Dustings #37
/I had an interest in magic from a very young age. In the early days that interest was fed with trips to the magic section of the public library and commercially available magic kits. At some point in the late 80s, I finally found my way to a “real” magic store. So I’ve seen over three decades of evolution in the magic industry.
What’s changed the most in that time? Well, certainly desktop publishing was a significant change. And the internet has, of course, changed the way magic is taught and greatly increased the speed with which magic ideas are iterated. And all the water we drink out of plastic bottles has dropped our testosterone to the point that thumbtips are now 15% smaller than they were in the 80s.
But the biggest change has been in magic packaging.
My friend was showing me his Anaverdi Mental Die when I stopped by his place last week. It comes in a custom made box with an LED light that turns on when you open the box and a little drawer that slides out on the bottom of the box. It’s an impressive piece of packaging which by itself probably added a few dollars to the cost of the product.
Back in my day, that would be an obscene amount to pay for magic packaging. Back in the 90s, “a few dollars” would actually buy you enough material to package 100 tricks for retail sale in the finest packaging we had.
And that was if you were lucky. Your trick also might just come in a brown paper lunch bag.
And yes, I suppose it’s a good thing that modern magic packaging is nicer, but I can’t help but think of the unintended consequences. Much like the legalization of abortion took a bite out of the profits in the coat hanger industry, I worry what our obsession with these nice packages has done to the poor folks at the Ziploc company.
Here is what the Anaverdi Die would look like, ready to sell, in 1992.
Question
There are certain questions you’re not supposed to ask in polite society. Questions like, “How much money do you make?” So today I’m asking the question…, “How much money do you make?”
I’m specifically asking this question to people who earn a living or a part of their living from magic. I think this will be helpful for people who are considering getting into magic professionally and don’t have any idea what the financials of it might be. If you told me a magician doing schools shows in Indiana made $20,000 a year, I’d believe you. If you told me he made $120,000 a year, I’d also believe you. I haven’t a clue.
For the purposes of the question below, we can assume we’re talking about a typical non-Covid year. Although feel free to annotate your answer to clarify exactly what you’re talking about.
The fields below are:
Location: You can be as specific as you like. You can give information down to the city-level, state-level, or just the country level.
How much you make in an average year from magic: For the sake of allowing us to compare across locations, put your figures in US dollars. Here’s a currency converter if you need it.
Is magic a full-time or part-time career for you
What you do: Here you can provide as much or as little information about what you do in relation to magic as you want to give. “I’m a kid’s show magician, averaging around 2 shows per week.” “I released a video download through Penguin and sold 80 copies.” “I work weddings and special events and do approximately 200 performances a year.” “I perform 40 shows a year. I run an online magic shop. I do 50 lectures a year for magicians. And I release a couple new products annually.” You can also mention about what you earn per show or per-whatever, to paint a more detailed picture.
Example:
Location: Milwaukee, WI USA
How much do you make in an average year from magic: $60,000
Full-Time or Part-Time: Full-Time
What do you do: I have a line of shirts for the discerning gentleman conjuror that says, “Magicians Do It With Sponge Balls.”
I realize this is all wildly personal information, but I’m hoping people are comfortable divulging knowing that it’s completely anonymous, and that this is a site that values anonymity. No personal information is collected when you fill out the form other than what you actually put in the form. I don’t know if I have enough professional or semi-pro readers to get a ton of responses but if enough people respond and the answers are interesting or useful in some way, then I’ll release the data in a later post. Perhaps there will be enough data points to give some hint of the financial realities of someone working in magic in the early 2020s and how that varies depending on what you’re doing and where you’re doing it.
Don’t bother trying to impress me with your comedy chops and answering with joke answers. They’ll get filtered out before I see them.
Anything you write here may be published on the site, so don’t write anything you feel is too identifying.
Our friend, and frequent collaborator, Stasia has a new deck of cards out. The Space Girl deck.
No. Space Girl playing cards. I think they're great. I'm always looking for playing cards with imagery that real humans are drawn to. And this deck meets that criteria in my opinion.
And there are a few bonuses to the deck for magicians.
First, it's a real deck made for normal people. So if someone likes it you can send them to Stasia's Etsy store and not, like, Ellusionist or something.
Second, it's also an "oracle" deck. That just means each card has a meaning beyond the suit and value of the card itself. The deck comes with a little fold-out pamphlet explaining the meaning of each card. This is valuable because you can have someone look through the pamphlet and decide on something they're interested in or concerned about, and then have them remove that card. By using any standard technique to figure out the card they’ve taken, you now have something to work with if you're the sort of person who gives readings or anything along those lines.
You can also force particular cards and then look up the meaning with the spectator and let that meaning direct you into some other seemingly random experience.
Third, it's one of best one-way decks I've ever seen.
Yes, it's clearly a one-way deck when you look at the backs. But while it's obvious, it also feels more subtle than a deck of cards with Garfield on the back, where Garfield is clearly right-side up, or upside-down. Because the imagery is of space, you don't get a feeling of "upside-down" regardless of how you see the card going into the deck.
The faces are also all one-way designs.
You don't need to see much of the back at all to spot the reversed card. Depending on how the deck is held, it will either be the one sliver of red, in a sea of blue. Or vice versa.
Are you a Gentleman Conjuror? Do you want others to know that you’re a magician of fine taste? Do you make sure to let everyone know that you like whiskey, but you’re still not sure if they’ll recognize you’re a performer of class and distinction?
Have I got the shirt for you. Up in the Dumb Houdini shop you can now find a shirt that lets people know the eternal truth about the most refined magicians: the fact that they do it with sponge balls.
Be the envy of men and the object of adoration from women (or vice versa) with this shirt that lets everyone know two things:
You have a keen fashion sense.
Magicians do it with sponge balls.
Available in regular and extra soft, in white on sponge red or sponge red on white.
