ACM stands for “Asian Championship of Magic”. It is the Asian contest of FISM. FISM hosts the “World Championship of Magic” (WCM) once every three years. ACM is the qualifying contest for WCM. In previous year, North America (NACM), Europe (ECM), Oceania (OCM), Latin America (LACM), South Africa (SCM) and Asia (ACM) held preliminaries in 6 regions around the world.
In FISM, FISM ASIA has jurisdiction over the Asian region the ACM. The organizer (an Asian FISM member club) organizes the ACM. Contestants living in Asia with good magic performance standard can participate in the WCM, but must first compete and be qualified in the ACM.
How can I participate in the ACM as a contestant?
For details, refer to this document (link). There are only three methods to participate in the ACM – they are shown in the diagram provided in this document.
Method No. 1
if you are a member of a club of a FISM member organization, get the recommendation from your FISM member club.
Method No. 2
through AEB (Asian Executive Board) Slot – refer to the linked document for details.
Method No. 3
if the country you live in does not have a FISM club, you need to obtain recommendations from three FISM member club presidents. Each of these presidents must have seen your performance and confirms that it is of FISM WCM standard. In some document, it is stated that two, out of three, of the letters of recommendation must come from the presidents of the clubs in Asia. In August 2019, it is a requirement that all three of the letters of recommendation must come from the presidents of the clubs in Asia.
What we don’t want you to understand wrongly is that FISM ASIA is an organization that has jurisdiction over the Asian region of FISM and is different from AMA (Asian Magic Association). Many of the contestants are mistaken for being able to participate in FISM ACM due to their awards at AMA. FISM ASIA and ACM have nothing to do with AMA.
There is no FISM member club in the country I live in.
Please refer to this document.
There is a FISM member club in my country where I live, but I am not a member.
You can only participate in the ACM through AEB Slots. Refer to “Method No.2” in “How can I participate in the ACM?”
I live in Asia, can I participate in WCM through the qualifying championship contest in other region?
In the past, there were cases of Asian residents in other countries participating in WCM through the qualifying championship contest of other region. From 2019, this will no longer be allowed.
In the past, participants were able to compete in WCM directly without going through a regional qualifying championship contest.
If you are unable to travel to ACM venue due to circumstances beyond your control (eg. travel restrictions imposed by your country), and not due to personal issues (eg. health, accidents), AEB may consider your situation on a case-by-case basis. There are AEB Slots available in Asia for you to participate.
Contest slots distributed by FISM ASIA to each FISM member club.
The number of contestants that can participate in ACM is limited. ACM is divided into a Stage section and a Close-up section. The number of contestants allowed is 40 for Stage and 30 for Close-up. The criteria for distributing these slots to the various FISM member clubs in Asia are as follows:
- History and results of participations in ACM
- Number of FISM votes (proportionate to the official number of club members)
- Recommendation of contestants who fell short of the FISM standard (less than 50 points or disqualified)
Please note that the distribution of contest slots is not based on country but on the number of member clubs. The total number of the contest slots is fixed. Therefore, if there are new Asian clubs that join FISM, these slots will be redistributed to the various clubs. Some clubs will experience a decrease in the number allocated.
Appointment responsibility
Whoever recommends a contestant to participate in ACM will be penalized, if the recommended contestant performs below FISM standard (50 points or less). The penalty will be the reduction of the contestant slot for their club.
Who are the judges?
FISM ASIA nominates ACM judges based on the following criteria:
- Those who have experiences as judges at FISM-related international events in the past.
- Those who are objective in their decisions in judging magic competitions in the past.
In future, from ACM 2020, half of the ACM judges will comprise those who have experience in judging FISM WCM contests.
We have a “Judge Trainee” system which will be used to train junior and non-experienced judges. They will judge alongside the experienced judges but their scores will not be taken into the actual results.
Judges who participated in ACM and are found to be subjective rather than objective in their decision makings will not be considered for future ACM judges.
To maintain confidentiality, the names of ACM judges will not be announced until at least three months before the commencement of the event.
There have been many talks about FISM WCM/ACM judges being inexperienced. These are mere speculations. We ask that contestants be objective in their observations and remarks.