What was supposed to be a routine Armed Forces Entertainment tour turned into one of the wildest experiences of my career. One week into performing magic and comedy for U.S. troops in the Middle East, my team and I suddenly found ourselves grounded in Saudi Arabia—our base on lockdown, our plans upended, and news breaking of an international incident nearby. From navigating late-night backroads in search of a hotel that would take a credit card, to frantically booking emergency flights home with sketchy Wi-Fi and frozen bank cards, it became a real-life test of adaptability, composure, and resilience. In the end, everyone made it home safely—but not without a few unexpected lessons along the way.
In article #1 I shared my personal reasons for performing magic shows for deployed members of the military. You can read that article by clicking here.
In article #2 I discussed my selection criteria when selecting magicians to join the Operation Magic All Stars team and travel overseas to entertain the men, women and families of the armed forces. You can read that article by clicking here.
In article #3 I spill the goods when it comes to tents, toilets, and travel days. You can read that article by clicking here.
In article #4 I explain everything that happens on a normal show day - from unit visits to eating in the DFAC. You can read that article by clicking here.
To watch and listen to us tell the whole story on a recent I.B.M. podcast start watching at the 6:05 mark.
ARTICLE #5 - In my experience, most entertainment tours go off without a hitch. The planning is done well ahead of time and, for the most part, my team and I execute the plan. The tour that I was part of this past June, however, was anything than normal - and it turned into a wild experience.
As this story begins we were about one week in on an 18-day tour to perform magic and comedy on military bases in the Middle East. My team and I were focused on performing the very best shows for the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines that we were meeting and sharing a sense of home with them.
I always cherish these opportunities because I understand just how important it is for people that are far away from home and in high stress situations, like these folks, to be able to blow off some steam and laugh. Sharing magic and comedy helps with morale, it increases resilience, and it reminds the folks we are entertaining that there are people, they will never meet, who care deeply for them.
So, my team and I land in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia the evening of June 12th and meet up with our point of contact. She and her driver help us load our luggage into the van they are providing and we leave the airport. Right as we start to get settled in the van, the POC (point of contact) turns to me and tells me that my contact at Armed Forces Entertainment is trying to get in touch with me and that we need to contact him immediately. Hmmm…that’s interesting. When I get ahold of my guy what I find out is that the military base we are supposed to stay on is on lockdown and that we will have to get a hotel somewhere in town to stay the night.
Let me just say, upfront, that this is not normal. In fact, having toured with AFE for ten years, this is the first time anything like this had every happened to me. My AFE contact tells me that we can get a hotel anywhere we want and they will pay for it.
Now keep this in mind, we could have stayed at a five-star resort in the middle of the giant metropolis that is Riyadh, but because the military base was several hours outside of the city, I decided that we should stay as close to the base as possible. My reasoning was based on the fact that I was expecting to do a show the next day on base and I didn’t want our contacts to have to drive two hours back to Riyadh the next morning to pick us up and then drive two hours with us back to the base.
So, I get on my phone and find a hotel in Al Kharj, which turns out to be the best city for us to stay in for convenience. We drive about an hour and a half to Al Kharj and our driver takes us directly to a great looking hotel. When we try to check in at the front desk the clerk tells me that the hotel’s credit card reader is broken and that we would have to pay for our rooms in cash. I reply, no problem - I had a bunch of cash. However, they do not take American dollars. Dang it!
So, I go back to the van and tell them that we need to find an ATM so I can withdraw enough Saudi currency (SAR) so we can check into our rooms and stay the night here. Upon hearing this idea, my POC warns us that there have been reports of people having their bank accounts emptied after having visited local ATMs.
I would have known where to go, if only I read Arabic.
Our driver suggests that we find a different hotel. Fortunately, there is another hotel with good reviews about a mile away - so we head in that direction. Keep in mind that it’s 11pm at night, its dark outside, and we are all tired. As we drive to the next possible hotel, I’m realizing that we are driving down what appears to be side streets and alleyways, until we arrive at a possible hotel (according to our phones) - that looks nothing like a hotel. (That I can tell.)
After trying multiple locked doors, a guy magically appears out of the shadows and points us in the direction of a set of doors to the hotel. Now here’s the thing…we open the doors and are standing in the middle of what appears to be an apartment hallway. Maybe that’s not a big deal here, but it felt very weird to me. The guy who had magically appears opens an unmarked door and gestures for us to follow him inside. Inside the room, everything looks relatively normal and the guy appears to be finding us a room.
Fortunately for us, he had a room available and my credit card worked in his credit card machine. This gentleman accompanied us upstairs and showed us a room that is exactly what we needed. The room was spacious and clean and had plenty of space for the three of us.
When we finally got situated, everything started to hit me. I found myself thinking about the fact that the military base that we are supposed to be sleeping on is on lockdown and we are staying in a hotel, in what I think, is the middle of nowhere. This thought process sends me down a rabbit hole in my brain and I start thinking about what I’m supposed to do if my team and I find ourselves in harm’s way. Just for the record, this line of thinking usually lands you into a place of anxiety and worry - it certainly did me.
After freaking myself out for about an hour, and jumping when I head any random noise in the hallway, I finally calmed myself down and went to sleep.
Upon waking up the next morning, I check my phone and have a ton of notifications. In addition to multiple text messages from family and friends, I read an Apple notification that updates me that Israel had attacked Iran during the night. Upon hearing that news, I reach out to my contact at Armed Forces Entertainment and learn that, for safety’s sake, the tour is being cut short and we have to come home.
You know, it may not seem like that big of a deal, but when I wake up first thing in the morning, am told that I have to book three immediate flights back to America from Saudi Arabia, and I don’t have internet access, my blood pressure starts to rise. Fortunately, I have an international plan for my cell phone and I was able to hotspot it so I could start researching all of the airlines that offer immediate flights out of Riyadh.
The hotel room turned out to be perfect for us.
After accidentally booking a flight for us a week in the future, having my credit cards stop working, and losing internet access on my laptop, I am finally able to correct my mistakes on my cell phone and get us a flight out of there that left at 11:55pm that night.
Not long after I secured flights, I get a phone call from a brand new POC from the base. She explains that the base is fully locked down and that no one is allowed on or off base. She then asks me if I can find a ride to take us to the airport. Yep, you read that right - I was supposed to find “a ride.” To say I was surprised by that request would be an understatement.
After a crazy night sleep, jumping through a bunch of last minute travel hoops, and a request to find “a ride,” the only thing I can think of at this point is why I didn’t just book that five-star resort in Riyadh. After all, I’m almost two hours away from the airport and my POC wants me to negotiate a ride with whomever I can find.
To make a long story a little shorter, I explain that I am not able to do that and she tells me that they will have to get the base commander to give them permission to leave the base to take us to the airport in Riyadh. I hate the fact that I put this very nice CPT in a situation where she had to go to the base commander and get permission, but at this point I was solely focused on doing what I deemed to be the safest thing for me and my team.
About 2pm that afternoon, we finally make it to the airport. There was nothing to do at this point, but to sit and wait. For six to seven hours, Mark Brown, Ben Young, and I sit around the Riyadh airport and make the best of it.
As the hours pass, I watch flights get canceled. Then I remember the anti-terrorism training that I have completed in the past and I start noticing tons of packages sitting around the airport that don’t appear to have anyone watching after them. While some people would think that I was just being paranoid, my goal - on any tour, is to bring my team members back from a tour having had an incredible (and safe) experience. I was simply watching out for our safety.
Fortunately, the hours pass without issue and we finally get our bags checked in and we head through security to the gates. Honestly, at this point the only thing I wanted was to get out of the Middle East safely. I wanted our flight to take off on time and for us to make it to a place where I could let down and relax.
The great news is that our flight took off on time and we easily made our connection to JFK. We returned home bummed out that we weren’t able to complete the tour and share magic with everyone we had planned to, but we are thankful that our team made it back to their loved ones without any additional issue.
On a completely separate note, my luggage disappeared for about six weeks. Apparently my bag had it’s own little adventure before it made it back to me in Nashville, TN.
HUGE THANKS go out to Armed Forces Entertainment and everyone at the bases who were there for us! My team and I genuinely love you guys and can’t wait to make it back out to you so we can share magic and fun.
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