I want to start performing magic commercially again – How?

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

How Much do Magicians Make?

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

Want to know how much do magicians make performing magic? The the true profits may shock you..

By Dominic Reyes

It’s an exciting step to take when you start performing magic for a fee. It could just be a side income for you, or the start of a jump into making magic your living. However, there’s something you should always remember:
Performing magic as a paid performer means you are starting a BUSINESS.

The money you receive isn’t all income. It’s revenue, rather than profit. Only a part of the fee is clear profit for you to spend. The rest needs to be treated with care…

Feeling rich as a magician.

When I first started performing, I was a student. I’d go out in the evening, perform at an event, and come back to my rooms, with a few hundred pounds. It seemed too good to be true. Especially when I watched my friends working five days a week to make the same as I banked in a few hours. I didn’t see the full picture. I thought all the fee was just profit, and mine to spend.

Over time, I realised that the fee you get as a magician needs to be treated as your BUSINESS income. Only a proportion of that should be viewed as your own ’salary’. The rest needs to be spent on maintaining and growing your business.

The business has many overheads.
Rent
Computer, Printer, Paper, Ink
Business cards, flyers
Tax
Advertising
Insurance
Society membership
Exhibition fees
Travel costs
Props
Consumables ( playing cards, Sharpies, etc.)
Business Phone
Costumes and Clothing
Dry cleaning
Backdrops
Website hosting and design
Sustenance
Business growth fund
etc etc

Basically, there is a tonne of costs involved in delivering a ‘magician’ as a product. Those costs need to be accounted for out of the money you receive from performing. All those costs; your clothing, consumables, props, travel… need to be added up, and their projected total divided by the number of bookings you get through an average year. Once you know the REAL cost of being a working magician, you will see how much of your fee is used to provide your service, and how much is actual profit.

Only a small portion of your fee is profit

The magic secret is to put your income from magic in an account, away from your personal account. All your expenses relating to your magic business come out of THAT account. What’s left, is your salary… Unless you keep that money separate from your personal income, it’s very hard to know how much you are TRULY making from your magic, and how much is left for you to grow your business.

Once you start doing this, how you view how much to charge for a magic show will change dramatically.

After costs, your fee only generates a fraction of its value as profit to you.

The hours you forget about

Now, calculate the average number of hours you spend practising, replying to emails, working on marketing, attending exhibitions or networking, travelling… You may charge several hundred pounds per hour when performing, but after expenses and the ‘admin hours’ you put in to run the business, your hourly rate is probably quite modest.

You’re not always busy

You may not get a consistent amount of bookings each month through the year, so you need to account for some months that will be quiet, but the costs of running your business and your need for a ’salary’ will still be there.

I don’t mean to be negative here. Performing magic can be highly profitable, and immensely fun. However, in order to understand how much do magicians make in relation to their earning, you NEED to see exactly how much it costs for a magician to run their business. You need to make sure your activity is as profitable as you think, and you have the budget to make it grow.

Why People Don’t Remember Magicians Names

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By Dominic Reyes

Why Magicians Names Are So Hard to Remember

I recently read a post by professional magician Jon Armstrong, talking about something that happened to him after appearing on the TV show 'Fool Us with Penn and Teller'. John performed Tiny Plunger on the show and it went down really well.

Shortly afterwards, he was at a gig when a spectator asked:

"Have you seen those magicians on the Penn and Teller Show? We love that show, do you know the guy that did the trick with the little plunger?"

Jon took out a plunger from his pocket and showed it to the spectator, who then replied:

"Wow, you know that guy!"

Jon laughted this off, but it happens all the time to magicians. People see the magic and love it, but they fail to remember details about the performer, especially their name. How can magicians combat this?

Audiences failing to remember the performer happens to everyone. It's a symptom of Amygdala Activity in the brain. The Amygdala is associated with the successful encoding of events, But not the source information when a stimuli is emotional.

A magician shows someone something amazing and they freaked out. How often does that happen in the spectators experience? The next day, they remember what happened to them, but not the performer… It's how memory of events work. The 'details' being overshadowed by the more emotional significance of the events. The event doesn't even have to be that emotionally significant, just more meaningful than the performer. Entertainers that link themselves to the emotional event rather than present it, don't suffer from that as much. Look at Penn and Tellar or Copperfield. They are VERY good at using this to their advantage.

The same effect has been used for evil ends too. Years ago there was a man who attacked women in Oxford, England. He didn't use a disguise, but his victims could never remember details about him. The reason was he had written a very offensive swear word about what he intended to do to his victims, in large letters on his forehead. That's all his victims could recall about his face. The emotional stimuli blocked out all the other source information.

How to make magicians names easier to recall

If you use a backdrop, it's a good idea to have your name clearly on show. For walk around magicians, the key take home for performers is to hand out those business cards and bookend your act with your name. Paul Daniels told spectators to 'say yes Paul' often in his act for the same purpose.