The Financial Side

[Maaz Hasan]

So I've been thinking...
I have really been enjoying magic these last 2 and a half (or so) years, and I'm kind of thinking of possibly doing it as my profession.

I have this year and the next left in High school. If I can start performing regularly and start getting a few gigs by the time summer comes around, I will have at least a full year between that point and the end of High school. Then I have College ahead of me.

Would becoming a magician be a good financial decision? For those of you who do this as your job, are you able to make a living off of it? And if so, how long did it take until you were able to establish yourself? Should it be my sole job? How often do you end up performing? Anything I haven't asked that you can answer?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

P.S. What about people directly in the market Industry? Are they able to make a living off this too?

 

[DisasterTheory]

I can honestly say that as a business owner (completely unrelated to magic), my business does well BUT things tend to move slowly. Magic has always been different for me for some reason. Any time I have come up with something (effect, book, etc), the process seems to move really fast and gives me financial gain a lot quicker. I'm really not sure why that happens the way it does but for me that's just how it's always been.

Granted, everyone is different. Magic is a performance art and as such, we are not much different than any other performer on the business side of things. Check your local market. Are people really into magic or is it untapped for your local scene as a performer? If it is untapped, is it untapped for a reason? For example, is no one doing it because the market in your area just sucks for it or is it untapped because not many people have thought of it yet in your area. Questions like this help determine whether or not it will be lucrative. When you determine to do this as a profession, keep in mind that you are essentially planning to run a business. You need to ask yourself all the same questions you would ask if you were operating any other business and do the same type of research.

 

[willtupper]

The writer Richard Bach said this in his best (IMO), and second most popular book, Illusions: The Adventures of the Reluctant Messiah.

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours."

If you love magic, for goodness sakes - don't worry about money. Do you want to make a lot of money, or make a lot of smiles, a lot of gasps, a lot of amazement? Sure, business is important (it's a part of the whole package), and the idea of show business being 90% BUSINESS, and 10% SHOW is a prevalent one.

But, you know what? WHO CARES.

Just because someone else has reached *touches wall near ceiling* this far, and they've done this by doing A, B, and C, doesn't mean that you can't reach *punches hole in ceiling* by doing something else entirely.

My advice (which you should just go ahead and ignore, if you want) would be to sit down with a pen and paper (not the computer, what with it's allure of the Internet-based distractions), and write out a list of what you want. Where would you like to perform? What type of magic? What type of audience? How much money? How do you get there? Just write down every single thing (which you can change whenever you please, but you have to start somewhere).

Then, look at those goals, and figure out how you can work backwards from them to get back to where you are now. And, ho! Look at that. You now have a list, a "map" if you will, of what you have to do to get from where you are now, to where you want to be in the future.

And maybe that'll help. Maybe it won't, I don't know. But I do know that I had a hidden agenda in writing this.

It's advice I need to take myself. So I hope it helps (for you and me both).

 

[Maaz Hasan]

The writer Richard Bach said this in his best (IMO), and second most popular book, Illusions: The Adventures of the Reluctant Messiah.

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they're yours."

If you love magic, for goodness sakes - don't worry about money. Do you want to make a lot of money, or make a lot of smiles, a lot of gasps, a lot of amazement? Sure, business is important (it's a part of the whole package), and the idea of show business being 90% BUSINESS, and 10% SHOW is a prevalent one.

But, you know what? WHO CARES.

Just because someone else has reached *touches wall near ceiling* this far, and they've done this by doing A, B, and C, doesn't mean that you can't reach *punches hole in ceiling* by doing something else entirely.

My advice (which you should just go ahead and ignore, if you want) would be to sit down with a pen and paper (not the computer, what with it's allure of the Internet-based distractions), and write out a list of what you want. Where would you like to perform? What type of magic? What type of audience? How much money? How do you get there? Just write down every single thing (which you can change whenever you please, but you have to start somewhere).

Then, look at those goals, and figure out how you can work backwards from them to get back to where you are now. And, ho! Look at that. You now have a list, a "map" if you will, of what you have to do to get from where you are now, to where you want to be in the future.

And maybe that'll help. Maybe it won't, I don't know. But I do know that I had a hidden agenda in writing this.

It's advice I need to take myself. So I hope it helps (for you and me both).

Thanks! But that's good advice for me right now. But I was talking more so down the line. I mean, if I were to quit my job 20 years from now to do magic and end up not being able to support me (and my hypothetically present future family), is it really worth it. That might differ from person to person, but in my mind, that's a big no. I've let something control my life at that point, to the point that I am hurting others through it.

 

[DisasterTheory]

I can tell you from the aspect and mindset as a former signed professional entertainer (again not magic related, rather music related) that while entertaining people keeps you loving what you do, money is very important.

First, money allows you to keep doing what you do. Without it, you're doing a hobby...not a profession. You can lose your house when you trade money for smiles. Trust me on that one...I almost did exactly that in the beginning. However, without those smiles, the profession begins to lose its luster and becomes "just a job." When what you do feels like "just a job"...then what you're doing has lost all love and meaning. So willtupper is totally correct in that aspect.

We all try to base our careers off of what we love. Otherwise there's no point in it. There's no point in being unhappy every day like that. When we stop loving it, it's time to move on.

This goes back to the smiles vs money aspect. Smiles are awesome and they keep you motivated. They remind you why you do what you do. If anything can help you decide why you should stop doing what you love...it's going broke doing it. Profession = business. You'll need to do market research for your area or talk to other magicians in your area to determine how well they're doing. Do keep in mind however that this doesn't mean that you're restricted to your area. You can always go where you stand a better chance, etc.

You truly can succeed at anything you want to in life. What it comes down to is what you're willing to do to make it happen.

 

[obrienmagic]

Everyone has a different experience with it, however i would suggest easing into it. Everyone thinks "WOW! I could make $500 a gig just for doing magic??? I'm going to be rich!!!" Then they book like 1 gig a month. There is a lot that goes into it that most people don't realize.

To do magic professionally to make a full time living here are some things you need to understand:

-Marketing/advertising: Learning how to run ads and combine both free and paid advertising to get your name out. If you don't run paid ads, you will learn it is not as easy as you may think to get away with just relying on craigslist or social media to advertise. The cool thing is that Google/Facebook/youtube allow you to run targeted marketing campaigns for a decent price. Prepare to spend HOURS studying and learning how to do this.

-Sales: You need to learn how to talk to people and convince them to hire you. There are tons of different sales pitch strategies that you could use to close a client. Finding the one that works best for you is going to take time, practice, and research. Some people take a very salesy "Grant Cardone" essie approach. Me personally I just do a presentation of what to expect and sort of place the ball in their court. Not the most aggressive strategy, but it works well for me.

-customer service: Learn how to treat clients with respect and understand their wants and needs. I know this sounds self explanatory, but I know a ton of magicians complaining that they don't get work or get bad reviews and come to find out they have no idea how to talk to people without coming off as a jerk.

-budgeting: The single most important aspect of your magic career. You need to learn how to spend your money properly to maximize your earnings. You will prolly spend more money than you make your first year or two. You need to invest in props, clothes, advertising, etc.

-taxes: You are your own boss so you need to understand how to do your taxes. Do it incorrectly and you will lose a ton of money.

-business ownership: Understand that you are no longer just a magician, you are now running a business. Get in this mindset and it will make things a lot easier for you. would suggest studying up on small business ownership.

-performing magic: Notice "performing magic is at the bottom?" You literally need to lean how to be the whole operation to be able to consistently book gigs.

What is your email? (PM ME) I will send you a copy of my book "How to Magish." People who have the questions you do really need to read it.... lol i literally answer everything you asked in detail.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Do you want to make a lot of money, or make a lot of smiles, a lot of gasps, a lot of amazement?

Sorry if I offend you, but this kind of sappy platitude is why a lot of people end up broke and disillusioned with magic/any artistic field.

Being a professional magician is a business. A business will not succeed if they don't understand how to bring in and manage money.

The show may come first, but the business is the significantly larger word.

So, the good news - @Maaz Hasan - you're perfectly positioned to do this the smart way.

Things a lot of aspiring professionals don't anticipate -
You're going to spend the majority of your time looking for and booking gigs, for some years. Example: When Brian Brushwood was doing the college circuit he would spend about 3 months of the year booking the 6 month performance season. The 6 months of the season were spent driving all over the US, sleeping in cheap motels, to do 1 hour shows every couple days. Just be aware that you're probably going to be putting 10 hours or so into each 1 hour gig, easy.

Bills! You probably don't have a ton right now, so this is the perfect time to book as many gigs as you can and dump ALL that money into savings. Come tax time expect to give 25% to the government. If you build up a nice fat savings account now that will be a huge relief down the road if you hit a patch where you have trouble booking gigs. Learn to budget your money and stick to the budget.

Learn how to do taxes. There's websites that will walk you through it pretty straight forwardly (That's not a word). Save receipts for anything you purchase that is linked to your magic. This includes tanks of gas and food purchased on the way to gigs, or if you're entertaining clients, etc. It's not a bad idea to get something like QuickBooks to keep things straight. Deductions will be your friend and they're not as confusing as they may seem at first. Deductions can take a $4K tax bill and turn it into a $450 tax bill.

Repeat clients will be your livelihood. Knowing that you'll have suchandsuch gig at this time, every year, is very good. It takes a lot of the uncertainty out of performance as a career. Be as professional as possible at every appearance, and pretty much whenever you're in public. I have gotten myself or the team I was with hired regularly simply because I was/we were more professional than the competition.

Understand that your show is important, but it's not the most important thing. What you do on stage isn't really why you're being hired in many cases. You're being hired to make the audience have fun, and make the person who books you look good. Remembering that allows you to focus on what is important to maintaining a good relationship with the people who tend to do the hiring for entertainment in your area.

Ok, so, that's that part.

Should you?

That's up to you. You can make really good money as a performer, even if you're not nationally famous. Professional performers make several hundred to a couple thousand dollars per gig. A friend of mine in Baltimore won't leave his house for less than $1,000 and I doubt you've ever heard of him.

Should it be your only income? Ehhh ... Developing multiple streams of income is a way to be more stable. Dan Sperry has his own line of coffee, for example. A day job provides steady income while you're establishing a client list to get regular bookings. I advise 3-5 streams of income, personally.

How long does it take to establish yourself? Depends on how good you are at the business side of it. Could be a year, could be 5 years, could be 10 years. You're lucky in that by doing a more mainstream form of magic you can tap into more markets and get booked more regularly. I have an unusual style, so I am still honing in on how to market myself effectively.

How often do I perform? I go through patches where I'll perform multiple shows every weekend, and then do one gig a month. Like I said, I'm still honing in on how to market myself. The side show stuff we do regularly. How often will you perform? Hopefully as often as necessary to bring in the money you need to pay all your bills and put money aside.

I think this post has gotten long enough. Hopefully it gives you information you can use.

 

[RickEverhart]

I'm going to be brutally honest here and may take some heat from other members here, but I can tell you right now that a good number of professionals (who have families to support and bills to pay) have a full time job and use the magic as a secondary source of revenue. There is no way I would be able to support my fiance and 3 children on magic income alone. We would not be able to afford our house mortgage, insurance, pay phone bills, electric bills, gas, water, car payments, get groceries to feed everyone and have money to do others fun things. Heck I have some single guy friends who can't even pay rent or make their cell phone bill payments based upon their magic income. The money is NOT a steady stream constantly flowing in. You'll have good months and bad months.
Can it be done? Yes? But then you need to ask yourself...look at guys like Jay Mattioli, Shawn Farquar, and so on...you will be out traveling on planes and touring doing shows and missing out on some family time at home. Is that something you are willing to do? Maybe. Maybe not. Just food for thought.

 

[Maaz Hasan]

Thanks Guys!

 

[RealityOne]

Good advice so far.

I'll also going to quote Richard Bach's book Illusions ~ "You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it come true. You may have to work for it."

Im not a professional magician, but I am a professional who has to convince clients to pay me on an hourly basis to do work for them. My advice to succeed is as follows:

1. Focus on quality. A high quality professional product allows you to charge higher rates, have higher customer satisfaction and more referrals.

2. Differentiate. You should be able to explain how you are different than the competition in a sentence. If you are just like anyone else, you can only compete on price. Also, make sure that your customers can understand the difference between you and other performers and that it has value to them.

3. Define your market and specialty. Who do you want to sell to? Colleges, corporate events, community events, private parties? What is your specialty? Stage, parlor, walk around, kids shows, mentalism, baloon twisting, batchelor parties, etc.

4. Develop a Business Plan. Figure out what your expected receipts will be and what your expenses will be. For receipts, figure out what you will charge and how many gigs you expect. Find out about what the market is for your services and decide on your rate. Form expenses, include everything from travel costs (gas, Metro, Amtrak or airplane), marketing costs, props, supplies (cards, etc. ) costumes (or just clothing), etc. Those costs will be higher in the beginning because you will acquire things that will last several years. Have a base plan that is achievable and then a more optimistic plan that can be your goal.

5. Develop a Marketing Plan. This includes everything you need to do. Make it quantifiable, so you know exactly what you need to do and the deadline for doing it. Without hard deadlines, nothing will get done.

Then, looking at what you have figured out, make a decision. Will you earn enough to live the way you want? Will you have a good work/life balance? Are you willing to sacrifice things while you are devoting time and money to your business?

My advice is start performing part time while in High School and while in college. It can provide pizza and buy more magic money or it can actually help offset your expenses. Treat that performance like a business (see the steps above) and see how it goes. As @ChristopherT said, keep track of your income and expenses (and do report the income in excess of expenses for tax purposes). But also keep track of the time you spend. Figure out how much time it takes marketing and doing administrative tasks as well as how much time it takes to rehearse and perform (travel, set-up, performance and take down). Then figure out how much you really make an hour.

 

[willtupper]

Oh, no. I admire your words and work far too much to be offended. Big fan of your contributions to the the various message boards I've read over the years. You've taught me a lot, and I'm grateful for it.

Maaz Hasan, I stand by what I wrote. BUT... I want to add maybe two additional pieces of advice.

Actually, no. Make that three.

1. Save $100. Just do it. Save that $100, any way you can.

2. $75 is going to go to the wonderful book, "The Approach: A Complete Guide To Becoming A Working Magician," by the great genius that is Mr. Jamie D. Grant. It'll teach you more than any message board post ever may.

(Money hack: Email Jamie at his website, www.sendwonder.com, and he'll send you the first 12 chapters of the book free.

BONUS MONEY HACK: There's another magic message board... a "cafe" of sorts, where the "first drafts" of several chapters from Mr. Grant's book first appeared. If you're really strapped for cash, you can put together your own rough, D.I.Y. version of Mr. Grant's book, while you're saving money to buy the final version. Which you should, and soon. Like really, really soon).

3. Go on Amazon.com. Order the "Encyclopedia Brown Box Sex (4 Books)," by writer Donald J. Sobol. It's 4 books, currently just over $13, and mad, mad fun.

And what does that have to do with making a living doing magic, you may ask? Nothing, really. Not a dang thing. But...

It is a story (actually several stories) of a young man with a great gift, who with the help of his friends and family, figured out a way to make money in his community by doing something he loved.

So, you know. Maybe it has everything to do with making a living doing magic. Maybe...

Have fun. Make terrible mistakes. Embarrass yourself (I once read poetry - another of my passions - on stage in front of a crowd of over 600 completely naked). Take magic places no one's ever gone. Take what you know, and twist it into your own thing.

But mostly, have fun. Work hard, sure. But have as fun as you can.

Sorry if I offend you, but this kind of sappy platitude is why a lot of people end up broke and disillusioned with magic/any artistic field.

Being a professional magician is a business. A business will not succeed if they don't understand how to bring in and manage money.

The show may come first, but the business is the significantly larger word.

So, the good news - @Maaz Hasan - you're perfectly positioned to do this the smart way.

Things a lot of aspiring professionals don't anticipate -
You're going to spend the majority of your time looking for and booking gigs, for some years. Example: When Brian Brushwood was doing the college circuit he would spend about 3 months of the year booking the 6 month performance season. The 6 months of the season were spent driving all over the US, sleeping in cheap motels, to do 1 hour shows every couple days. Just be aware that you're probably going to be putting 10 hours or so into each 1 hour gig, easy.

Bills! You probably don't have a ton right now, so this is the perfect time to book as many gigs as you can and dump ALL that money into savings. Come tax time expect to give 25% to the government. If you build up a nice fat savings account now that will be a huge relief down the road if you hit a patch where you have trouble booking gigs. Learn to budget your money and stick to the budget.

Learn how to do taxes. There's websites that will walk you through it pretty straight forwardly (That's not a word). Save receipts for anything you purchase that is linked to your magic. This includes tanks of gas and food purchased on the way to gigs, or if you're entertaining clients, etc. It's not a bad idea to get something like QuickBooks to keep things straight. Deductions will be your friend and they're not as confusing as they may seem at first. Deductions can take a $4K tax bill and turn it into a $450 tax bill.

Repeat clients will be your livelihood. Knowing that you'll have suchandsuch gig at this time, every year, is very good. It takes a lot of the uncertainty out of performance as a career. Be as professional as possible at every appearance, and pretty much whenever you're in public. I have gotten myself or the team I was with hired regularly simply because I was/we were more professional than the competition.

Understand that your show is important, but it's not the most important thing. What you do on stage isn't really why you're being hired in many cases. You're being hired to make the audience have fun, and make the person who books you look good. Remembering that allows you to focus on what is important to maintaining a good relationship with the people who tend to do the hiring for entertainment in your area.

Ok, so, that's that part.

Should you?

That's up to you. You can make really good money as a performer, even if you're not nationally famous. Professional performers make several hundred to a couple thousand dollars per gig. A friend of mine in Baltimore won't leave his house for less than $1,000 and I doubt you've ever heard of him.

Should it be your only income? Ehhh ... Developing multiple streams of income is a way to be more stable. Dan Sperry has his own line of coffee, for example. A day job provides steady income while you're establishing a client list to get regular bookings. I advise 3-5 streams of income, personally.

How long does it take to establish yourself? Depends on how good you are at the business side of it. Could be a year, could be 5 years, could be 10 years. You're lucky in that by doing a more mainstream form of magic you can tap into more markets and get booked more regularly. I have an unusual style, so I am still honing in on how to market myself effectively.

How often do I perform? I go through patches where I'll perform multiple shows every weekend, and then do one gig a month. Like I said, I'm still honing in on how to market myself. The side show stuff we do regularly. How often will you perform? Hopefully as often as necessary to bring in the money you need to pay all your bills and put money aside.

I think this post has gotten long enough. Hopefully it gives you information you can use.

 

[TylerScottIllusionist]

Hey Maaz!

So I'm not really one to talk about doing magic full time since it's more of a side gig rather than my sole source of income. I do perform gigs for money but I don't make enough for it to be sustainable for a full time career. What I can offer you though is advice and experience on an intermediate step to getting to that point. This Friday at 8:30 p.m. EST I will be interviewing my producer who helped me put on my stage show. We will be going over a bunch of topics that I think you will find useful and you are welcome to ask questions during the livestream and we will do our best to answer them. I hope to see you there!

2. $75 is going to go to the wonderful book, "The Approach: A Complete Guide To Becoming A Working Magician," by the great genius that is Mr. Jamie D. Grant. It'll teach you more than any message board post ever may.

I couldn't recommend this book enough as well. I just finished it this summer after picking it up at a magic convention. Jamie D. Grant knocked this one out of the park and I think anyone that wants to be a professional magician should pick it up.

I'm going to be brutally honest here and may take some heat from other members here, but I can tell you right now that a good number of professionals (who have families to support and bills to pay) have a full time job and use the magic as a secondary source of revenue. There is no way I would be able to support my fiance and 3 children on magic income alone. We would not be able to afford our house mortgage, insurance, pay phone bills, electric bills, gas, water, car payments, get groceries to feed everyone and have money to do others fun things. Heck I have some single guy friends who can't even pay rent or make their cell phone bill payments based upon their magic income. The money is NOT a steady stream constantly flowing in. You'll have good months and bad months.
Can it be done? Yes? But then you need to ask yourself...look at guys like Jay Mattioli, Shawn Farquar, and so on...you will be out traveling on planes and touring doing shows and missing out on some family time at home. Is that something you are willing to do? Maybe. Maybe not. Just food for thought.

Everything Rick said here is so critically true. Everything he mentioned here must be taken into account before deciding to make the major leap of doing this full time. I can't give too much away of what's in Jamie D. Grant's book "The Approach" (he would be very upset if I did) but he definitely talks about it in a chapter solely about this decision. He basically recommends having a full time job just so you have a pension. Without a pension, you are going to have a rough retirement. Think of it this way, if you are living the lifestyle of a $100,000 salary and you have $1,000,000 saved up for retirement, that would be enough to last you for the next ten years of continuing to live that lifestyle. Hope all this helps!

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

A lot of the guys we really admire were/are part time performers. There's a joke - "Amateurs are the ones that push the art forward, because the professionals are too busy looking for the next gig."

Jamie D Grant himself is an EMT. I also recommend his book, it's basically a workbook on becoming a well paid strolling magician. I should re-read it again, actually.

I have always advocated for a day job. I'm kind of paranoid by nature (which I'm sure is an absolute shock to everyone) and I would only take the risk of having a non-guaranteed income if I had a huge amount in the bank and things set up for retirement age. Which is why I say you're in a good place - you can take risks and it won't be a huge deal if it doesn't work out, and you can experiment to find your niche.

 

[Timewise64]

Wow, a lot of really good advice here! I am a retired businessman. Over my lifetime I have prepared Business Plans targeting starting my own Business. They are a great tool that piece by piece give you the information to have a reasonable shot act starting a business. You can find tons of information on how to build a business plan. But, without having some formal training in business, much of the 'how to' may be difficult or not properly done...(e.g. market plan and data for that)...

Therefore, since you are still in high school and contemplating college....consider taking some business courses....Marketing for sure, Accounting/bookkeeping for sure, introduction to Tax Accounting, for sure.....I would even go as far as to say, consider majoring in Business Administration in college, or even a Minor in it would properly give you the knowledge to build and run your own business.

If none of this interests you, the Small Business Associations in most large towns can help you build a business plan.....

Finally, when you prepare a business plan, one good way to test it, is take it to your local bank and ask them to look at it so you can open a credit line in that bank. They will tell you a lot of what is done well and what is not, but if you can get them to say you do qualify for a credit line...you then know your plan is well done.....by the way, do not use that credit line....find a way to fund your business with your own hard earned money!

 

[willtupper]

Hey Maaz,

I'm a little self-conscious about bumping a thread that's about to fall off the front page. But I feel like this deserves it.

If you're interested in looking at books that are maybe not necessarily strictly-magic, books that are magic-adjacent, if you will, I would really, really, really, really, really (yes, that number of "really's" was entirely justified, thanks) recommend the book:

Life Is Like a Musical: How to Live, Love, and Lead Like a Star by writer and former Broadway dancer Tim Federle.

I started it this afternoon, with the intent of savoring it, reading only 50 pages or so. Needless to say, that didn't happen.

A couple hours later (with maybe a break for dinner), I was done. But I'm sure that I'll be working through the book, and it's advice, for some time.

IMO, it might make a nice companion to Mr. Jamie D. Grant's The Approach. And speaking of that (and the greatness which is JDG), I suggested earlier that you look for early versions of his essays (many of which later became book chapters) on another magic website.

Which was wrong. Because (drumroll please!), he also posted them here. On THIS very magic website.

Specifically, here:

https://www.theory11.com/forums/threads/how-to-promote-yourself-essay-12-from-jamie-d-grant.28981/

That thread (He put a link to 12 of his essays at the end of that first post) should help. A lot. Dude is so cool. Jamie D. Grant is like if Mr. Rogers from the old Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood TV show was a super talented, enthusiastic magician.

Which he was, so to speak. But I maintain that the comparison still stands!

 

[VagueTheory]

I won't reiterate the great responses already given.

Just remember, if you decide to pursue a college education (which I encourage, because regardless of what negative things you may hear about not "needing" college, the people you meet, the EXPERIENCE, in general, is life changing), no college offers a degree in magic. (I have heard of a "create your own graduate degree" at some universities, but I'd rather not be a guinea pig for that kind of experiment).

If you REALLY love magic by the time you enter college, consider pursuing a degree that will supplement it! I've seen amazing mathematicians utilize their knowledge of mathematics to create wonderful card effects. I've always witnessed theatre arts majors perform brilliant acts because of their performance background.

Or you can major in something else for the sake of finding a steady job (which I hope keeps you happy for the most part) after you graduate.

I lied. I guess I'll reiterate something. Always have a plan B, C, D, and E! It sometimes isn't the smartest to go all in on one hand....unless you KNOW the odds are in your favor.

 

[Maaz Hasan]

I won't reiterate the great responses already given.

Just remember, if you decide to pursue a college education (which I encourage, because regardless of what negative things you may hear about not "needing" college, the people you meet, the EXPERIENCE, in general, is life changing), no college offers a degree in magic. (I have heard of a "create your own graduate degree" at some universities, but I'd rather not be a guinea pig for that kind of experiment).

If you REALLY love magic by the time you enter college, consider pursuing a degree that will supplement it! I've seen amazing mathematicians utilize their knowledge of mathematics to create wonderful card effects. I've always witnessed theatre arts majors perform brilliant acts because of their performance background.

Or you can major in something else for the sake of finding a steady job (which I hope keeps you happy for the most part) after you graduate.

I lied. I guess I'll reiterate something. Always have a plan B, C, D, and E! It sometimes isn't the smartest to go all in on one hand....unless you KNOW the odds are in your favor.

Thanks! I plan to major and physics, and my cousin (who is a physics major) was talking to me about it. Turns out Magic and branches off of Magic are used A LOT in Physics. Plus, I'm fairly certain knowing physics will help me with a few thing in magic, specifically audience controls and larger misdirection.

I've also gone ahead and taken 2 years of woodworking in high school, am taking a 3rd one this year, and a 4th one next year, and I will say, it has given me this new way of processing things to build them. I've gone and built stuff and planned stuff out for magic based on it. Hopefully I can continue to do so. I know it will really help me if I ever start building some stage illusions, but it has really helped e take a different look at structuring not only my magic tools, but also my performance.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Side note - there's a college in Africa that has a degree in Magic, and Mac King got a degree in magic from ...Michigan? University I think. If I'm remembering correctly, and I very well may not be, there's about 3-5 colleges world wide where you could get a degree in "magic" - most of which are make-your-own-degree programs where you take theater, literature/story telling, and some other things. Refer to Mac King's interview in Magic News Wire (From years ago).

Physics is a good one. Job possibilities are there, the application to your passion is there. I'm not sure how how it applies to audience control, since that's a psychological thing, mostly, but definitely it'll apply to your understanding of lighting and it will help when trying to create more complicated gimmicks.

 

[Maaz Hasan]

Side note - there's a college in Africa that has a degree in Magic, and Mac King got a degree in magic from ...Michigan? University I think. If I'm remembering correctly, and I very well may not be, there's about 3-5 colleges world wide where you could get a degree in "magic" - most of which are make-your-own-degree programs where you take theater, literature/story telling, and some other things. Refer to Mac King's interview in Magic News Wire (From years ago).

Physics is a good one. Job possibilities are there, the application to your passion is there. I'm not sure how how it applies to audience control, since that's a psychological thing, mostly, but definitely it'll apply to your understanding of lighting and it will help when trying to create more complicated gimmicks.

Thanks! It's helped with audience control because it kind of has helped me figure out how I should move, where I should move, how fast, to make it look most natural. It isn't directly useful, But it definitely helps a bit.

 

[WitchDocIsIn]

Take theater classes. It will teach you directly how to move properly on a stage. It's something very few magicians do well. It also teaches how to direct attention to certain areas. We're actors playing the part of a magician - we should learn how to act.