Hello, there. For the past seven years, I have written, produced and consulted for television shows around the globe. I’ve worked with talent in and outside of magic, from Dynamo and Justin Willman to John Legend and Gordon Ramsay. I’ve been a part of the casting process for competition shows, late-night talk shows, group magic shows and stand-alone magic formats in need of a solo star.

TV moves fast, and researchers rarely know much about magic. You can make it easy for telly producers to find you and reach you.

Here are 12 basic things every magician can do right now…

1. Update Your Profile Picture

We’re simple creatures, and profile pictures tend to be teenie tiny images. Use a solid background to be instantly recognisable. It’s a little-known hack that upcoming influencers use to boost their profiles. Don’t just choose blue; choose an exact colour like #DE786F or #F6EB61 with Adobe Color.

Comment a link to your socials so we can give you a follow.

2. Buy a Template

For some reason, magicians decide to use their free time to design their own websites entirely from scratch with zero web design experience. It’s madness. I used to say hire a designer. Now, I say buy a template. A $30 website template is 100x better than 99.9999% of magicians’ sites. Here are 1, 2, 3 template examples for you.

A good magician’s website is minimal; the only goal is to get the visitor to contact you. If a talent researcher comes across a busy website overflowing with information and they can’t find what they’re looking for, they won’t call you; they’ll skip you.

You’re not an e-commerce business; the goal of your site is not to convert — it’s to start a conversation.

Should I ask a pro website designer to write about magician websites in a future post?

Comment a link to your website for us to take a look.

3. Stop Buying Magic

For the love of God, stop it. You can do this right now, today. Commit to no new tricks for the rest of the year. The majority of the most successful magicians add a new trick to their act once every year or so unless you’re Pete Firman and need an entire new Fringe show every year.

The majority of magicians reading this will already own enough magic. You’ve just bought Switch One — and that’s enough new magic for 2021. Focus on the 300 tricks you already own and become a better performer.

If you’d like to be publicly shamed, go ahead and comment:

My name is X, and I buy too much magic.

4. Get A Showreel

When a casting producer reaches out to you and asks for a showreel, you should be ready to reply with your showreel. TV moves fast. If you wait a week, you’ve missed your shot. There’s no excuse for not having a showreel or a solid performance video ready to go.

Don’t try telling me you need a better camera, and don’t say you need new magic. In my seven years working in television, no talent researcher has ever commented on the quality of the video or the quality of the magic in a showreel.

They’re interested in one thing; you.

Some iconic magician tapes:

1. David Blaine performing for people we did not normally see on the television.

2. Barry & Stuart performing with a totally new comedic style for magic.

3. Dynamo performing in nightclubs for a gobsmackingly large number of celebs.

4. Pete Firman performing magic in his underwear in his back garden in the snow.

These were all zero budget, required hard work, were memorable, and none of the magic was particularly groundbreaking.

They all built great careers and are referenced in development meetings to this day.

I’ll write about showreels for full members in a future week.

Imagine a researcher from Jimmy Fallon’s team emails you today to tell you they want you on the show next week. They’ll fly you and an assistant out first class and put you in a hotel for the night in NYC. All they need from you is a video of you performing the five-minute act you’ll do on the show. They need the video today. If you’re suddenly filled with panic while imagining this, get your shit together.

Comment a link to your showreel for us all to check out.

5. Change Your Username

Because of the overwhelming number of terrible magician websites, talent researchers usually scout magicians via social media. I write from experience but ask anyone who’s been on AGT or Fool Us, and they’ll tell you they were found via socials.

Add keywords like magician, location, skill (close-up, stage, comedy) or product (Wedding, Corporate, Virtual) to your username and/or display name. It’ll help you appear in searches and rumour has it the algorithms factor it in when choosing accounts to feature on the explore page.

Drop a link to your new socials in the comments.

6. Change Your Email

When a talent producer gets asked to book a magician for a shoot, the first thing they do is check their emails. Talent producers have massive address books. When they search, they will either type magic or your name if they happen to remember it.

I’ll write about how to connect with casting producers in a future post.

Please do not use an email like info@mystic-entertainment.

Include your name or/and “magic” in your email address or display name:

magic@yourname & hello@yournamemagician both work.

7. Learn The Toxic Force

I was an assistant producer on a late-night talk show that had booked a magician before I started. I asked the talent producer how she chose the specific magician. She told me he stopped her and performed a cool calculator trick in a TV studio lobby three years previously.

I now know a staggering total of five magicians who have booked TV slots or sold entire TV shows by performing the toxic force. On all occasions, the magicians had no props on them but recognised the importance of showing a specific person a trick.

Do you already perform the toxic force? Which variation?

8. Leave 90 Comments

People forget that social media is meant to be sociable. When a researcher pulls together a one-sheet with several magician options for their executive producer to look at, they’ll likely find one person and then look at who that performer interacts with.

Comment, collaborate and interact with people on social media in a public capacity — not in closed groups. If you’re a local working magician, you can use tools like Dollar Eighty to speed up the process and interact 90 times per day with people who tag nearby locations and events. Interact with booking agents, performers, fans and local businesses. Be social.

9. Ask For Help

When I consult for magicians at the early stage of their career, I might say something like — “Oh, I think Justin Flom has something similar; why don’t we call him up and see if he has some advice?” Then the magician I’m working with will freak out at the idea of asking for help. Don’t be that magician. Collaborate. Ask for help — it’s what successful magicians do.

Beyond magicians, collect a phone book of people who can help your magic in interesting ways. I have a friend who makes prosthetics, and I have an engineer friend and a comedy friend. Don’t be afraid to invite your non-magical friends to help you.

And finally, hire consultants, directors, writers, and lighting designers to help you. No one who finds success in magic gets there alone. Make friends and ask for help.

10. Help Your Friends

Magicians will often ask me how to get hired by the most famous magicians. I tell them to start by working with non-famous magicians. Magic has these “year groups,” and you’ll do much better if you collaborate and help your friends rather than focusing on impressing the big boys. All it takes is one person in your friend group to find success, and they’ll bring the rest of you with them.

This isn’t exclusive to magic. Movie stars will often have worked together on short films long before they become famous. Help your friends and find your year group. Note that your year group does not need to be the same age — it’s more about aligning yourself with people in a similar moment of their careers.

11. Record Your Performances

Every comedian I know records every single one of their gigs. Even if it’s just their voice notes at the back of the audience, on the stage floor or in their pocket. I’ve wondered why magicians do not do this for a while. At first, I assumed it was because voice notes cannot capture the magic trick. But for that to be a reason not to record your performance, you’d be assuming that the only important element of the performance is the trick.

Record your performances, listen back, improve your magic.

Drop links to any existing recordings in the comments.

12. Seek Exposure

Something else I admire about the comedians I work with - is that they seek exposure. It sucks when someone wants to book you, and you expect a payment, and they offer you exposure. But it doesn’t suck when you actively pursue big opportunities and expect nothing but exposure in return.

The comedy writers I know perform every night they possibly can, sometimes driving hours between five-minute sets on the same night. They’ll hustle and test material at unpaid shows, and they’ll actively seek out big opportunities for exposure — like bigger audiences, podcasts, a TV spots.

Don’t let the big bad idea of exposure as payment prevent you from seeking out amazing opportunities. I’ve seen this happen to magicians, and they’ve missed out.

Have you ever done a free gig and see it pay off in the long run?

13. Share This Post

Oh, a bonus item. I bet that most magicians who enjoy these ten tips will choose to keep this post a closely guarded secret… don’t be one of those magicians. Share this post with a friend, in a magic WhatsApp group, on a Clubhouse chat about The Magic Circle drama and in a Facebook group (one of the nice ones).

Be a lovely human and help your fellow magicians.