Wes Barker: the Langley-raised stunt magician

Wes Barker didn’t pick up magic as a kid. He told the Georgia Straight in 2016 that he didn’t start performing until he was 19, and that he worked out his own material after leaving Langley, a place he said wasn’t exactly bursting with arts inspiration back then. (We’d like to think that’s changed. See arts in Langley.)

What he did have was a day job. The Surrey Now-Leader’s 2014 profile says that in his early twenties he worked for the City of Surrey on water meters, watermains and drainage, and practised tricks on his breaks. He’d also studied business administration.

From lunch breaks to TV

• 2011–2012. Gets to the finals of CTV’s Canada’s Got Talent, though his segment never airs.
• 2013. Top-five finalist on Exposed! on The Comedy Network.
• 2014. Headlines Vancouver’s Vogue Theatre, fresh off a two-week Australian tour.
• 2015. Fools Penn and Teller on Penn & Teller: Fool Us with a phonebook-and-sword trick, which he called his biggest achievement so far. He also reaches the judge cuts on America’s Got Talent and appears on Syfy’s Wizard Wars.
• 2016. Headlines Just For Laughs NorthWest at the Vogue with all-new tricks.
• Later. Stars on TruTV’s stunt magic show Big Trick Energy with fellow magician Chris Ramsay, and co-hosts the Bottom of the Barrel podcast with him.

He calls the act stunt magic: big, physical, audience-participation tricks with a lot of comedy. His YouTube channel had passed 27 million views by early 2016. He has also picked up variety and comedy awards from the Canadian Organization for Campus Activities, which books acts for college campuses.

More people from here who perform for a living: actors, artists and writers from Langley.