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Analyzing financial data

Would you like to make a living out of performing your magic? If you are going to do that.. You need to decide how much to charge for a magic show.

Most people that learn magic tricks, do so for the fun of it. It’s a wonderful, rewarding hobby. You may, however, be planning to earn a small income as a magician or even turning your obsession into a career and become a professional magician. If you do decide to start performing magic for money, there is some important information you should think about first:

Will you be Professional or Semi Professional?

The vast majority of working magicians earn an income from magic on a part-time basis. They have a current employer and supplement their wages by doing magic in the evenings and weekends. As the weekends tend to be the most popular time for social events that require a magician, semi professional magicians can fill their diary quite nicely through the year, and still maintain a full time job. The aim is often to build their reputation over time before being able to move into doing magic full-time. There are several advantages to starting off semi-pro:

There is little financial risk.
You can maintain your current lifestyle.
Income from magic doesn’t have to be used for living expenses.
Time can be taken to build and develop your act and reputation above the average magician.
You can perform when you want to, not because you have to.

What type of magic act will you perform?

This isn’t about the types of magic tricks you perform or your performing persona. You need to look at your act as a product. What type of product will it be?

Will you directly market your services yourself, or focus on working with an agent?
Where will you market yourself, only local, or are you happy to travel?
Will you work alone, or will you be using an assistant?
Do you intend to have a secondary income doing film or TV work (Perhaps as a consultant)?

Who will your customers be?

Understanding your customers is essential for determining both the product you will offer and the fee you can charge.

Will you be aiming at companies and venues, of focusing mainly on private individuals with wedding and party events?
What level of affluence does your target/local area have?
What is the persona of your average client? Professional/family/retired etc.

What is the competition doing?

It’s important to understand what level of fee’s your competition has achieved in your local area. Getting some quotes from other magicians will help, but take the advice of fellow magicians with a pinch of salt, as they tend to exaggerate. Getting quotes from local entertainment agencies tends to be more reliable. Bare in mind, that in any area there will be magicians charging at the top of their ‘payment ceiling’ and others who are underselling themselves. Never try to be the cheapest, it tends to work against you over the long term. The aim is to be in the middle or towards the top of the fee structure in your area as quickly as possible.

When can you work?

If you are performing semi-professionally, and holding down a day job, you may have to limit your gigs to the weekend, or only take bookings that start later in the evening. Even then, if you have a family, it’s essential to spare time for them too. If you intend to make your full time living from magic, you will need to be able to commit to working evenings and weekends. It’s great having your days free, but your friends and family may not think the same. It’s very important to discuss the implications of being a magician with your family, and to have their support.

How much money would you like and how much do you need?

The first step in setting a professional fee, is to determine how much money you NEED. This is quite different from how much money you WANT.

Make a list of all your outgoings. Get your last 12 months bank statements and note down the total that went out of the account each month. It’s important to use a year worth of bank statements as some expenses are annual. Group the debts into categories so you see exactly how much you spend on the following on average each month:

Rent or mortgage
Utilities and services
Average monthly spend on food
Clothing
Travel
Loan or card repayments
Club memberships
Insurance
Pension and monthly savings
Car payments such as tax and insurance

Now use the statements to calculate how much money you spend on entertainment and small impulse purchases.

You should now have two figures. The first is for your essential fixed expenses. This much money HAS to be earned each month just to live at your current comfort level. The second figure is your leisure or fun money. This second figure is not as fixed as the first and can fluctuate over time. Think of it as your ‘buffer zone’.

Once you have these figures, if you add them together, it will give you the total amount of money you need to earn each month to continue your current lifestyle. This figure is very important for the next step.

How much you NEED to charge.

Nobody is the same. We all have different commitments, responsibilities and interests. A young single person can have much more disposable income whilst earning far less than a person who has a mortgage and needs to support a large family. The old saying ‘It’s not how much you earn that’s important, it’s how much you spend’ is very true. That makes it hard to give any examples of income, as we are all different. In this discussion, I assume the average monthly income in the UK, so simply correct these figures to fit your own income needs and commitments that you calculated by looking at your bank statements over the last 12 months. The average household income in the UK is currently £2000 per month, so I will use that figure as a baseline.

The most important question of all.

How many gigs will I need to do each week and how much do I need to charge for each gig, to bring in an income equal or greater amount than my expenditure?

Let me introduce you to a great website that is free to use: Your Rate

Your Rate is a website that asks just three questions:

How much money you need to earn every month
How many hours you can work each week
How many weeks of holiday you intend to take.

Fill those in and get an hourly rate to charge. Your Rate calculates this for you, and builds in how much you should include for savings and how much is needed to pay your tax on the earnings you make. Because tax rates vary by country, and it is allowing for savings, it multiplies the actual rate needed by 2 to give the final total.

As a magician you are going to use it in a slightly different way. In your mind, change ‘How many hours do you want to work per week?’ to ‘how many gigs do you want to do each week’.

Let’s say the average close-up magician does 3 gigs every week and has 2 weeks holiday. What fee would he need to charge each gig to earn him an income of £2000 per month with taxes and savings covered.

To earn £2000 per month the magician should charge £347 per gig, doing 3 gigs per week and having a 2 week holiday each year. This included taxes and savings built in.

Let’s say the magician averages 2 gigs per week. What fee would he need to charge per gig to make the UK average income of £2000 per month after tax and savings.

How much should a magician charge for perfroming magic tricks?

To earn £2000 after tax and savings, a magician should charge around £500 per booking and do 2 shows per week.

Let’s look at a different type of magician. Children’s shows start from around £100-£200 per show.

If a children’s magician charges £150 per show and does 7 shows every week (with a 2 week holiday), it will bring in an income of £2000 per month after taxes and savings.

You can use the Your Rate website to enter your own figures and play with the results.

DO THIS: Use Your Rate to see how many gigs you would need to do, with your area average fee per gig to earn the income you made over the last 12 months. See if the fee you would need to charge is viable for your reputation, the number of gigs you think you can average over a year and the fee’s your competition are charging.

‘No man is an island, Entire of itself.’ – John Donne

There are many benefits to working with one or more entertainment agents. However, attracting the attention of a good agent can be a challenge for magicians starting to perform magic to the public. If you intend to turn your magic hobby into a part-time or full-time job, it’s important to know how to find and work with a magic agent or agency.

The Benefits

An agent will probably have a great deal more experience than you in the entertainment industry. After all, that part of the process is their specific field. A good agent can also advise you on how to promote yourself more effectively and can point out the pitfalls of the business, so you don’t make mistakes, when you are starting out.

Agents grow a large list of clients over time that they build a relationship with. They understand the market in your local area and already have many regular events that they need magicians to work at. By using an agent, you benefit from their reputation as well as your own.

A good agent makes an investment in you. After all, you represent them when you work for them. They will help you develop as a performer, give you valuable experience of clients that you may not be able to attract on your own, and will guide you to be as successful as possible.

The costs.

Their service is being provided at a cost. The agent will either take a commission from each booking they give you (Usually around 10% – 15%). Some agents prefer to look for the best and most reliable entertainers, they can find, who will work for a fee that allows them to add their own fee on top without pricing themselves out of the booking. They will ask you and several other magicians to quote for a booking, and then they will go back to their client and quote with their fee on top.

Usually, an agent will not allow you to market your services at the event. They often insist that you hand out their business cards rather than your own. This is fair, as it is their client, but it can limit your ability to create your own contact list from referrals.

Some agents will contract you, and include an exclusivity clause, which prevents you from working with another agent, whilst your contract with them is in place.

How to choose an agent.

Most agents are awesome and will work really hard for you. Often a long term relationship will form, as they use you over the years with their clients. There are, however, some that have bad reputations and need to be avoided. Never work for an agent that charges you an up front fee to go on their books (This is illegal) The Agents Association has a code of conduct for its members and includes a very useful directory on its website. The union Equity also has a code of conduct for agents and produces a list to warn members about agents that performers have had problems with.

How to contact an agent.

A quick search on Google will bring up the details of several agents in your area. The usual process involves you sending an agent some information to introduce yourself. This should include:

A recent photograph of yourself, dressed as you do when you perform magic.
A short biography, with details of your act and previous experience.
Your membership of any magic societies.
Details of your availability.
A show-reel video of you performing.

Some agents will add you to their books right away. Others will want to meet you first and ideally watch you perform. They may try you out on a ‘safe gig’, perhaps with other magicians attending. It’s usual for the agent to attend themselves at those events, and a great time to meet you and see you in action.

An important note about magicians show-reels : The show-reel you send an agent needs to be your very best material, at your best gigs, getting the best reactions. Remember that an agent is not a magician. They don’t care how technically perfect your pass is. They care that the client enjoyed the magic you performed, and that the guests loved you being there too. Your personality, appearance, and professionalism are your products.

The show-reel video needs to be professionally edited to show the reactions your magic really receives. Don’t include footage of magic tricks filmed in your bedroom, living room or hallway, the footage needs to be at real events. If you do feature some tricks that are not live, make sure the background is plain and professional. An agent WILL make up his or her mind about you within a few seconds of the footage. No show-reel is much better than a poorly made one, as you only get one chance to impress an agent. If they don’t like what they see, it will be a challenge to get work from that agent, and possibly the agents they network with. Your show-reel needs to be professionally produced, and present you at the ‘top of your game’. It doesn’t matter how impressive your bio or list of clients appears to be, if your show-reel is not impressive, all that effort will be for nothing.

Sometimes agents will contact you instead.

Agents talk to the magicians that work for them, and sometimes, if an agent can’t find any magicians available for a gig, they will ask for a recommendation. If you have a good reputation in your area amongst the working pros, you may find you get a call from an agent, needing to fill a gig.

Six quick tips:

1) Send your details to an agent and follow up with them a week later. Don’t contact the agent repeatedly, chasing them to deal with you. That could turn them off you, when they were in fact, just very busy and were waiting for the right event to try you out.

2) Make sure the details you send them are professional and brief. If you send them a huge essay on your life story and why you like magic, this may work against you. It simply may not even be read.

3) If your agent asks that you don’t market to their clients, make sure you NEVER do. Don’t be tempted to hand out a few of your business cards. If that got back to the client, and the agent found out, you will not be used again, and a bad reputation spreads quickly through their professional network.

4) Create a copy of your own promotional website, without any contact details or links, that the agent can send clients to. An agent may use a few of your promotional images and a short description about you, on their own site, but will welcome an ‘agent friendly’ site about you, that will help sell your magic to a client.

5) If you host a show-reel, you need to create a second copy which does not have your contact details featured in it.

6) When doing a gig for an agent, remind the client that you are working for the agent, and ask that they let the agent know how well you did.

How Much to Charge for a Magic Show?