wedding exhibitions Archives

I attend a lot of wedding exhibitions and fayres around the country, and I’m often asked by magicians about ways to get the most out of them. Wedding exhibitions can be a great way to start off marketing your close-up magic, once you have a polished performing act and feel you are ready to use your magic commercially.

Are magicians at wedding exhibitions wasting their time?

If you ask fellow magicians about wedding exhibitions, you can often get a very mixed bag of opinions about them. For some magicians they are a fantastic source of work, and a chance to introduce yourself to hundreds of people that are about to throw the biggest budget party of their lives. For other magicians, wedding exhibitions just don’t seem to lead to any bookings: why is that?

Hiding behind your table.

Have you ever been to a magic convention? If you have, you might have noticed that some magic dealers stands don’t get much attention. The dealers sit behind their stands watching people go past. Other dealers, such as the excellent magician and demonstrator: Mark Mason from JB Magic, seem to be swamped by customers. These successful dealers never seem to stop demonstrating their products all day long. One of the reasons why the popular stands are so busy, is because the dealer LOOKS busy, and is constantly performing. The stand looks fun and worth checking out. Those dealers will perform to anyone who will watch, regardless of their intention to buy, as it creates a crowd which then feeds itself and keeps growing. It’s just the same at a wedding exhibition. If you get rid of the chairs, and stop as many people as possible to show them a magic trick, you will increase your chances of finding a client, and increase the attention your stand receives. What you offer will look popular, and as a result, it becomes attractive.

Here’s a short video podcast, in which I talk about more tips for magicians at wedding exhibitions

I was filming in the break whist the main course of the clients meal was taking place, so it’s a short video. For a more detailed look at getting the most from a wedding Exhibition, you can download a free ebook here:

Image courtesy of Paul Maka-Kea

How to Overcome Magicians Price Objections

Essential Tips for Magicians at Wedding Exhibitions

What is the Best Type of Advertising for Magicians?

by Merchant of Magic Leave a Comment

By Dominic Reyes

Where do you spend most of your time and budget advertising for work as a magician?

Ask any professional magician where they tend to get work and the usual answer is ‘previous clients and recommendations’.

It’s true, that good quality established magicians can build up a large enough client base. These repeat clients ensure that their diaries are full of enough work to support them.But what about if you are just starting out? As a new magician you face a difficult ‘chicken and egg’ problem. You need to find enough work to allow you to replace your existing income and focus on magic full time, but until you have built a large client base, you won’t have enough repeat customers coming back to fill your diary.

The answer to this problem is marketing. Getting out and finding new clients to book you. I recently asked a group of magicians, where they received most of their new clients:

Most magicians reported that their website as the biggest lead generation tool they use.

Here are some of the most popular ways you can advertise and my opinion on them:

1) Advertising in magazines
Generally, this is a waste of time. There’s no shortage of traditional print media companies falling over themselves to sell magicians adverting in their magazines. Especially wedding exhibition magazines. The return on investment is very low and your adverting budget is better spent elsewhere. Some magicians do get regular leads from print adverts, but many magicians that take out ads, fail to renew once the first contract has run its course. It can be very tempting when a space if ‘offered’ to you. Many times the space was filled previously by another magician, so it seems like a great chance to jump in. Ask yourself why the previous magician stopped their advert? It’s worth contacting that magician to see what they thought of the experience.

2) Magic entertainment agencies.
These should be a core focus of your marketing energy. Building relationships with agents is one of the best moves you can make to bring in good quality regular work. Read this information on how to find a good agent.

3) Directly contacting companies.
Another smart move, but very time consuming. I would recommend spending an hour each day making phone calls and sending info packs to venues and companies in your area. You can can get more info in how to contact companies to book you as a magician here

4) Paid Adverts for magicians on search engines – PPC
Many magicians advertise on Google using Adwords. These are the adverts on the right hand side of each search results page and sometimes at the top of the page. This can be quite expensive, but will bring in new leads for you to convert.

Here are two important points to remember:
1) You need to have a good website page for the advert to send visitors. You will be paying for each visitor, so unless your website is professional and designed to capture their contact details, you will waste a lot of money.

2) Avoid the most popular search terms. There is little point bidding on keywords such as ‘magic’, ‘magic show’ and ‘magician’. General ‘short tail’ keywords are far too competitive, which means you will burn a lot of cash for each visitor the keyword sends you. A great deal of the paid traffic will not be in the market for a magician. The best keyword terms are very specific to the visitors who are most likely to hire a magician. A good example of ideal keywords would be: “magicians in Sussex”, “magicians in London”, and “hire a magician in Bradford”. The secret is to be specific, so you only get paid visitors that are actually searching for a magician to hire.

5) Wedding Exhibitions
Wedding exhibitions can be a perfect place to market your services. It’s hard to beat a room full of people arranging huge events, and that are specifically there looking for suppliers. Read our guide on how magicians can get the most out of wedding exhibitions.

6) Restaurants and bars.
Many working magicians take on regular weekly or monthly gigs with local restaurants and bars. Although these are very low paid, they can fill blank dates in a magician’s diary and can lead to more profitable gigs as the magician gains his or her reputation. Read some advice about getting work in restaurants and bars here.

7) Promotional Website.
This is one of the most important marketing devices a magician can use. It’s vital that you set up a professional website which showcases your services, shows testimonials, and allows clients to contact you. This is especially important when using PPC advertising as your website will be the landing page for the paid advert. I highly recommend that you commission a professional design company to produce your website.

Even if you don’t want to go to the expense of a designed website just yet, there is no excuse for not creating a single page, website or blog to act as your landing page for clients looking to book you. You can create a blog to act as your magic website for free and with no skills in programing required. The blog you are reading right now is set up on the free service: Google Blogger.

DO THIS: Create a website to showcase your services. You can do that right now, by visiting a free online website maker or use a blog platform. If you prefer to have a website made professionally, contact a few designers and chat with them about your ideas. Commit to spending a few hours this week to contacting some venues and clients to offer your services.

Magicians at Wedding Exhibitions – Essential Advice for Magicians

by Merchant of Magic 7 Comments

Wedding exhibitions are a great source of magic gigs for magicians. It’s the perfect environment for close up magic. Mixing with the guests during the drinks reception, performing at their tables during the wedding breakfast or doing walk-around magic tricks as the evening reception warms up. But where are you going to get those gigs? It’s easy… Wedding exhibitions!

The Merchant of Magic has created a free 41 page guide to promoting yourself at wedding fayres and for magicians at wedding exhibitions. The following are a few quick tips from the guide.

Why are magicians at wedding exhibitions having such success?

Although wedding exhibitions take place all year round, the vast majority tend to take place in January/February and then September/October. That’s pretty handy for a close-up magician, as it falls nicely just after and just before the Christmas peak season. Most exhibitions take place on a Sunday, another quiet day for gig’s, so it’s an ideal marketing opportunity to build up work for the following year. Generally, the bookings will be for the following year, so unlike parties and trade show work, it’s possible to fill your work diary a year or more ahead, simply by attending a few exhibitions. Much of a magicians work tends to come from referrals. Each event bringing in future work from guests who are planning their own event.

Getting a space

Checking your local what’s on guide or a little google-fu will bring up a good list of wedding exhibitions in your local area. Most major hotels will probably host a couple each year, or will be able to point you towards the events company that runs their exhibitions for them. Make a list and contact a few to see which have spaces. Because magicians are a specialty for a wedding exhibition, many events will only give spaces for one or two magicians per event. You may need to look around for new exhibitions, or wait for a space.

Tables

When you arrive at the exhibition, you will be shown to your table. There are a few things you should do right away, to make the most of the space you have.

1) Push your table back. You want to give yourself the most space in front of it as you can. You don’t want to be behind the table, as that acts as a barrier between you and the spectators. Most stands have products on display, placed out on a table for examination. In your case, YOU are the product and should be out on display.

2) Lose the chairs. You don’t need them. Never sit behind your table. It makes you look bored, defeated and unapproachable. Stand in front of your table and interact with as many people as possible.

3) Lose the table altogether. Ideally, don’t have a large table at all. A small, close up magic table and a pop up banner give you loads of room, somewhere to put your cards, and a few props and sets you appear from all the other tables lined up around the exhibition.

Who to approach.

Everyone. Don’t just perform for the clients. If another stand shows interest (and they will) take a moment, when it’s quiet, to show them a trick. You may well get referrals from them, or even a recommendation on their website.

Standing still or moving around.

Magicians at wedding exhibitions have a cheeky advantage. We are not tied to our table. You should NEVER perform in front of another persons table or stand. But you can move around the venue. Use the busy common areas, near the stage, if the show has a bridal show. In the cafe, in the entrance hall. You can stroll around, just like on a gig, performing suitable magic tricks for a wedding and handing out cards. While you do this, your table is there with your cards on it too. A little card on your table saying where you currently can be seen performing, will allow clients who are searching for you, to meet you when you are away from your table area.

Did you find these excerpts interesting? Download the full 41 page guide for free: