 16, where he performed his ribbon act. He fooled the duo.
* Between 2021 & 2022, Eric competed on *China's Got Talent* wherein he reached the Final. [1]
* Eric was invited to perform in Season 3 Grand Final of *Indonesia's Got Talent* in 2022. He assisted contestant Cassidy, who eventually became the runner-up of the show, in his Grand Final performance. [2] Later, he also performed a solo routine. [3] Another guest performer on the show was fellow *Asia's Got Talent* winner and *America's Got Talent* alumnus The Sacred Riana.
* In 2022, Eric was a participant on *Britain’s Got Talent: The Ultimate Magician*. He won the competition, over nine other successful magicians from other got talents around the world.
* Eric returned to *America's Got Talent* for *America's Got Talent: All-Stars*, where he was eliminated in the Preliminaries.
* In 2023, Eric competed on *Got Talent: All Stars*, the Spanish version of All Stars spinoff where he received the golden buzzer from guest judge Fernando Tejero and advanced straight to the Final.

## Trivia

* Eric's Semifinal performance video was posted one day later on official YouTube channel than the other acts in the second week of the Semifinals.
* He was the second *Asia's Got Talent* winner to compete on *America's Got Talent* and *America's Got Talent: All-Stars*, after The Sacred Riana.
* With Eric winning *Britain’s Got Talent: The Ultimate Magician*, he is one of four acts in entire Got Talent franchise to have won 2 got talents, along with Salah the Entertainer (*France's Got Talent* Season 1/*Arab's Got Talent* Season 4), Shin Lim (*America's Got Talent* Season 13/*America's Got Talent: The Champions*), and Mayyas (*Arab's Got Talent* Season 6/*America's Got Talent* Season 17). However, he is the first act to win a spinoff despite not being on said main show.