Events

Turbulent Times – a special extra meeting in the Netherlands, June 2024

Details have been emailed to all members, and are also available via the Forthcoming events page.

Our meetings

Seeing is believing!

Mervyn Heard at the lantern

Our meetings take place every three months, with occasional extra international meetings and visits. See the list of our forthcoming events.

Where possible we offer live online streaming of our events for members who can’t be there in person, and we record the presentations and make them available to members on our website. But the best way to experience the magic of the lantern is always live projection, with a live audience!

Our meetings are lively affairs with talks, shows, a market and the occasional sing-along, and are a great opportunity to meet like-minded people while learning about the lantern. Members and guests entertain us with magic lantern performances and share their latest research or investigations.

In a typical year our Winter meeting, held in January, is at a London venue and includes our Annual General Meeting. The Spring and Autumn meetings are usually in either London or Birmingham. For the Summer meeting, usually a very informal event, we try to find a different venue each year.



Videos of our events

You can get an idea of the content of our meetings from our short YouTube video compilation – click the image on the left.

All the events organised by the Society since 1976 are listed in our Past Events archive, which is available to members by signing in to the Members’ Area.


Convention goers

Special meetings

Gathering members from across the globe, the Society hosts an International Convention every few years.

The Convention usually runs over three days and features a full programme of talks and shows, an exhibition, a collectors’ market, a gala dinner and an auction. The release of most of our publications has coincided with our Conventions.

Reports of past Conventions can be read in our journals and Society members can access recordings of these events.