Top 10 Signs That You Are In Love With Magic

You've been practicing a few magic tricks and enjoyed entertaining your family and friends; But now you can't stop thinking about magic!

In order to help you figure out what is happening, we have compiled the following top 10 ways to know you're in love with magic:

Number 10

You've forgotten your previous hobbies.
Do you find yourself wanting to spend more and more time practicing your magic, at the cost of your other interests? If you find that your regular sessions at the gym, or your music practice are suddenly an inconvenience that is eating up your 'practice time' it's a clear sign that you are developing a magic obsession.

Number 9

You can't stop thinking about magic tricks.

Do you find yourself thinking about magic, presentations, and patter lines all day long? In the shower, whilst driving, or even when you are tailing behind your partner in department stores? If every waking moment is filled with thoughts of magic or ideas for new tricks, its a good sign that you are in love with magic.

Number 8

You care about magic.

There is a reason why you don't want to know the history of the band you went to see recently: you don't love it. When you're in love with something, you want to know all about it: It's history, it's community, what makes it work. You truly care about it, and it's popularity and future.

Number 7

You don't care about the quirks and geekiness of magic.

Even wearing a playing card tie doesn't seem so terrible. You wouldn't do it yourself, but can understand the temptation.

Number 6

You have great chemistry.

You can't be in love with something that you have no chemistry with. You are beginning to think like a magician, and think in similar ways to other magicians, that's a good sign. You can sit down with anyone who is interested in magic and chat to them for hours.

Number 5

You start seeing magic everywhere.

Suddenly, you start to notice adverts for local magicians, when you are out and about. The TV listings start to seem to have more magic that usual, and you start spotting magicians performing when you visit restaurants and pubs. You automatically switch to become 'open' to seeing magic performed all around you.

Number 4

You love spending time practicing.

You look forward to practicing, and don't care much about what else you could be doing. Lately, just sitting on your own with a deck of cards sounds like the best way you could spend an evening.

Number 3

You cram everything into one pocket, so you have room to carry magic props.

Pocket management suddenly becomes all consuming. You start looking at little bags to carry magic tricks and coin holders for your gimmicked coins. You start carrying a sharpie pen with you at all times.

Number 2

Other priorities take a backseat.

You used to train religiously, but lately, if you have a new magic DVD, you don't mind missing a workout. Not only that, but your workaholic drive of take home your work on weekends, seems like an unwise lifestyle choice.

Your to-do list seems to have become filled with new moves to learn and tricks to purchase and learn.

Number 1

You start planning about the future and magic is in it.

You start dreaming of turning your love for magic into a career. You find yourself looking at professional magicians websites online and reading about performing commercially. In the future, you want to make an income from magic, perhaps as a side line at first, but the thought of the lifestyle of a professional magician seems like a dream job.

When planning your next holiday, you know you want to build in magic somehow. A holiday to Vegas has taken over from the beach as your dream destination. Your future plans seem to have changed to include magic as much as possible.

It's love!

If you find yourself identifying with most of the above signs, there's a good chance you are in love with magic, rather than it being just a passing phase. If that's the case, congratulations! This is a lifelong love affair that will bring you more happiness than you could ever believe. Jump right in and welcome the obsession!

The Worst Thing to See in Magic Trick Reviews and Adverts

by Merchant of Magic Leave a Comment

Magician Foolers in reviews of magic tricks

By Dominic Reyes

Before I discuss one of the worst things to see when magicians review or advertise magic tricks, I want to warn you about this post. The advice is geared towards magicians who want to perform for the general public. If you prefer to learn magic tricks for fun, perhaps to your family and friends, then this advice may not be for you. I just though I would save you some time reading the rest of the post.

Still with me? Good, lets get stuck in…

The Merchant of Magic hates this advertising line in magic trick reviews:

There’s a common sentence found in a LOT of magic trick reviews and adverts for props:

‘A real magician fooler‘

Let’s look at why this sentence has very little benefit in helping you decide if the magic trick is going to be worth learning. Why would this line be helpful in any magic trick reviews?

The Customer Persona.

I recommend that you spend time putting yourself into the shoes of their spectators. You need to understand exactly whom your magic is targeted towards. Are you performing for magicians or for a lay audience? They both have different expectations, knowledge, and appreciation of magic.

Performing magic isn’t just about you or me, or the things we enjoy. You create the magic FOR your spectators. The fun you get from it isn’t the most significant thing. If it were, there would be no reason to perform it in public, we could just sit at home and practice all day in front of a mirror.

Understanding how your audience feels, acts, and communicates is so critical. Identifying the type of person that your magic targets, allows you to choose exactly the right kinds of tricks, and the most effective presentations for them.

A ‘magicians customer persona’ is a brief outline of a typical spectator. It goes into detail about the spectator and their interests and behavior. By defining these typical spectators, you can create magic that is geared towards them.

Identifying your Customer Persona.

Take a moment to write down your typical spectators. Answer these questions:

Who is your typical spectator?
Where do they watch your magic?
What are their other interests?
What is their typical education level?
Which other forms of entertainment do their enjoy?
What cultural references will most resonate with them?
How do they dress?
What other events do they like to attend?

Why do we need to build a customer Persona?

There may not be much point developing a deep and meaningful mentalist act if your audience tends to be the nightclub and party scene. Mastering dark spiritual magic might not give you the best ‘reach’ if your plan is to perform at corporate cocktail parties.

That’s not to say you should be limited only by the audience you have access to. Magic is all about exploring and developing your skills. But, if you want to put in the effort to create a full commercial act, it’s wise to define exactly whom your audience is most likely to be, and create a ‘product’ to cater to them.

There’s no reason why you can’t create individual acts, each one designed for a different type of customer persona:

The city center bar crowd.
The local pub.
The family restaurant.
The society wedding.
The central London crowd.
Fellow magicians.

Each act should be designed for one customer persona. You can market yourself individually for each persona that you want to serve. This may be a unique section of your website, or even distinctly different websites for each customer persona.

A common mistake magicians make with customer personas in their marketing adverts online.

In just the same way, we see magicians making the mistake of using the wrong customer personas when marketing their performing websites. This happens most often when they write blogs or film themselves on Youtube. Many magicians write about performing magic, create magic trick reviews, discuss how to learn magic, and developing as a magician. They teach some magic tricks, or talk about the latest magic tricks they like. This content is targeting the wrong customer persona. It’s aimed at other magicians!

Magicians don’t hire magicians.

For example, The Merchant of Magic blog has a set of customer personas that dictate the type of subjects we write about. There aren’t any posts aimed at people wanting to hire a magician, or tips for clients on using a magician, these are not the kind of adverts we push out. We selected our customer persona’s to be different types of magicians wanting to improve their magic. Because of this, we write magic trick reviews, tips and performing advice to help our target audience: magicians.

If you want to get more work as a magician, make sure that you identify which customers you should try to attract, and direct the content of your marketing towards those people, rather than producing content directed to only interest your competitors.

Why ‘Magician Fooler’ is a terrible line in magic trick reviews and adverts.

Take a moment to watch this video recorded for me by professional magician Luca Volpe:

Wise words as usual from Luca. Unless you only perform for other magicians as a hobby, or you are constructing an act for the ‘magic club’ lecture circuit, it’s not much use building your magic to entertain other magicians. Adverts and reviews that promote magic, just for entertaining other magicians, it promoting you to target the wrong customer persona.

Seeing this ‘line’ in magic trick reviews and adverts means nothing. Magicians have a working knowledge of the technical aspects of magic. They look at magic tricks from a more analytical point of view. They are impressed by how unusual or unique a technique may be, the tricks value for THEM, and the creativity that took place in the development of the effect. These are of little concern to a typical lay audience.

Understand who you want to perform magic to, and forget about any magic that is designed for any other group. By doing this, you will be way ahead of most casual performers, and much more likely to find the audiences that you have designed your magic to delight.

How to Invent Your Own Magic Tricks and be More Creative.

by Merchant of Magic 1 Comment

Would you like to invent your own magic tricks? How much of the magic you perform has been created by other magicians? There isn’t really anything wrong with that, but many magicians want to start being creative with the magic they introduce into their act. Let’s look at ways to develop ideas for new magic tricks and develop creativity.

‘If you can dream it, you can do it.’ – Walt Disney

Instead of hunting for the next new magic trick that will freshen up your act, could you invent something new? Even if you don’t feel you can create full, brand new magic tricks, you may be able to adapt or change existing material to give it your own special twist and brand it with your personality.

Take a step away from the magic you are currently performing and think to yourself:

‘If I could perform any magic trick, what would I like to do?’

This is where Walt Disney’s wise words come into play. The first step is to be able to ‘dream’ or ‘imagine’ what it is you wish to achieve. This can be tough, starting from nothing. However, to be creative you don’t have to start from a blank canvas. Use what is around you and inspires you.

Buy yourself a pocket sized notepad, or use an online notebook like Evernote. Ideas and inspiration are all around us. It could come from listening to a conversation, an event you witness or a poster you see. It’s very easy to have ideas, but just as easy to forget them. Any ideas you have, make a note. Even if its just a word, note it down. See something that gives you an idea? Take a picture of it on your phone. Start capturing ideas as you go about your day. In time you can then refer to your random notes and scribblings. You’ll be surprised how inspirational and these ideas can get your creative juices flowing in all sorts of directions.

Here are some of my suggestions to help inspire ideas and help creativity to flow.

Movies.

Movies are great for ideas. But only if you are watching them with the thirst for new ideas in the back of your mind.

‘I was watching the old horror movie ‘The Fly’ recently. There is a scene where the main character has developed two transportation pods. He enters one, dematerializes, and is then rematerialized into the second. However, one day he transports himself and a fly enters the pod. Lo and behold they materialize as one being.

This immediately hit me as a great theme for any transposition magic trick, or even any routine where two signatures appear together on one card.’ – Paul Knight

Being creative with your magic does not necessarily mean creating a new routine. Simply taking a magic trick you already do and changing the theme and patter can change the whole appearence of the trick.

So when you are next relaxing watching a film keep in the back of your mind the opportunities for any possible ideas or themes you can employ in your magic.

Music.

Music can be very inspiring and help hugely with creativity. By simply playing music as you practice you will be surprised how easy it is to stray from your usual patter and handling. Just experiment and open up. Remember there are no rules.

Books.

Not just magic books, read as much as you can both fiction and non fiction. It’s amazing how many plots can spark ideas for magic. Good authors can engage readers on both an intellectual and emotional level. This is an important skill to master for your magic. The more you read, the more you will grow a feel for how a good story is created, as well as discover interesting plot ideas you may never have considered.

Latest trends.

What’s being discussed on the internet?
What meme’s are going around?
What are the top 10 games or apps at the moment?

Trending topics and current news can give you some awesome ideas for new presentations and magic tricks. Finding fun or interesting topics that are popular has never been easier. Your facebook stream will be stuffed with meme’s and ideas. Get ideas from sites like Boingboing or Lifehacker add them to a newsreader app or service and start building a reader list of interesting sites that can give you ideas.

The secret to magic creativity.

To build your creativity, you need to feed it. Start looking around at all the weird and unusual stuff. It’s all around you! Here’s the real secret:

Ubiquitous capture

Ubiquitous capture is when you record ideas, information, thoughts, and experiences wherever you are. The goal is to reduce the amount of time taken between when the idea appears and when it is written down, recorded or captured.

Capture the things you find, even if you don’t know why or how you could ever need it. If it’s interesting to you, capture it. The more you do this, the more you feed your creativity with little ‘idea seeds’. They can stay buried in your note system, until one day they pop out and give you a great idea for a new presentation, or even a magic routine itself.