For 25 years, the showroom at MGM Grand belonged to one man and one silhouette: David Copperfield, walking through the Great Wall of the Strip’s collective imagination night after night since 2000. That chapter closed quietly on April 30, 2026, with his final performance. The room did not stay dark for long.
On June 16, MGM Resorts confirmed what is moving in: Now You See Me Live, a stage illusion spectacular inspired by Lionsgate’s heist-magic film franchise, making its U.S. premiere inside the MGM Grand Theater on Thursday, October 15, 2026, and running through January 5, 2027. The arrivals from Sydney, Perth and Singapore — all sold out — now point straight at the Strip.
If you are mapping a fall or holiday Vegas trip, this is the kind of itinerary swing worth a note in your calendar: a marquee magic slot at one of the Strip’s flagship resorts changes hands, the format changes with it, and the on-sale clock has already started ticking.
What’s Changing at MGM Grand
The simplest way to read the news: one magician out, four illusionists in. Copperfield’s residency — a 25-year institution that began around 2000 — wrapped after his final April 30 performance, a quarter-century run as the resort’s headlining magic act. Now You See Me Live is not rotating in alongside it. It is taking the slot.
What replaces a single celebrated headliner is, by design, the opposite shape. Where Copperfield built an evening around one performer and one persona, Now You See Me Live is an ensemble — a “mind-blowing” stage spectacular, in MGM’s framing, built around four illusionists billed as the Four Horsemen, with a rotating roster of special guests folded in across the run. It is a different kind of night out in the same famous room.
If you were already holding tickets to Copperfield for a date after April 30, MGM has said those were handled with automatic refunds, with the box office available for anything that needed sorting. The schedule cleared fully before the new production’s October debut, so there is no overlap to navigate — just a gap between the last act and the next.
Meet the Four Horsemen
The cast is where this show makes its case as something other than a touring magic revue. Now You See Me Live is built around four internationally credentialed illusionists, each carrying a distinct specialty onto the stage.
There is Andrew Basso of Italy, a daredevil escape artist and former World Escape Champion. There is Gabriella Lester of Canada — the youngest Horseman and the only woman in the lineup — who mastered Houdini’s upside-down straitjacket escape as a teenager. Adam Trent of the USA blends technology with sleight of hand and doubles as a co-creator of the production. And Enzo Weyne of France specializes in large-scale, technically intricate illusions, serving as the show’s illusion director in addition to performing.
The structure favors variety over a single fixed set: solo feats, surprise twists and large-scale illusions, paced across the evening and punctuated by those rotating guest performers. It is the franchise’s heist-ensemble DNA translated to a stage — four specialists, one escalating night, no single star to anchor it.
Who’s Behind It
The credits read like a résumé for big touring magic. The Las Vegas engagement is presented by Live Nation Las Vegas in association with producers Tim Lawson and Simon Painter, in collaboration with Lionsgate and its Global Products & Experiences division — the studio arm responsible for turning the film IP into live experiences.
Painter is the connective tissue here. He created The Illusionists, the record-breaking global touring franchise, and serves as co-creator of Now You See Me Live alongside Adam Trent. Painter has said the Four Horsemen were chosen to push the boundaries of stage magic and combine their skills into a show built for spectacle. Tim Lawson serves as executive producer, with Ash Jacks (McCready) and Kirsty White as creative directors and Weyne directing the illusions.
For Lionsgate, the live show is a franchise extension, not a loose tie-in. Jenefer Brown, who leads the studio’s Global Products & Experiences arm, has framed the production as a way to blur the line between illusion and reality and deepen fans’ connection to the films — a stand-alone spectacle designed to land for newcomers and franchise loyalists alike.
What to Expect on Stage
MGM is selling this as a “stage illusion spectacular,” and the international runs give that phrase some texture. When the show played the Sydney Opera House from December 18, 2025 through January 4, 2026, it was mounted as a 120-minute, family-friendly production — four illusionists delivering a high-octane evening of stunts, sleight of hand and a Concert Hall reworked with high-tech visuals.
Expect, in broad strokes, a big production: ensemble pacing, scale, and a heavy lean on technology and staging rather than the intimacy of a lone magician working a room. The Vegas version arrives with the same template that sold out three international cities, now scaled to the MGM Grand Theater.
How to Plan Your Trip Around It
Here is the practical layer. Now You See Me Live runs October 15, 2026 through January 5, 2027, inside the MGM Grand Theater, with performances at 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. and tickets starting from roughly $63. The show carries an age policy of 5 and up, with guests under 18 accompanied by an adult — useful if you are building a family evening rather than a date night.
The on-sale timing is the part to act on. General sale opens Monday, June 22 at 10 a.m. PT through Ticketmaster. Two pre-sales run ahead of it: a Citi cardmember window from Wednesday, June 17 at 10 a.m. PT through Sunday, June 21 at 10 p.m. PT, and a separate MGM Rewards and Live Nation pre-sale from Thursday, June 18 at 10 a.m. PT through Sunday, June 21 at 10 p.m. PT. If you hold a Citi card or an MGM Rewards membership, that is your head start.
For the full schedule and the latest information, MGM points guests to NowYouSeeMeLive.com. General ticketing is handled through Ticketmaster. Booking through those official channels — rather than third-party resellers — is the cleanest way to confirm showtimes and lock in a price as your dates firm up.
A short Vegas trip leaves little room for error on tickets. Roughly 21% of the city’s 38.5 million 2025 visitors caught a show, and with Strip hotel occupancy running at 83.2% across an average 3.2-night stay, popular rooms fill fast. If Now You See Me Live is on your list, treat the June 22 on-sale — or the loyalty pre-sales — as the moment to book, not your arrival week.
There is a clustering advantage worth noting, too. MGM Grand bills itself as “The Entertainment Authority,” and the math backs the tagline: beyond the MGM Grand Theater, the property houses KÀ by Cirque du Soleil, Jabbawockeez, Brad Garrett’s Comedy Club, Tape Face, Topgolf Las Vegas and Hakkasan Nightclub, plus a spa and more than 850,000 square feet of meeting space. You can build an entire evening — dinner, show, late-night — without leaving the building.
Where It Slots Among Strip Magic Shows
Now You See Me Live enters a crowded and varied magic market, and it stakes out a specific corner of it: a film-franchise ensemble in a flagship Strip showroom. For trip-planning context, here is how the new arrival sits next to the Strip’s established names.
At the intimate end is Mat Franco — Magic Reinvented Nightly at The LINQ, where the America’s Got Talent winner has spent more than seven years building a personality-driven show in his own Mat Franco Theater, using video screens to push close-up sleight of hand to the back rows. It is a single performer and a smaller house — the opposite scale from MGM Grand’s ensemble.
Off the Strip corridor at Rio, Penn & Teller hold court as the veteran, comedy-forward institution — the self-styled “Bad Boys of Magic,” now marking 50 years as a duo and 25 at Rio, in a roughly 1,500-seat theater with a separately ticketed post-show meet-and-greet and a 5-and-up age guide. Their lane is talk-heavy, skeptical, deliberately funny.
And at Planet Hollywood, Criss Angel MINDFREAK runs closest to Now You See Me Live on production scale — a sensory-heavy show with moving lights, pyrotechnics, 3D projection mapping and a rock-concert pulse built around Angel’s signature large illusions. The distinction is the framing: MINDFREAK orbits one celebrity magician, while Now You See Me Live spreads the spotlight across four and ties the whole thing to a heist-movie IP.
The takeaway for planners is less about ranking than about texture. If you want one charismatic magician, the Strip already has several. Now You See Me Live is the ensemble option — bigger cast, franchise hook, flagship room.
Q: When does Now You See Me Live open at MGM Grand? The show makes its U.S. premiere on Thursday, October 15, 2026, at the MGM Grand Theater and runs through January 5, 2027.
Q: When do tickets go on sale? General sale opens Monday, June 22, 2026 at 10 a.m. PT via Ticketmaster. A Citi cardmember pre-sale runs June 17–21, and an MGM Rewards and Live Nation pre-sale runs June 18–21.
Q: What are the showtimes and how much are tickets? Performances are scheduled at 7:00 p.m. and 9:30 p.m., with tickets starting from roughly $63. Confirm exact dates and pricing through official channels.
Q: Is the show family-friendly? Yes. The MGM Grand engagement carries an age policy of 5 and up, with guests under 18 accompanied by an adult. International runs were marketed as family-friendly, roughly two hours long.
Q: Is this the same show that played Sydney, Perth and Singapore? Yes. Now You See Me Live arrives in Las Vegas after sold-out international runs, including a 120-minute staging at the Sydney Opera House over December 2025 and January 2026.
Q: What happened to David Copperfield’s tickets? Copperfield’s residency ended with his final performance on April 30, 2026. MGM said tickets for dates after April 30 were addressed with automatic refunds, with the MGM Grand box office available for assistance.
Sources
- MGM Resorts press release: Now You See Me Live U.S. premiere
- Now You See Me Live — MGM Grand official show page
- Ticketmaster — Now You See Me Live, Las Vegas
- FOX5 Vegas: Las Vegas Strip resort announces end of 25-year residency
- Casino.org: MGM Resorts makes David Copperfield disappear
- LVCVA visitor research FAQs
- Sydney Opera House — Now You See Me Live event listing
- Las Vegas Magazine: Mat Franco at The LINQ
- Rio Las Vegas — Penn & Teller
- Las Vegas Direct — Criss Angel MINDFREAK
- Ticketmaster Australia — Now You See Me Live
