talkmagic.co.uk

Anyone do it full time, if so how did you come to do it full time and how do you earn a living for it?

Lots of hard work, advertising, late night practice sessions, stress, stress and oh, did I mention stress?

Up untill recently I had been doing it full time along with discos, you get started doing the odd birthday gig and wedding show while forking out loads of dosh for equipment and bussines cards which you give out to anyone who will take them.

After your first year you start getting bookings and learn on the job how to hook the clients, you also learn your capacity for taking cr*p and rejections and how many 100hr weeks you can do at a stretch.

The second year should see you with a recognisable name and credentials, this is the time to add some charity gigs and hit the council for freebie shows to further increase your profile, its in this year you find out how much mr taxman and mr public liability / performing rights will cost you.

By year three you should be getting regular bookings, be comfortable doing 18 hr days and be actualy making a profit be it ever so humble.
all the time demo'ing magic when your out and about and giving out cards like water, on this note people go for laminated or better still plastic cards, because people will stick your cards in the kitchen draw, through the washing machine or leave them for the kids to play with, you have been warned.

It's hard work and the stress leval can be astronomical like all small bussinesses but can also be highly rewarding, by now you will have found that you have around ten tricks in your arsenal that you perform regularly and are proficient at thease, this is were the work bordom can set in so try to keep the trick fresh by changing the patter and sequence of your tricks to preserve you sanity.

okeydokey a word about the dreaded eater of your funds advertising.
Initially 50% of your budget will be on advertising, don't go for yellow pages or thomson locals they are a colossal waste of money.

You will get 80% of your bookings from word of mouth so get those cards in circulation and do the freebies.

Get a phone book and go through it page by page and ring anyone you think would remotely be interested and offer your services.

Alrighty then pricing.
decide on how much you are willing to accept per week as an income and how many jobs you will be willing to do, divide income by jobs to get your basic price, next hit the phones and ring other magicians and enquire about there prices and services, compare this to your target and adjust accordingly.
consider seting up a dotco.uk website to promote yourself, make up or buy t shirts with your details on them and wear the always, advertise on your car.

beware that the stress levals can seriously effect your health so make sure you have someone you can talk too and have a regular checkup with your gp, don't ignore any early signs as i found out to my cost.

make provision for sick days, no one will be paying you sick pay or holiday pay.

set yourself a goal each week like get three bookings, send out 30 adds etc and a daily goal like practise that turnover thingy, stick a note on your hall mirror that says the buck stops here to keep you motivated, laern to relax and take things as they come.

use this forum to bounce ideas off and to help keep your sanity .

above all remember it takes hard work, money, and lots of time to set up a bussiness and guess who will be doing most of the work

Think I'll just stick to my daytime job.....

magicdiscoman - that's an excellent post! Thanks for taking the time.

A friend of mine - Jacques Le Seuer - has written an excellent book called "Hunter" - which goes into a lot of this stuff as well. It's an excellent book on how to be a pro magician. He's got a whole lot of experience and performed in 37 different countries and is one of the top magicians in SA.

If you want - pm me and I'll give you his details.

Yeah I'm full time too, though only for the last 5 months or so.

1 area I'd disagree with magicdiscoman depending on the type of magic you do Yellow Pages is an excellent investment, but really only for children's parties. Having spoken to many children's entertainers on the issue, most get a lot of work from Yellow pages.

Of course most work will ultimately come from word of mouth, but this only works after you have had work.

If your going to go full time you need to know exactly what it is you want to do, research your market, decide what it is that you have to offer and then go sell yourself. The most successful magicians will be the ones that do the best marketing, so this is critical.

It's often best to build up your business while working a regular job as it can take a while to get your name out there. I've also found it very helpful to work with someone else. This has many advantages as you can pool resources and ideas, it also gives you more flexability in for example dealing with the bigger gigs and frankly is just far more fun.

Children's work is probably the easiest arena to get started in and a big mailshot of an area you want to work within should yield results. Working with schools is another indirect way of getting known.

Restaurants, nightclubs, pubs and hotels are all open to using magicians, if the right ones are approached. Assuming you do a good job then they will usually be a major source of ongoing work.

Ultimately if your dream is to go full time then the answer is to start taking steps towars achieving that goal and before you know it those steps will get you there.

Not sure how relevant this would be in the UK but Scott Guinn has written some great articles over at Online Visions and they're worth reading through to get the view from another working professional. The link is http://www.online-visions.com/pro-files/index.html

On the same site, Kenton Knepper has written a thought provoking article as only he can do it - have a look at http://www.online-visions.com/krystal/0506response.html

I'm glad the reply was usefull i could have gone on to several sections covering pages and pages but what i realy wanted to go into and based on personal experience was stress the hidden killer, ok a bit strong how about disabler.

having had to give up childrens work and take a sabaticle from performing magic due to chronic fatique and the shakes directly related to stress I'm sure glad i made provision for being ill.

a partner idea is a great one, see my signature and there is plenty of texts and help avalable out there on the net and in your humble job center provided you can get around the official secrets act erm sorry thats data protection act, they have some erm secret funds that you may be intitled to even if your working

starting your own small bussiness can be realy rewarding and is well worth considering as an addition to a regular job untill your ready to go it alone and you may be surprised how helpfull your boss can be when you tell him your plans, especialy if he has started from the same vein so to speak.

the most important thing is to do your home work and ask everybody for help your local council for example may be able to give you some exposure working in the local town, free of course, mine was.

ring local entertainers and ask them what you need to start off, most will be very helpfull regards pricing and liscencing and also your local tax office will be more than happy to give your bussiness the once over after all they realy want you to succeeed thease days not just drain you dry.

I would have thought that pricing is a sensitive issue and one which you need to pitch just right. I don't do magic full time but do take regular bookings for which I get paid and I would assume that there are a fair number of us doing this. I don't intend to go full time as I fortunately earn good money from my profession but I don't see anything wrong with earning some extra from my magic.

My point is that I was advised in a friendy and helpful manner about setting the right price for my performances to ensure that I didn't cut or discount too much, as this could have an effect on the earning potential of those who are working full time. I guess that you will not be very popular if you are taking work away from others through undercutting, and their work dries up, or they then have to cut their main source of income.

There should be enough work out there for all of us who want to earn from magic so I guess that we need to be watching each others backs.

the national rule of thumb for the uk is £50 per hour or part thereof, for a private party.
of course it depends on what services you provide, if I'm doing a childrens party in a home 20 kids or less then i charge £100-£150, a club or hall booking starts at £200 and goes up dependant on kid numbers.
coporate bookings start at £150 a session, outdoor bookings / public functions like army days start from £300.

thease prices i have found to be competative for my services and inline with felow performers if I'm wrong please feel free to correct me.