(One guy… Three versions)
REALLY SHORT VERSION
Scott Hammell is a four-time Guinness World Record holder. Whether it’s magic, escape artistry, stunts, or speaking, his goal is to entertain and inspire.
SHORT VERSION
Scott Hammell has been performing professionally since 1998. In the years since, the four-time Guinness World Record holder has hung upside down from a hot air balloon at 7,200 feet while freeing himself from a straitjacket and fifty feet of chain, caught a bullet fired from a sniper rifle, skydived blindfolded and handcuffed, and juggled live explosives - the last of which landed him in the hospital with second-degree burns before he tried again and got it right.
He has performed for audiences from two to sixty thousand, on stages across North America, the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Africa, and Australia. His clients include Google, Toyota, TD Bank, RBC, Red Bull, and Manulife. He has appeared on NBC, MTV, CBC, TBS, the Discovery Channel, and in Ripley's Believe It or Not, which called him one of the greatest living escape artists in the world.
In his thirties, Scott survived a stroke. He also lives with a rare medical condition that causes episodes of sudden blindness. The same mental tools that helped him set world records - focus under pressure, reframing fear, taking one step at a time - now help him navigate a life that doesn't always cooperate. That's what he brings to his keynote, A Stuntman's Guide to Staying Calm: not theory, but a framework he uses every day.
He still performs. He still does close-up magic at private events — in living rooms, at big parties, under airplane wings, next to dinosaur skeletons. His show No Secrets — about wonder, resilience, and sending magic into the future — continues to tour. Ninety-five percent of his clients invite him back.
FULL VERSION
Scott Hammell started performing magic at birthday parties. By his mid-teens he was filling rooms of a thousand people. His teachers told him he had something. He decided to find out how far it could go.
That was 1998. He's still finding out.
In 2003, Scott was featured in the season premiere of Ripley's Believe It or Not for a stunt called "Escape to Cloud Nine." He was lifted by hot air balloon to 7,200 feet, suspended upside down by his ankles from the basket, and freed himself from a regulation straitjacket and more than fifty feet of steel chain secured with four padlocks. It earned him his first Guinness World Record for the World's Highest Suspension Straitjacket Escape. And something else he didn't expect: a story worth telling. He was terrified of heights. He still did it. That tension — between fear and action — became the foundation of his career as a speaker.
Over the years, the stunts kept coming and so did the records. He skydived while blindfolded and handcuffed at over 160 miles per hour, picking the locks during freefall before deploying his parachute and landing blindfolded. - The World’s Highest Blindfolded Skydive. He completed a card trick mid-skydive - the World's Fastest Moving Card Trick. He set the record for the longest inverted juggling duration, dangling upside down by his ankles. He performed Houdini's famous underwater Milk Can Escape. He co-wrote, co-produced, and starred in a feature documentary - The Trick with the Gun - that followed his team as they prepared for one of the most dangerous stunts in show business: the bullet catch. And in 2012, after two attempts — one of which sent him to the hospital with second-degree burns — he successfully juggled live explosives on camera. He called the video "Roman Cascade." It got the attention of America's Got Talent. He considers it one of his favorites visual stunts.
In 2014, the city of Toronto made him disappear. For five days and four nights, Scott lived inside a glass box in front of Toronto's Union Station, and invited the public to bury him in canned food donations until he was hidden from view. By the end of the fifth day, over 18,200 pounds of food had been collected for the local food bank. The magician vanished. The food stayed.
In 2018, Scott pushed himself in a different direction — inward. His show Don't Look Down contained no established tricks, no familiar routines, no safety net of material he'd done a hundred times before. It was all new stories, all new magic, built entirely from scratch. It sold out every performance.
Then his body pushed back.
In his thirties, Scott suffered a stroke. He also received a diagnosis he hadn't anticipated: a rare medical condition that causes episodes of sporadic blindness. The man who had spent his career preparing for every contingency now had to prepare for one he couldn't see coming - literally. He found that the mental frameworks he had built through years of dangerous performance translated directly: stay present, decode the fear signal, move through one step at a time. You don't have to be unafraid. You just have to stay grounded.
That insight became A Stuntman's Guide to Staying Calm — his keynote for corporations, universities, and leadership teams navigating high-pressure environments. It isn't motivational fluff. It's a practical framework, tested in straitjackets and hospital rooms alike, delivered through gripping storytelling and live demonstrations that make the ideas impossible to forget.
Today Scott performs across all three worlds he's built. He delivers keynotes for organizations including Google, TD Bank, RBC, Toyota, Red Bull, Manulife, and Hilton, and for universities from NYU and McGill to UBC and U of T. He performs his theatrical show No Secrets - about wonder, resilience, and what it means to send magic into the future when you can't see what's coming - for audiences who want an evening they won't be able to fully explain afterward. And he brings close-up magic directly to people's spaces: private homes, corporate receptions, museum openings, aircraft hangars, wherever the moment calls for something that shouldn't be possible but clearly is.
He has performed for royalty, foreign heads of state, and village elders who didn't speak his language. He has shared the stage with Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Mia Farrow, and Dr. Samantha Nutt. He has appeared on NBC, MTV, CBC, TBS, the Discovery Channel, 20th Century Fox, and eOne. Ninety-five percent of his clients invite him back for at least one more performance.
Scott Hammell has been afraid of heights since he was a child. He set his first world record three weeks after his final high school exam. He figures fear has never been the problem. Staying calm long enough to act — that's the secret.
