A One-Man Magic Marketplace

I’m becoming more and more certain that wealth inequality will continue to worsen at an alarming rate. Billionaires making 80 million dollars a month in passive income will continue to buy up the assets of the middle class and the government.

We’ve all played Monopoly and felt what it’s like to sit around twiddling thumbs as the few dickheads with all the money take everything — well, that’s what’s happening.

Now, I know that’s not the introduction you were expecting to read at the top of a newsletter for magicians, but it’s important context. Every year, I write some sort of prediction about the future of the magic marketplace. I usually tie it to something topical (the topical part is usually quite a stretch).

This year, what’s more topical than the collapse of the middle class?

99.99% of magicians only perform shop bought tricks. If we closely map out the magic product landscape, we’ll be able to reasonably predict the future of magic.

For most magicians, buying magic is their hobby — not performing magic. And that’s totally okay. It has, though, led to a strange fly wheel in which a performing art form is mostly defined by what the non-performers want to buy.

Magic in itself is incredibly niche.

I’ve seen friends spend years of work and life savings producing products in the hopes of selling 300 units. In other industries, that amount of work and investment might result in 300,000 units sold.

It’s the small size of the magic market that’s led magic products to mostly be low-risk, printable-in-small quantity products (stuff the Penguin magic team can print and craft in small batches in the office) — and so, most magic performed around the world are low-risk, printable-in-small-quantity magic tricks.

I think it’s amazing what these companies do — I’m not knocking them. Their ability to carefully excavate businesses that support peoples families in such a niche is amazing.

Imagine if magic products reliably sold 15,000-30,000 units instead of 1,500-3000.

Imagine how much better the products these brands release could be.

Imagine the risks they’d be willing to take, and how much better the magic getting performed around the world might be.

Examining the magic product marketplace is very much worthwhile. This time, it’ll be through the lens of rapidly growing wealth inequality. It may just lead us to only be left with one magic creator: Craig Petty.