El Mago Pop's $3Mil Broadway Debut

Have you heard about Antonio Díaz? We've covered him several times on One Ahead, so perhaps you've read those articles. He's a Spanish illusionist with a Spanish Netflix series and a live show that's supposedly been said to have been seen by over two million theatre-goers.

But if you ask most Americans and magicians about Díaz, they'll likely have no idea who you are on about. This is why it's all the more astonishing that Díaz managed to secure a 10-day Broadway run last month and that his show grossed $3,000,000+. Díaz, who was previously unknown by the US market, was, in fact, the top-grossing show on Broadway during its run.

The show played an expanded schedule from the traditional eight per week, but it grossed $3.34 million in just ten days – outperforming the top five: Funny Girl, The Lion King, Hamilton and Wicked.

To put that into perspective, when Derren Brown debuted on Broadway in 2019, Derren's highest-grossing week was $715k. Derren's Broadway show grossed $7 million over 113 performances. Díaz grossed $3.34 million (nearly half the amount of Derren) in just ten days. Ten days!

How are magicians not talking about this? Today, we'll dive into what's making Díaz so financially successful and why he recently bought a 2,800-seat theatre in the USA – yep, he purchased his own theatre. Plus, what is it about the magician community that makes us so focussed on "magicians magicians" and why it's caused a long habit of magicians not paying attention and sometimes even downplaying on-the-rise magicians until they're household names?

Despite looking young enough to attend Tannen's Magic Camp, Antonio Diaz is 37. He performs publicly under the name El Mago Pop, and he's been doing this for a long while.

At 17, he began performing his theatre shows across Spain. It was a long grind, with a constant focus on theatre performances. By 2015, he'd found a rhythm, a format, and an audience, and his show The Great Illusion was seen by more than 800,000 people in three years.

By 2016, he became the highest-grossing artist in Spain (not just a magician) and the highest-grossing illusionist in Europe, earning more than 250 million euros.

After The Grand Illusion, he fulfilled his right of passage as a stage illusionist and named his next show Nada Es Imposible, which debuted at the Rialto Theatre in Madrid.

And then, this is when Antonio finally landed on my radar. It's wild to consider how connected I am with the magic industry, yet I still hadn't heard about the highest-grossing illusionist in Europe.

But a client of mine mentioned that I should see this show in a theatre in Barcelona. I was told explicitly that magicians would not like the show. The magician had bought the theatre there and had built controversial methods into the show. He uses methods magicians might turn their noses up at, and some say he performs tricks others create without permission.

This show was the climax of a career spent refining and building a business around live illusion theatre. And, of course, the show was named after the artist El Mago Pop.

As a team, we kept an eye on his story, and we were proud to report about the times Antonio bought a theatre in Missouri and launched his Broadway press tour with a viral illusion on The Today Show.

I could never quite find the time to fit a trip to Barcelona to see his show. However, I've since learned of a handful of magicians who made the trip multiple times, often keeping their visits private – not wanting to be judged by other magicians or simply wishing not to let more magicians know how good the show is.

All I knew was that Antonio was clearly performing for real people, not magicians. And that he'll go to any length to make their experience as good as possible.

It sounds remarkably similar to my first experience watching David Copperfield's show. His show is packed full of shit that members of The Magic Cafe would typically write a fifty-page thread about.

So much of what our community considers good magic is just commercial magic. It's hard to sell products if the method includes elaborate pre-show, stooging, camera tricks and similar techniques, even though titans of our industry have long used them. I'm not speaking about any specific titan, but pick one at random, and they've likely used these methods.

And so what if they have? Wow, I'm going on a real tangent here. Magicians can get all high and mighty about using accomplices until they realise the trick app they just bought is much better with an accomplice and get their partner in on the trick. They got pretty upset when TV magicians were caught using camera tricks until there was a product that let every magician use them on their Zoom shows, and then they were pretty quick to change their minds, eh?

Anyway! Whatever El Mago Pop is doing – it's working.

And nowhere more can this be seen than in the teleportation illusion he performed on The Today Show to kick off promo for the Broadway run. Almost every article I can find online attributes this performance as the key reason his show sold so well in New York.

The video only has about 300k views, but I've read that The Today Show is instrumental in converting sales to any show in the city. It's why pop bands perform outside their studios, and musical stars sing for their audiences. And I suppose that makes sense; when Antonio appeared on Morning Joe to promote the show, he performed a little card trick.

Tactically, they decided to go all out for The Today Show.

In his performance, he causes a group of randomly selected spectators to jump teleport from one rotating raised box to another empty box five metres away. Clearly, the show's hosts were mind-blown by the illusion, and so were audiences at home. Yes, we can pick holes in the routine, and some people in the comments section do, but Antonio doesn't care – he's there to sell his show. I have a feeling that not only is he aware that magicians are not his target demographic, but he also knows that people who dislike magic are not his target demographic.

Magicians are sometimes guilty of trying to please everyone, a necessity when there could be hecklers or annoying boyfriends at the events you perform at. But here's the thing: Antonio has spent his career performing for people who have paid to see him. He's likely built up a tolerance and understanding of who his audience is and who they're not. So he goes big and aims for the big and easy demographic.

Antonio is back in Spain now, and I might try to see his show next month. If you're in the USA, you might not have to wait long to see him again. He's bought a theatre in Missouri. Yep, that's right.

In 2019, he purchased his first theatre, Teatre Victoria, in Barcelona. Now, he's acquired the 2,800-seat theatre in Branson, Missouri. Originally known as the Encore Theatre, the space will be aptly renamed Branson Magic Theatre and will act as his American headquarters.

You can't fault his business mindset. I spoke to a well-known magician recently about whether they'd ever go perform in Vegas. Their answer: "Not until Penn & Teller and Copperfield leave". They believe that while those two powerhouses are still in town, everyone else plays for scraps. With most Vegas tourists only seeing a maximum of one magic show during their trip, they might be right.

Branson could be a genius business move; with nearly 10 Million tourists visiting annually and hundreds of live shows in the town, it's viewed as one of the world's leading entertainment destinations. It's clear that the decision to purchase (yes, once again – he bought the venue) was made mindfully and based on actual data. Time will tell in terms of how well it plays out.

But I think, in general, this story is about the ignorance of the magic community. In the same way, magicians scold those in the community who reveal tricks on TikTok while being utterly ignorant of those outside our immediate community who do the same for millions more followers. In this instance, it highlights how out of touch magicians are with what's popular and actually selling tickets.

Magicians care too much about tricks than magic.

And it's OK to have a hobby, whether learning or buying magic and not really caring about how the masses perceive it. What I find concerning is the passion (I guess you'd call it that) levelled around online by magicians towards tricks.

I'd love to see more energy put towards caring about what people in the real world believe magic is and the kinds of magic they are paying to see.

Because that's what every successful magician does – that's how hobbyist magicians perform better magic and how pros get better bookings: care about the right audience.

There will be people reading this now, annoyed that we're writing about someone they've never heard about when that person is the highest-grossing magician in Europe and a necessary person to study for anyone who cares about magic.

What matters to magic is not what matters to magicians.

The magic community remains a weird ecosystem, one which we at One Ahead feel a sort of duty to report on to satisfy a base of magicians – when really, (here's our secret) whenever we write about a magic product, it's a bait and switch.

Our story about Christian Grace's Enigma product got us 66 new signups. Welcome, magicians who care about magic products; we hope you stick with us as we tell you less about tricks and much more about magic instead. But we'll throw in the odd tutorials so you don't unsubscribe, we promise.

Onwards and upwards.