Stuart wants to start performing magic commercially again, but worries that times have changed..

Stuart writes:

Dear Dominic, I thought I would take up your kind offer of seeking advice and ask this:

I used to perform regularly as a walk around, table magician but other factors (children, day job etc) got the better of me. Now my children are a touch older I want to get back to more general/ close-up work in order to generate more income from magic and also simply because I love performing this type of magic and would like to do more of it again.

So there’s the background, but my question would be if you can offer any tips on how to get back in? The world is a very different place to ten years ago when websites, showreels etc weren’t so important and it seemed all I had to do was walk into a place and show the boss a trick.

(Lastly, I’m 46 years old, still have most of my own teeth and can still muster the energy to do the leg work for chance bookings etc!) Many thanks in advance for your advice and your time.’

Hi Stuart

That’s great news that you are thinking of getting back into performing close-up magic.

You may think that the world of magic is very different from a decade ago, but it’s actually pretty much the same when it comes to working locally as a magician. Granted, there are a wave of magic enthusiasts performing and promoting themselves online, but that tends to be it’s own bubble, often aimed at fellow magicians, and is quite distinct from ‘real world’ commercial marketing for work. The core techniques for doing magic commercially remain the same.

Who’s following you?

I often get magicians coming to the magic shop and talking about how many followers, subscribers, or facebook friends they have, yet they complain that they don’t get many bookings from those channels. I usually ask them if they know the percentage of their online followers that are magicians, or magic enthusiasts, compared to how many of them are event planners, venue owners, industry service providers, etc. It’s usually the case that magicians tend to collect other magicians in their social networks, but that is the least valuable group from a marketing perspective!

It’s not how many people you reach.. it’s who those people are! The most important activity you can do to get more work is:

Meet people that make the decisions about entertainment for events!

This could be a restaurant owner, a venue events manager, or simply people planning a party or wedding. Having a high end website or a huge social media following is great, but it all depends on who visits your website or follows you.. magic fans/friends Vs. people that are actually looking to book a magician.

Stepping back into performing magic commercially again

For you, the first move is to brand your service as a close up performer so you can market your services again.

I’m assuming you already have a range of material to perform as you were working as you were performing magic commercially in the past, so it’s mainly the approach to getting gigs that you need to kick-start.

First step:

You need a website and magicians business cards dedicated to the market you want to service. A base for clients to contact you and find out about your services. You can set one up yourself easily ( www.weebly.com ) or have a designer build it for you.

Once you have a website and some business cards, you are ready to get out and start promoting your services.

Approach 1 : Performing magic in restaurants : It’s low paid, but will springboard you into other bookings and get you out performing. Find a busy restaurant area and visit a load of establishments. See if you can get a few to allow you to perform for one night free of charge per month, so they can see you performing, and appriciate the effect of the entertainment. In exchange, you can hand out business cards to hopefully get work from it. It’s a hard slog, but you should get some gigs from it, and can go from there.

Do this now: Go online and make a list of all the local restaurants in your area. Set a date to contact or visit each one to introduce yourself.

Approach 2 : Wedding exhibitions. Look at local wedding events going on in your area and book a table. You should get a few gigs out of it.

Do this now: Read my free ebook on how to do wedding exhibitions.

Approach 3: Market to venues and corporates: Visit local hotels and event venues to chat with the event planners.

Do this now: I would recommend that you read this excellent free ebook on marketing as a close up magician. It will give you a load of information and templates to start looking for work and getting gigs: One Minute Magic Business

Hope this helps

Dominic Reyes