Doug -
In sincerity, was very surprised to see your post above. Was a bit taken aback by it, as theory11 is not - in any way - "the same as Ellusionist." I was at Ellusionist for seven years. I resigned as President in 2007. I know very well what Ellusionist was and is. theory11 is not ellusionist.
Before I go further, I will say that I'm very proud of the work I did while I was at Ellusionist, and I continue to respect their company and their team for continued success and evolution. But I'll break this down step by step.
Everything is about $$$$$$$$$$. T11 can deny that to death, but it's completely true.
I'm not sure where you have ever read
anyone from this team at any time claim for this site not to be a business. Please let me know where you got this impression - it has never happened. In fact, anyone who has read my
previous post in this same thread would see a quote from me saying the following. I stand by it: "Unapologetically, this is a business. The livelihood of our company, artists, and staff members depend wholeheartedly upon sale of our products. We produce products we believe in, and our production pipeline is second to none. Do other sites have more products available? Absolutely - but they don't produce them all in house. We do."
I will say that something which annoys me, and has always annoyed me, is that the artists on this site seem to only post when they have a product coming out.
I'm not quite sure how this is unexpected. Musicians do interviews when they're promoting a new album. Angelina Jolie goes on talk shows before a new movie comes up. Promoting a product is only natural, and when new products come out, the community naturally has questions about it. The artist comes on and answers them - questions resolved. That said - and this is an important point - to imply that artists
only post when products are released would be a gross misstatement of facts. In the past 2 weeks alone, there have been posts in this forum from Marcus Eddie, Tony Chang, Jason England, Dan White, Mike Hankins, Alex Pandrea, Andrei Jikh, and myself. I'm sure I'm missing some - those are just the ones I remembered off the top of my head. We've also posted 11 artist diaries in the past 60 days. Some of those are humorous, some are serious - but they provide a depth and intimacy with these artists that is not found anywhere else. It's a true statement that you'll hear MORE from an artist around the time of a product release - but I believe that is only natural given that this is a business and their livelihood depends on it.
In fact, a few of the artists which have actual releases with T11 bash T11 all the time.
I stand by the reputation of this site 100%. This is a team physically composed of some of the most respected names in this industry - from Chris Kenner to Jason England to Dan White. I talk to the vast majority of our artists every single week, sometimes daily. No other site has produced as much original content as we have with as many respected artists in such a short amount of time. I think that speaks for itself.
Also, Magic-Con is a GREAT conference.
We see Magic-Con as way more than just another magic conference. We approached it as a way for us to stand behind our mission statement and pro-actively advance this artform in a way that has never been done. We put together a line-up of the best magic performers, creators, and intellects ever assembled in one place in the past decade. And the result was unbelievable. Juan Tamariz flew halfway around the world to be a part of it. David Blaine flew across the country to witness it. No other site has done anything that remotely compares.
So is T11 the same thing as E? I think for anyone to say no is in denial.
I think for anyone to say yes is misinformed - or lacking recognition of what this site is about, who is behind it, what we have accomplished, and where we're headed. I am absolutely okay with people underestimating us - it heightens our resolve to improve. But I'm not okay with people not realizing the fruits of our labors - and what we do differently every day, every week, every moment to continue.