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

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.

Magic Tricks Go Wrong – Here’s What to Do

by Dominic Reyes 3 Comments

By Dominic Reyes

Thomas writes:

Sooner or later, someone will catch me out performing a magic trick. They will look were I don't want them to. It doesn't happen very often, but still it does happen. What do I do if I have just done a move and someone says "wait a moment, that's not right"? Do I just say "OK, you caught me. Good job" or is there something else I should do or say?

Every magician gets caught out by spectators eventually. It's simply the nature of the game that magic trick go wrong sometimes. Even tricks that require no skill can fail.

Close up magic is unpredictable

Just like anything that's based on personal interaction, you can't control all the conditions at play. Stage magicians have it easy. They can control how the audience experiences the show. They can set the lighting, sound, angles of view, and the degree interaction allowed. The audience remains more passive, only taking part in the show to a controled degree. Not so for close-up magicians. Close-up magic happens surrounded by the audience, in chaotic situations, and active participation by the audience is almost always present.

People are smart

Regardless of what magic tricks instructions tell you, people ARE smart and do notice small details. It's true that misdirection and psychology can be used to control them, but it's not guarenteed. Sometimes, people just notice things by chance. Other times, they may not follow your instructions, or get distracted so your misdirection techniques don't work. People may have seen a similar magic trick before, and be less likely to be taken by surprise.

Some people treat the magic they watch as a puzzle to solve. They may jump to a false conclusion about how the magic trick is done. Their solution may be wrong, but it's good enough for them.

If you perform magic for the public on a regular basis, sooner or later you will get caught out.

The danger of too many close up magic tricks

Slow down the quanity of new magic you are learning. Problems with the performance of the tricks you are currently performing are not solved by adding more tricks to your practice program. Strip your workload to the bare minimum. Your job to make sure you practice, practice, practice and learn all you can and focus on where you are getting caught. Make sure you get EVERY trick in your working set, as perfect as possible, and to a standard where they happen without much effort. This will reduce the amount times your magic tricks go wrong.

Scared about being caught

When beginners first start practicing magic, they often worry about this happening. Just the thought of a magic trick going wrong fills them with dread, and can be enough to prevent them showing anyone their magic. However, the more they perform, the more they realise that a magic trick going wrong, is not the end of the world. It's far worse to have a bored or indifferent audience than it is to have your magic tricks go wrong.

The real secret of what to do when magic tricks goes wrong

Here's everything you need to do: Laugh it off, and make no big deal about it…

'Yep, you caught me' isn't the end of the world. As long as you make sure you make no big deal about it, and just move on quickly.

'You're sharp! I'll have to up my game with you then… I only show THIS next magic to magicians..'

You stay cool and act as if it doesn't matter. Well, that's what you should appear to do. Secretly, you REMEMBER what happened and think about WHY it happened. When you are not performing, you should start a practice drill to cover that moment, and make sure you work on the material so the same mistake is unlikely to happen again. Over time, you will hardly EVER be caught, but there is always a small chance, so be prepared. Your practice will make you confident that your tricks won't go wrong again.

Having an emergency OUT

Many magicians have a few emergency 'out's they can use if a magic trick goes wrong. It might be an invisible deck, or even just a thumb tip. If a trick goes totally wrong, they just move the moment along and into their emergency out trick. Let's say you had a card picked and 'lost' in the deck. You were about to make it appear on the ceiling. OH NO!! The card really is lost and the trick has failed. It's time for the emergency out:

1) You pull out an invisible deck and place it on the floor, still in it's card box.

2) You then drop/shower all of the original deck of cards over the floored card box.

3) You open the box to show that the card value they picked is the only face up card in the deck… WOW.

Ok, it's not the trick you were going to show, but it's still a win. As the magician you control what will happen next in the show, so you just steer the original trick into something else.

10 Steps to Performing Street Magic

by Dominic Reyes Leave a Comment

By Ben Williams

Jack writes: 'I've been learning magic for around 7 months now, and am starting to think about performing for 'strangers'. I have shown quite a few tricks to my friends and family which went down well, but I'm looking to progress from that and take my magic to the next level. I was just wondering if there are any tips you could offer such as; maybe a small 'checklist' of things I should know how to do before I start performing (so I'm not trying to run before I can walk), the best ways to approach people, and how I might have an indication of when I'm ready.

I've set myself a target to go out and perform to people on the street by January 1st next year at the latest, but thought I would email for any tips/advice I can get from you.

P.s, loving the merchant of magic podcast! Keep up the awesome work! I only started listening a week ago and I'm almost up to date!

Congratulations on deciding to take the next step, moving from practice to performance in a street magic setting. Here's some tips that might help.

Checklist for performing street magic to the public

1 Choose your location wisely and be safe

If you are deciding to perform for the public then always make sure you know your area and that you are in a safe environment. Do not perform to people down alleyways and in rough areas. It is better to be safe than sorry. You may get any sort of reaction from the public so you need to be somewhere safe, preferably somewhere where there are lots of other people around.

2 Check your PL insurance policy fine print if you are going to do anything with fire or with a borrowed item.

It is important to be aware of potential problems when performing to the public. What if you use flash paper and accidentally burn someone? What if you borrow a ring and genuinely lose or damage it? In most cases people are forgiving but in such a circumstance you could find yourself being sued or reported to the police. If you do not have any performer’s public liability insurance then you could be in a sticky situation.

We would recommend insuring yourself if you are going to attempt to perform anything in public with borrowed items or especially fire. Fire performers have to have a special type of insurance that is specific to their act so we recommend you look into that. Check this website out:

http://www.equity.org.uk

3 Be personable and smile

With all of the boring stuff out of the way lets talk about more fun stuff! It is important that you have fun yourself. If you don’t allow yourself to have fun, how are your spectators to have fun? Make sure you smile and that you are personable. Be kind, pay people compliments, maybe address how weird this situation is in a cheeky way, say something like:

‘It’s not every day you are stopped by a stranger offering the promise of miracles is it?’

With a cheeky wink and a smile when you perform, can set people at ease and let them know the next few minutes of their lives will be enjoyable. If you are very nervous and quiet, looking down at your props rather than making eye contact then you run the risk of making your spectators feel awkward or disinterested. Spectators that feel awkward will not give you a great reaction, and that in turn may make you lose confidence a bit in what you are doing making the next approach even harder. It can be a perpetual downwards spiral. So make sure you do not fall into that trap.

4 WWYDIA? What Would You Do If Approached?

This is always a great way to figure out your approach to spectators. Put yourself in the firing line, imagine what you would feel like if someone walked up to you and approached you how you are approaching people. Would you feel uncomfortable? It is far too easy to just think, ‘I would be fine with that’ but be honest with yourself. If you were marching through a town centre and someone walked up to you and stopped you your initial reaction would be to say ‘no thank you’ before they have even said anything. We are so used to people only ever stopping you in order to get something from you, whether it be for research purposes, to try to sell you something or even for money that your initial reaction will be of dismissal. Make sure you do what you can to show it will all be fun, maybe try performing an instantaneous piece of magic, drop something and make it float back up to your hand, cause something to vanish entirely like a pen you are holding or even do a quick opener like Unboxing to grab their attention. Just put yourself in their shoes and you will soften your approach to something a lot more manageable.

5 Be aware of your audiences and respect their wishes

Being aware of your audiences and being respectful of their wishes is very important. If someone does not want to see any magic, do not force it on them. If someone is looking like they are uneasy then reassure them. You may wish to perform a trick with an item like a ring that you borrow or a borrowed banknote, if someone obviously does not feel like they want to let you perform with their item then do not force it. However you will find that if you are personable and make people feel at ease with you then you will find you experience less spectators having nervousness about your performance.

6 Have tricks that can be cut off at any phase

This is something not many people think of but stuff can happen, phones can ring, people can suddenly be aware of the time, they may even have a friend recognise them in the street and interrupt you. Be mindful of this, so try todo sets of tricks that are quick and can be cut off at any point, try to avoid routines that have something happen and then you do 5 other tricks before a big reveal as they may need to leave before the reveal happens. For example if you have vanished their banknote and you are going to have it appear inside something that you produce at the end of the routine make sure your method allows for you to have it already to go at any point. If your routines in-between are an integral part of the misdirection for doing such a load then that may not be the best routine to perform in a street magic set.

7 Try to nail your first opener trick quickly to give them a quick taste

This subject was briefly touched upon earlier. If you can capture your spectator’s attention and make them hang around by performing a good opener trick that is something quick and snappy, then that can only be a good thing. This does not go for all performances but it can certainly help with quick street magic performances. Show your spectators that you are worth their investment of time and that it won’t be wasted for them.

8 Make sure you are prepared and know what it is you are going to do

It is essential that your performances go smoothly. Really work out your pocket management, know what tricks you will perform and how you will perform them. If you are unprepared and can’t find, for example, a Sharpie, then two seconds later you cannot find a lighter or the correct prop you will lose your spectator’s attention and they will begin to feel like they are wasting their time. Of course how you address them can make all the difference but in general if you are interrupting someone’s day then the least you could be is prepared! By doing this it will make your performance stronger too. Seamless transitions from effect to effect or minimising dead time whilst you search for something will all help to keep your spectators in that ‘wonder bubble’ where they are not thinking of the time or where they have to be, you are simply helping them stay in the ‘moment’.

9 Unless asked try to keep it to a set of three effects for maximum impact

It can be very easy to get carried away when performing and keep wanting to show just that ‘one more trick’. It is always better to leave them wanting more than to over stay your welcome. Try to keep your sets to a limit of three tricks. Pepper as much magic throughout such as making Sharpies appear or vanish, decks vanishing or sudden moments of magic like a neck cracker; but always keep the sets succinct and to the point. Unless they are begging you to show more (in which case you should show just one more… maybe!) then be aware that the moment you stay to long is the moment you go from amazing and enthralling to ‘not as important as the other things I have to do’.

10 Always thank them for their time, even if they thank you.

Be gracious to everyone who stops and gives you some of their time, if they thank you and are happy you stopped them, thank them back, after all, without their time you would not have had the chance to perform anything. Also do not be rude to anyone who doesn’t want to see magic, if they stop even for a moment to hear what you have to say then thank them and wish them well on their way. Remember that without spectators magic is nothing, it is just moves and sleights you have learned, you will not see the magic, only a spectator can so if anyone gives you the time of day to watch what you have practiced then you should be thankful and appreciative of their generosity with their own time. If you think about it, time is the most valuable thing we have and to share that with a stranger on the street really does mean a lot.

How Much do Magicians Make?