Ever wanted to become a professional magician? The possibility is very real nowadays. If you’re serious about turning magic into your full-time job, you need to learn how to think like a businessperson, and also how to make an informed decision about what you might need to earn in order to make it all work. In this lesson, I’ll look at the practicalities of how to make your living as a magician, and teach you how to work out your ‘magician’s living wage’.
Understanding Your Financial Needs
The first thing to ascertain when determining if you can work as a magician is just how much money you need to live on. Be honest with yourself here but be realistic. What is your life like now? What do you have to spend each month to keep your roof over your head, keep the electricity on and provide the basics of a simple life? How about clothing, transportation costs, eating out, entertainment, insurance, holidays, emergencies?
Estimate those things and add them all up. If you have a partner on whom you depend for some of those things, you will need to take their needs, desires and expenses into account too. Once you know how much you need to spend each month, you can calculate how much you actually need to earn to get by – i.e., cover the necessities. This becomes your basic target salary.
Assessing Your Overhead
One of the reasons why magic can be a good business to pursue is that it can be relatively low-cost in terms of term capital; however, the actual amount of overhead can still be dependent on equipment, travel, marketing, and professional development.
Let’s say you have to buy props, costumes, and travel to gigs. What about all your ongoing expenses, like the cost of business cards, website hosting, and trips to magic-conventions or seminars?
Accurately tabulating overhead enables you to calculate how much additional revenue you need to generate in order to cover these costs and still make a healthy profit.
Finding Your Niche Market
But experienced magicians know that, when starting out, it’s crucial to identify a niche market for your act and target your presentations accordingly. The latter means that the kind of people you aspire to perform for will determine the kinds of work you pursue and the levels you can charge.
What is the gender, age and buying habits of your target market? Who are your main customers – children’s birthday parties, corporate, weddings or theatre? Different markets will have different demands and pricing. What are you offering to address this?
Developing the Right Mindset and Goals
Being a professional magician isn’t just about technical wizardry: it’s about knowing how to cultivate the entrepreneurial, resilient, and never-look-back habits of a small business owner.
Establish small, tangible goals (increase bookings, expand your repertoire, break into new markets, etc.). chart your progress and celebrate your own successes. Learn from your failures. And always try to do a little better.
Exploring Lucrative Opportunities
Although event magic for children’s parties and stage shows does offer the potential for impressive incomes, there are also other, more specialist performances that can bring in very decent money.
Tradeshows or corporate events sometimes hire magicians to wander the floor, performing for attendees and drawing traffic to their booths. Some magicians also serve as keynote speakers, using magic as a tool to talk about creativity, problem-solving and innovation.
So, yes, you can make a living as a professional magician, and although I cannot guarantee that you will make a living at being a professional magician, you can if you want it bad enough and are willing to work hard for it.