The Magic Industry Is An Incubator For Creator/Business Talent

For the first time in my career, I’ve been sharing a project I’m working on with friends outside of magic, and they all seem excited by it. It’s a strange feeling. I’m not used to working on something that does not have a niche target market. Even when I worked for Netflix, not all of my friends and family would usually watch magic TV shows.

More than ever, I’m learning why so many magic industry names eventually leave the industry for bigger things.

This post is not about performing magicians like Derren Brown or David Blaine. This is about magicians who make most of their money selling to other magicians. These are people whose talent extends beyond performing. These humans are good at marketing, product design, presenting, teaching and video editing.

Magic is an excellent incubator for talent. It’s relatively easy for magicians to make a good chunk of money in magic. Especially back when the magic industry relied on the concept of selling secrets.

Back then, the magic industry could really only be compared to the current OnlyFans adult content industry. Magicians were uploading a self-shot video and asking people to pay for the secret. People were paying for the headrush of revealing the secret and the ego boost of being one of the few to have seen it.

Thankfully, we’re almost beyond the trend of selling secrets in magic. This is hugely because the internet blew up. Most of the secrets are online, and most people can find them easily. We’re now on a trend of open secrets, where magic companies are incredibly candid about how a trick works. Instead of buying a secret, you’re currently buying high-quality teaching or a well-produced magic prop.

It’s a good thing we’re not selling secrets. A few years ago, I argued that exposure was bad for the magic industry but good for magic. I thought that if any audience member could google search to find the secret to a trick, it would force all magicians to be better. Instead of relying on the secrets, they’d have to hone their talents and presentation.

Musicians work incredibly hard to hone their skills and become the best in the world at what they do. They must because we’ve all played the piano before or strummed a guitar. Many magicians just do the equivalent of bringing out an instrument no one has seen before and strumming one chord on it. Taaadaa — you haven’t seen this one before, and you don’t know how to play it, but I do, and that is magic.

But the magic industry is a fantastic playground for talent. Look at someone like Luke Oseland. He’s 20. He’s already learned how to manufacture, package, design, film and market a successful product. He has so many skills under his belt, and it was all reasonably accessible to him. He’s worked with retailers and wholesalers and manufacturers, and fulfillers. That is wild.

When you’re in your twenties or early thirties, this is brilliant. It’s like a university. You can play, make mistakes, and it’s all relatively low stakes. The market is right there in front of you, and they’re eager to buy. The magic industry is wild because, for many magicians who treat magic as a hobby, their hobby is buying magic.

My hobby was field hockey for ten years, and I think I bought four hocket sticks in those ten years. I have friends who have magic as their hobby, which doesn't mean they spend hours every week performing or practising sleight of hand. For them, magic is buying magic and learning the secret and putting it in a drawer.

There’s nothing wrong with that being your hobby. Some people buy an insane amount of hot sauce every year. Others collect dolls, and some people buy NFTS and realistic sex dolls.

Magic is sort of just this perfect storm for incubating talent. The problem is that eventually, industry name magicians realise a bigger world exists. It wasn’t long ago when a magician told me how much time they’d spent designing a magic product and investing their savings into it. I looked at them eventually and told them the amount of money, creativity and time they’d spent on this is similar to the amount someone would spend on a toy expecting to sell millions of units. The magician told me they were hoping to sell 300 units to magicians.

It’s not until recently, as I’ve hit 27 (still stupidly young) that I’ve noticed there’s a relatively specific age that these industry name friends leave the magic industry for bigger things. All of the people below I have known since I was a teenager. I’ve watched them all learn, grow, and build a wealth of skills in our industry before bursting beyond. Many of them only leave the industry partly, often just expanding their customer base beyond magicians.

It’s interesting because this isn’t a swipe at the magic industry. I love it for this. Most people keep one foot or toe in the industry. Everyone is grateful to have learned so many valuable skills in an industry small but overwhelming with passionate customers. It’s special.

My advice for anyone working in any industry with a passion for magic is to release a product for magicians or get involved in some way or another. It’s a brilliant place to learn valuable skills. Even writing this newsletter has taught me to embrace the habit of writing. Something I always struggled to do when writing novels.

Chris Ramsay honed his video and social media skills at Murphy’s Magic Supplies and Ellusionist. His consistent, high-quality curious content has led him to become a powerful force on YouTube and Facebook. His videos have amassed billions of views, and he’s a force for good in magic. I’d say more people have watched his content than the magic of Blaine during the last several years.

Pete McKinnon pretty much invented his role over at Ellusionist. His passion for magic found him a playground to refine his videography, video editing, and storytelling skills. The trailers he produced for Ellusionist were big-budget, cinematic and story-driven. He’s now an icon in the video space and has successfully created a huge coffee brand and one of the best-selling backpacks for photographers.

Dan and Dave Buck are incredible. They’re a great lesson in following the signals, iterating on your business, and being prepared to pivot. They took all the lessons they learned producing products, running an online store, fulfilling orders and making social videos, and took it to much larger magic. Their magic brand, Art of Magic, was one of the few that genuinely cared about the art form above everything else. I thought they were mad when they told me they were leaving it to pursue puzzles. They were not mad; they were so so smart.

Magicians will get upset at theory11 for opening up their brand to non-magicians. JB, their ridiculously young founder, has been wise to expand their business to live events, board games and playing cards for movie fans. His products now get stocked in stores across the country. The reach they currently have is insane. Once the home page of magic on the internet for a young Rory who would visit their site daily, I now struggle to recall the last trick they released, and I work with them a bunch.

The magic industry is incredible.

I genuinely believe students should study it in business schools. It’s a beautiful, brilliant playground that I thoroughly recommend you enter. Everything I’ve learned to be able to build this Kickstarter campaign launching next week was from this beautiful world of magic tricks.