Mat Franco

**Mat Franco** was a Magician act from FantasyAGT: Battle of the Champions. He finished the competition in 9th Place.

## Background

As a child growing up in Rhode Island, Mat's way of learning magic was by watching magicians on TV. He would videotape the shows and then study them for countless hours in great detail. At just 12 years old, after saving money from local shows, Mat traveled to Las Vegas to study and learn from some of magic's biggest names.

Just a few years later, Mat was invited back to Las Vegas as a teenager, being hired to perform at the Riviera Hotel and Casino as part of the Society of American Magicians National Convention. During his teen years, Mat won several awards from the magic community, by competing in statewide and national magic contests.

As a high school student, Mat's only marketing tool was a business card. Mat was always amazed with the power and effectiveness of "word-of-mouth" advertising, but to bring his passion to the next level, he knew there was much more to be learned.

Before approaching magic as a full time endeavor, Franco was a student of Business (Marketing) at the University of Rhode Island. Mat also minored in Communication Studies. Using his education as a tool, he was able to morph his hobby into a career. Since graduating from College in 2010, Franco has become a campus University Red/White/Black favorite across the country. In addition to Mat's work as a live performer, he is also the founder of "Franco Talent" - a specialty talent agency featuring only the best college performers the world has to offer. The roster includes Eric Dittelman (America's Got Talent, Fox Business News, The Ellen DeGeneres Show) and Jacob Williams (MTV's Wild' N Out, America's Got Talent).

## Preliminary

Mat Franco's preliminary performance in Episode BC01 consisted of performing a card trick in which he told a story about his magic career and the FantasyAGT judges while pulling out cards that fit the story. He also created the illusion of morphing cards into pictures of the judges. Mike, Saf, Pennies and Fresh all gave him standing ovations, noting him for the excellent trick and showmanship. His performance was strong enough for the judges to send him to Judge Cuts instead of Shimshi, David Blaine and Landon Swank.

## Judge Cuts

Mat Franco's Judge Cuts performance in Episode BC09 consisted of spraying with paint a playing card image on the back of a wall, having Saf pick a random card from a deck of cards, revealing the painted wall to portray a different card than the one Saf picked, and then lighting the wall paper on fire to reveal Saf's card imprinted on the wall. He then revealed the card he had painted had been slipped into Mike's back pocket. Mike, Saf, guest judge Nerdy, Pennies and Fresh all gave Mat standing ovations. Mat's performance was strong enough for the Judges to send him to the Quarterfinals.

## Quarterfinals

Mat Franco's Quarterfinal performance in Episode BC014 consisted of Mike, Saf and Pennies picking three playing cards at random. Mat then handed the three cards (numbered 6, 4, and 2) to Fresh and took a photo of her holding the cards with her phone. He then appeared to mistakenly dropped Fresh's phone into cup of water, and, to fix it, isolated the phone in a bag, drying the phone within the bag with a hair dryer, and revealing the phone to have disappeared within the bag as smoke was emitted.  Saf then called Fresh's phone, revealing the phone to be ringing in the audience. Mat cut into a seat cushion labeled "642," revealing the phone ringing in the seat cushion. He then revealed that the phone contained the photo taken earlier in the performance. Mike, Saf, Pennies and Fresh all gave him standing ovations, praising him for the new and original tricks he brings on every time. Mat Franco received enough votes to move onto the Semifinals instead of Alex Dowis.

## Semifinals

Mat Franco's Semifinal performance in Episode BC015 consisted of 52 audience members hold large masked playing cards on the stage. Mat held a normal deck of cards. He then shuffled the deck on the table while the audience shuffled themselves into one line. Mat pulled out one random red card and one random black card. Pennies used his intuition to place red cards on one side and black cards on the other side. Fresh used his intuition to arrange certain members of the on-stage audience onto a red side and other members onto the black side. In the middle of the performance, Mat switched the black and red sides both on the table and on the stage. After both decks had been intuitively sorted, Mat revealed Pennies to have had all of cards arranged as he anticipated except the Three of Clubs. On the stage, the people arranged revealed cards with the correct card colors except, once again, the Three of Clubs. Mike, Saf, Pennies and Fresh all gave him standing ovations, once again praising him for changing it up and blowing their minds. Some of the judges even stated that Mat was their favorite magician of all time. Mat Franco received enough votes to move onto the Finals instead of Shin Lim.

## Finals

Mat Franco's Finals performance in Episode BC017 consisted of asking the judges to choose different types of drinks to pour into 5 different glasses using one carton. He then had the judges test out the drinks to further prove that each drink was real. At the end of the performance, he ripped open the carton revealing that there were no gadgets inside. Mike, Saf, Pennies and Fresh all gave him standing ovations once again.

## Finale

For the Finale on Episode BC018, Mat Franco collaborated with magicians Penn & Teller and Piff the Magic Dragon. They performed a magic trick based off the religious story of the Three Wise Men.

### Top 10's Journey

Mat Franco finished the competition in 9th Place, ahead of Haley Reinhart, but behind Brian Justin Crum, V.Unbeatable, 2CELLOS, Kseniya Simonova, Darci Lynne, Zurcaroh, Sohyang and Dimash.