By CARISSA SHALE

There's magic in the air for university student and award-winning magician Josh Staley.

The Melbourne Magic Festival starts on Monday and the young performer is producing three shows for what is expected to be a bumper crowd. 

“Magic is something you really can’t practise by yourself … you really need to go out and show people,” he said.

The Melbourne Magic Festival has continued to increase in popularity since it began in 2008, when it attracted more than 3000 spectators, with attendances lately topping 10,000.

Mr Staley said he was helping to produce a free show for the Australian Institute of Magic’s junior magicians to give young performers the opportunity to perform in front of a real audience.

“I didn’t have that chance when I was that age,” he said.

Event co-ordinator Tayissa Artomonow said the "golden age for magic" had returned.

She said the increasing popularity of magic was due to more people being exposed to magic through large touring shows such as The Illusionists, magic shows on television, and the incorporation of magic into other festivals such as The Melbourne International Comedy Festival and The Melbourne Fringe Festival.

 She has helped to organise Top Hat Tuesdays, a monthly magic show in Fitzroy.

Second generation magician Australian Institute of Magic president Lee Cohen predicted 11,000 to 12,000 people would attend this year’s festival.

“It’s huge and it’s overwhelming, but it’s wonderful! It’s amazing … we have such a strong interest,” Ms Cohen said.

Ms Cohen is one of the few female magicians performing in this year’s festival and said the magic world was still behind most art forms regarding female representation, but gradually the attitudes of male magicians were changing.

Ms Cohen said her Fairy Magic Show was written to “encourage things that girls identify with”.

“I wrote the show because of the lack of women in the industry,” she said.

The Melbourne Magic Festival will be at Northcote Town Hall from June 27 – July 9.