Discourse in Magic

This week Jonah is thrilled to connect with the legendary Bill Malone. Whether you watched any of his DVDs or saw him on YouTube as a kid, or don’t know who he is yet, this is going to be an incredible conversation with someone who embodies the very aspect of Discourse in Magic. Bill Malone is one of those guys in magic who basically has it all covered. In sleight of hand, he is absolutely at the top of his game. As an entertainer, he is hilarious. And he’s the most entertaining force with a pack of cards that you’ve ever seen in your life. And in business, he is known as being one of the top paid magicians. This is somebody who is building incredible relationships and giving you the tools. The First Job Bill Malone never thought he would ever perform in front of an audience. He was interested in the techniques and the artistry but not the performance at first. But a mentor encouraged him to apply for a job a bar in Chicago called A Little Bit Of Magic and, after originally lying that he didn’t get the job because he assumed nobody would hire a kid with only six months experience, he started performing in front of live audiences. There he learned on his feet about how long to spend with each audience member, how to perfect his routine, and how to speak to total strangers. Despite scary it was it was sink or swim and if he wanted to swim he had to figure it out quick. Building Relationships Today Bill is one of the highest paid magicians, mostly performing for corporate events for some of the most powerful companies in the world. Of course, that didn’t happen overnight and Bill shares with Jonah the years of bad choices and mistaken strategies he had to navigate before learning how to build trust with clients and grow his business. He’ll offer you some tools to use the next time you’re performing at a party or a corporate event, what language to use, and how to communicate with people from the business world, who expect a certain level of class of presentation, to maximize the potential that they’ll be asking you to perform at their next event. Malone’s Magic Bar Bill also opens up about running Malone’s Magic Bar, a place that, among other things, was also used as a way for Bill to train and mentor magicians that caught his attention. At Malone’s Magic Bar, Bill is not looking for the flashy poses or the best tricks but for the performer who can connect with the audience on a personal level. The best thing you can perfect is how to relax and just talk to the audience member, to walk up to them and communicate in a way that lets people in. As Bill talks about Malone’s Magic Bar you’ll learn more about what he’s looking for in magicians, and it should be no surprise to find out that the actual audition was often not the deciding factor but the ten minutes before and after when you would just be talking to each other. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Charlie Fry. He’s real show business. Lance Pearce. As far as a guy who knows magic, slight of hand, performing, everything, he’s just brilliant. Finally, Steve Forey What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? I do think there’s a lack of. Presentation. And I think it’s because magic is, and there’s nothing wrong with it, but magic is going back towards “it’s all about the trick”. Watch this trick and effect and that’s it. I don’t agree with that. I still think that the magic is in you. It’s what you do that brings you out. I see some beautiful magic. When I saw Derek DelGaudio’s In & Of Itself I thought this is the most unbelievable thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve always known Derek as being a great sleight of hand magician, and he’s always been a good friend, but what he’s done, he’s just gone to another level. Plugs Bill is pretty hard to find online, he doesn’t get on the internet much except for the rare collaboration, but keep your nose out for a book he’s beginning to put together which is going to collect all his stories into one place.

This week we share with you an episode from the Between Dreams podcast with Chris Ruggiero, who recently featured Jonah as a guest. Chris and Jonah have a lot in common as both have shifted from primarily being entertainers to now helping with production and advising other creators. Chris is a legend with a history as a professional juggler and an eye like nobody else, producing a really great show. In this conversation they talk about how Jonah blended his business and magic training and why he chooses the guests he chooses to interview on Discourse in Magic. To find out more about Between Dreams with Chris Ruggiero visit chrisruggiero.com/podcast

This week Jonah offers up three tips to help you boost your magic creative output. Tip 1: Challenge Yourself Jonah is, right now with Ben, participating in a challenge they’ve called the Tarbell Challenge. It is a monthly challenge on YouTube from the Tarbell course in magic. Ben and Jonah take a book a month and come up with a trick from the book. They make it their own and then publish it on YouTube. And the reason why the challenge is so helpful is because they each want to beat each other and come up with a better thing than the other. Because of that, they’re both working very hard. And they know that when the time comes and they’re going to be filming, they don’t want their thing to look not as good as the other’s does Tip 2: Have A Deadline. Most of the magic that Jonah has ever created was because of a deadline. Those periods of a deadline, those periods right before you actually have to present or perform really helps. So if you have an event that you can sign yourself up for an open mic, a public show, a private event that you get booked for. If you can do some sort of gathering, you can even make the event by saying, okay, on this day, I’m doing this, I’m inviting 10 people to be a part of it. And you just fabricate yourself a deadline. The truth is, committing to completing a project before a moment in time allows you to complete that project way faster and way better. We want to get more output out by having more deadlines that we need to complete things by. Tip 3: Collaborate Coming up with things alone is fun, but sharing things with others and getting feedback and trying again is a whole different type of fun. When you’re collaborating, you’re playing, and isn’t that the reason why we all got into magic? There’s something really cool about working on magic with multiple people. You’ve likely got friends who would love to help you and bring them questions, bring them problems to help you solve. And it makes it a lot more fun. If you struggle to create magic, but you want to create magic, then stop doing it alone and invite other people to be a part of the procedure. Not only will you make more, but it’s going to be a ton more fun.   Take The Tarbell Challenge! If you’d like to join Ben and Jonah in the Tarbell Challenge check out the Toronto Magic Company’s YouTube channel by clicking here!

This week we share a segment from the Three Questions with Jake Strong Podcast, in which Jonah was recently a guest on. Jake’s podcast is a simple premise, he asks his guests three questions. That’s it! And in this episode he asked Jonah about the misunderstood aspects of running a magic business, the preparation that goes into interviewing his guests on Discourse in Magic, and his strengths and weaknesses with the Toronto Magic Company. Along with Jonah, Jake has also interviewed Ben Train from the Toronto Magic Company. Be sure to check out more of Three Questions with Jake Strong by visiting threequestionswithjake.podbean.com or subscribing wherever you listen to podcasts.

This week Jonah sits down with Joe Rindfleisch to talk all about rubber band magic and hoe Joe is at the forefront of developing the language used to teach this style of magic and the classic magic he taps into to influence the new tricks he’s developing. “You got sixty bucks”? Originally Joe wasn’t involved in magic at all, but he did meet with friends to play cards and eventually every night would end with someone doing a card trick. When he finally asked how it was done he was told that “a magic trick is told, when a magic trick is sold” and his friend directed him to a magic shop. Pouring over books, Joe found that trick and learned it’s secrets and a few years later was able to perform that trick for the same friend, with a few select changes he learned from classic magic so he wouldn’t know how it was done. Learning From The Classics Joe has earned a reputation, through teaching courses and selling instruction videos, as one of the world’s biggest developers and inventor of rubber band magic. The secret to that success was a decision to approach rubber band magic just like all the other forms of magic. Almost anything you can do with cards or coins you can do with rubber bands and from that you can create a beginning, middle, and end to the routine and evolve rubber band magic from a quick short trick into a full magic routine as robust as any of the other classics. Joe gets into where he finds his inspiration, how he adapts classic coin and card magic into his rubber band routines, and why he’s so fascinated by the potential of rubber band magic. Developing A New Vernacular Developing a whole new branch of magic means coming up with language to describe it. Because rubber band magic has been so underdeveloped it can make it very difficult to write out instructions because all the basic hand motions and positions have to be written out in long form detail that can be hard to visualize in one’s head. Which is why, if you’re like Jonah and other magicians learning rubber band magic today, you have likely only learned a rubber band trick by jamming with another magician in person or watching video instructions. What Joe is setting out to do is create a new vernacular, a new set of words, to describe what is being done in a rubber band trick. By teaching the basic hand positions and motions first and creating a robust foundation he can then move on to more easily, and efficiently, teach more complex rubber band routines. Joe shares with Jonah some of this language and helps describe the terms used to describe those fundamental positions you’ll need to learn if you want to grow your rubber band magic knowledge. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Dr. Cyril Thomas, from France, is a very prolific creator. And Joe loves Marcus Eddie’s magic. He’s just a powerhouse creator. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Lately Joe has been teaching magic through Penguin Magic School and the enthusiasm of his students is making him enthusiastic. What Joe doesn’t like is the proliferation of content creators teaching and sharing magic without crediting the sources. The best way to learn a Joe Rienfliesh rubber band trick is to learn it from Joe Rienfliesh! Plugs Joe has his own site at rubberbandmagic.com All of Joe’s downloads can be found exclusive at Penguin Magic And you are invited to message Joe on Facebook Messenger, he’s always open to chat and answer your questions.

Ben and Jonah are back to get you excited about taking UnConventional.fun beyond the final frontier, that’s right, they’re going to space! Of course we mean virtually, as UnConventional.fun is the premier virtual magic convention and the next one is happening on August 28th and 29th and tickets are still available at UnConventional.fun! In Space No One Can Hear You Sleep The first UnConventional.fun was hosted in a virtual hotel lobby and the 2nd and 3rd events sent attendees to the amusement park adventure zone that was Magic Land but the fourth event Ben and Jonah really wanted to take the gloves off and embrace all the outrageousness that a virtual magic convention can embrace and taken the entire event into outer space. And since it’s happening in space, this means that there are no time zones and no sunsets and no night time or daytime so unlike previous UnConventional.fun events which would end after a certain hour each day this time around, when the convention starts, the events won’t stop until the end of the second day. Don’t worry if you end up sleeping through your favourite lecture though, the entire event is being recorded and everyone who attends will be given videos of the lectures and panels that take place over the two day convention. A Star Studded Event With over twenty-two confirmed guests, including magical luminaries such as Dani DaOrtiz, Garrett Thomas, Daniel Garcia, and Harapan Ong, you’ll be attending a two day event with some of the best magicians on the planet. And all the lectures, panels, and shows will be yours to keep after the event so you can watch and rewatch your favourite moments over and over again.   Prepare For Launch The space station is ready to receive you and all you have to do now is head to UnConventional.fun and buy your tickets

This week Jonah connects with legendary “underground” magician Howard Hamburg. Howard has never been a full time professional magician but at eighty-three years he is a long-standing member of The Magic Castle and considers some of the greatest magicians of our time to be among his closest friends. Howard shares with us his recollections of the heydays of the Magic Castle, how he “got his name” from Dai Vernon, and his advice for today’s magicians. “Well, do you need to see anything more”? Today you might find Howard sitting in Dai Vernon’s old seat at the Magic Castle, and it was The Professor himself who convinced Howard to audition for membership to the Magic Castle in the first place. Howard shares with us his early days with magic, how he learned his first card trick in the backroom of a billiards hall, and how he won over the committee at the Magic Castle to earn his membership. “An Era Where Things Turned” Sitting at Dai Vernon’s table at the Magic Castle gave Howard a front row seat to the heyday of American magic of the 60’s and 70’s and during that time many of the greatest magic legends were just his friends that he spent his time with. Howard shares with us some of his favourite stories of the magic greats pulling pranks on each other and joking around among the halls of the Magic Castle as well as some of his own antics. As Howard puts it, he was the second biggest troublemaker at the Magic Castle (The Professor was the biggest). “Think Like A Spectator” Howard Hamburg has seen the world of Magic change over the years and from his front seat perspective on magic history his biggest advice for today’s magicians is to think like a spectator, not like a magician. Howard says, “If they stop thinking like a magician and start thinking like what the spectator is seeing then they will find themselves doing better magic”. Wrap-Up Endless Chain I’d love to really think this out and get back to you. There’s so many guys out there that are just wonderful, really. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? I liked the creativity that I see, the wonderful creative initiative of wonderful things out there right now. I’m talking about techniques and subtleties. I think there’s more of that coming back. Instead of just the trick, I think, people are seeing that there are things that are in between the lines of that structure, that little subtleties make the effect, the effect doesn’t make the subtleties. I don’t like the internet or YouTube and I think it’s very harmful to magic. Take home point Stop thinking like a magician and start thinking more along the lines of a spectator. Also, pick up a book once in a while. Plugs Howard Hamburg still operates underground. When the world re-opens after the pandemic you might get lucky and catch him sitting at Dai Vernon’s seat at the Magic Castle and if you listen to the end of this episode Howard will share with you his personal e-mail that you can reach him at, but to preserve his well earned mystery, and to hide it from bots that might scan this text, we won’t be printing it here.

This week Jonah connects with Helder Guimarães, a prolific magician known for bending the expectations of what a magic show is capable of. In this episode they’ll discuss how to balance the artistic and the logical sides of your performances, why Helder requests that those who purchase his material not perform them on TV or online, and how he directed his love of performance and creation towards the past year of pandemic-era virtual performances. A Live Show Like No Other If you were lucky enough to get a ticket to one of Helder’s shows you might have found yourself outside a convenience store with your ticket in hand and a confused store clerk assuring you that there is no show at this address but he can at least offer you a memory. And as he led you into the photo booth and the secret door opened up to a hidden room where Helder was waiting to perform a one hour set with you you might realize that this person likes to upend your expectations about what is possible with a magic show.   Helder opens up about the work that went into his immersive production of Borrowed Time and what it took to assemble the right team that brought it all together. Embracing The Mystery of Theatre Helder magic career really took off after his FISM win in 2006. But that win almost never happened because the panel of judges truly believed he had cheated, rather than simply fooled them, by using a stooge in his act. His performance was just too impossible and the judges couldn’t figure out how he pulled it off without cheating. Jonah and Helder talk about that act and break down some of Helder’s thoughts on the importance of disguising the method. Going Virtual   A global pandemic shutting down all live performances on the planet wasn’t going to slow down Helder either. He shares with Jonah his process of putting together another truly unique show with The Geffen Playhouse, called The Present, in which members of the virtual audience are sent objects that they use during the show so that the magic is literally in their hands. Helder shares what it was like to produce a show in lockdown and finally break out a concept he had been considering for a long time but never had the right environment to test it out in. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Bill Goodwin is an amazing person, amazing friend with a lot of knowledge of a great era in magic. He met all those great card guys. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? One of the things that it’s both positive and negative is that I do believe that magic is not yet developed as a performing art as it can be. I think there is a lack of depth in what magic is still today. But that’s a positive thing at the same time, because it allows us to be able to explore that. There is a lot of things we can do to create new magical experiences and to create new ways of audiences to feel impossible moments and at that point it becomes something positive. One of the things I like about magic right now is the possibility of seeing diversity much more than when I started. When I started, the only things you could see or read were the videos that these big names produced or the books or the people around you or you had to travel and you’re still always going to be limited. Now you can talk with friends in Japan and then they can share things that happened there. That’s amazing, that the idea that that diversity exists and it’s more attainable, that is something really powerful. Used correctly, I think it can be of great advantage for everyone. One negative thing would be the lack of criteria of publishing magic these days. I think a lot of things get to the press or to videos or to whatever medium they are using to sell before people really think through what they are putting out. It’s almost like people have ideas and two months later they publish it. And I feel that magic has much more to gain with each people keeping their secrets a little bit more. Nourishing them. And when it comes to the right moment that they will feel it to then publish because that will have a little bit more of that depth as well. Take home point Something that took me a long time to learn and that I do believe it’s the essence of magic. From the creative point of view. And the way I like to think about magic is of self-expression, that’s what we are creating. I would say that being honest is the best thing they can do in every single thing. Be honest when working on it, be honest when sharing it, be honest when receiving criticism, be honest with yourself, be your own self critic. The worst comments should be yours after a performance. Plugs For magicians, Secret Language is still available and if you visit secretmagic.com there will be a password hint. It’s very easy for people who know a little bit about magic and once in you can get a lot of Helder’s releases through the website. For everyone else interested in Helder’s performances you can follow him o

Ben Train returns to harass Jonah for another update from the Toronto Magic Company. This week they discuss the winding down of virtual shows, what their first live show post-pandemic was like, how they’re planning for the future of in-person shows, how they’re consulting for other businesses, and how much fun they’re having the new teleprompter they purchased! Are Virtual Events Dying Down? The story seems to be the same for every magician, virtual shows are winding down. Even for the Toronto Magic Company, Jonah and Ben have noticed a dramatic decline in bookings for virtual shows. Does this mean the end of virtual magic? Is this a harbinger of the return of regular in-person shows? Jonah and Ben discuss the exciting possibilities and remind each other what they’ve loved and learn from a year of virtual performances. First Live Show Back Ben and Jonah are also just back from their first live in-person show since the start of the pandemic, and it was a bachelorette party. The guys share their thoughts on what it was like to be back to in person shows and how different it feels from before. They also open up about their plans for the eventual return of in-person shows in the near future and how they’re both learning what sort of events they want to accept and which events they’ll be more comfortable turning down. Consulting and Youtube Content On top of the return to in-person events, Jonah and Ben have also been consulting on a bunch of different projects including TV shows, VR, music videos, and even helping to design a wedding proposal! Over the past couple of years, Jonah and Ben have worked to help solve magic problems with magicians and now they’re excited to begin working with movies or television shows to help their projects and really extend their problem solving abilities. Stay tuned to find out more about the projects they’re involved with!   And the return of in-person events doesn’t mean that things will be slowing down for Jonah and Ben on their online platforms. The Toronto Magic Company continues to produce new content on their Youtube channel and need your feedback to know what you like. They’ve tried vlogging but also scripted shows and sketches and, as you might expect, Jonah and Ben have differing opinions about what sort of content they should focus on in the future. So make sure you weigh in and leave a comment at youtube.com/torontomagiccompany

This week Jonah shares with you six tools that will make working with your team easier as you expand your magic business. #1: Slack Slack documents your conversations. How many times have you communicated with a freelancer in an email thread that goes on and on and on and on, or have you shared information and you have to go and dig through it. Slack makes that communication a little bit easier, a little bit more searchable, and is a nice place to communicate with your team that is outside of email, outside of Facebook, outside of everything. With Slack, if you have multiple team members, then they all may have conversations with you and you may have conversations with other individuals, and they may have conversations with each other. For Jonath, that’s been a real lifesaver. Slack has a nice place to put everything to organize your work communications. #2: Asana With Asana, you can have a project within a project. You can have tasks and within those tasks you can have sub tasks. You can even have recurring tasks. You’ve got a place to track everything, and it really makes it simple because now you don’t have to dig through email or slack or anything else like that. You can set goals, you can set deadlines, you can do tons inside of Asana. Jonah uses it completely entirely for free, and it really is a game changer and it gets you out of a long thread to give tasks and into a really easy place to write out tasks, communicate about tasks, add people, and manage people on task. So if there’s one person doing something, you send it to them. If there’s multiple people and it’s all visible, it’s really effective. Jonah found this probably doubled or tripled the amount of work that he was able to do with his team, just because it was clear and organized and not very hard to learn. #3: Loom Loom is a screen or camera recorder that takes that file and immediately puts it in a folder on the web and gives you a link that you can share. It takes so long to record a video on your camera, upload it to a drive, and then send that drive link to someone. Same thing when you send some sort of screen recording, some sort of tutorial that also takes a long time, you have to save to your computer. And it’s usually a ginormous file. Loom makes the whole process of recording yourself, recording your computer or recording yourself and your computer at the same time really, really easy. #4: Google Drive Google Drive is really important. Once you’re using a team that is going to be sharing files back and forth, you don’t want to just send a file that’s going to disappear. You want the space, and it’s really important to potentially pay Dropbox or Google Drive to get that couple hundred gigs or maybe terabytes of cloud storage to be able to put your photos or videos or projects or anything else like that. If you have to go and upload from your hard drive, photos or videos, every time you have a new project, it’s going to slow you down working with your team. If you’re working with your team, if you’re writing things together, if you’re creating videos together, creating documents together, graphics together, anything, then you probably want to invest in some sort of cloud storage. #5: Zoom Zoom! Zoom is important to have meetings. And, as time goes on, we are going to have teams that are more and more global and it’s nice to be able to share your screen and also see each other and all that good stuff. You know Zoom, you just experienced a pandemic. So you know all about Zoom, but it really is that important. If you don’t use Zoom, you can use Skype or another platform that you like to use but Zoom did a really good job and Jonah pays for it because he does virtual shows and it’s pretty good for his team. Jonah even pays for the recordings because it’s great to have the recordings of things that you teach to your team and you may want to use it later. #6: LastPass You need some sort of password manager and password sharer. Instead of you giving your team members your password to log into your Zoom account to grab a recording, you share with them the LastPass link. They click that link and it fills in the form and they don’t even see what the password is. So they’re able to use any usernames and passwords that you have and log in from wherever they are. It’s so easy for LastPass. And at a low price point it’s very reasonable to manage all of Jonah’s passwords to make it easy to share with team members. Upgrade Your Business Jonah would love to know what software you use with your team. Was there one that he forgot here that you use? Do you think one of the ones that you use is a better version of something that we have here? And if you are growing your team and want help growing your magic business then send an email to [email protected] with the subject “Upgrade” and Jonah will get you som

This week Jonah connects with Ekat, an incredible magician, youtuber, cardist, and so much more. Together they’ll talk about creating content online, the difficulty in marketing magic, and the challenges that come up when trying to ethically review magic products. You Gotta Join The Circus Ekat was first introduced to magic while still living in Russia, where her favourite place was visiting the circus. Mesmerized by a magician who was performing for attendees waiting in the line, her first question to him was, “how did you do that”? The magician told her that if she wanted to learn how she’d have to join the circus. She didn’t join the circus but she did take to heart the lesson to take control, seek out, and teach herself the secrets of magic. To Review or Not To Review Ekat has made a name for herself on Youtube as a reviewer of magic products. Together, she and Jonah talk about her process of choosing which products to review, how she reviews them, and the ethical questions she has to ask herself when deciding to review magic products in the first place since even talking about them in a critical way can annoy members of the community who would rather these discussions be kept out of the public. Similarly, Ekat got started on Youtube by documenting her journey learning different magic tricks and teaching them to her viewers. So what tricks does she teach, and under what circumstances would she choose not to give a tutorial? Hint, the answer is in whether or not the trick is old and universal vs one that is still being actively marketed by a living creator. Read The Comments? Given that Ekat is on Youtube, and sometimes stirring up controversy by simply talking about how some tricks are done or reviewing products and sharing honest critiques, it’s no surprise that the comments from some in the community can be harsh. Ekat will share her thoughts on how to handle criticism online, how to navigate it as a business owner where you don’t have a choice about whether or not to post content if you want to stay in business, and the lessons she’s learned facing her harshest critics. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Bao. It’s really unique what he does with TikTok, and he understood the whole influencer marketing thing with his videos with milk. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? I really like all of the development with magic apps. Technology has to evolve and the more advanced it is the more it does feel like magic. I love that it’s evolving. I hope to see more seamless integration with technology One thing that I don’t like it is that there are too many things being released right now. It’s become too much of a market releasing things without quality. It’s too much of a machine. Take home point I would say, you have to do what you love. If you don’t like creating content, don’t create content! Try to find a way to marry what you like with your magic. Plugs Ekat’s Youtube channel is the center of where they create content: youtube.com/user/babycatxd You can also slide into Ekat’s DMs on Instagram with your questions: @ekatmagic And keep an eye out for Ekat’s Penguin Magic Lecture.

This week Jonah connects with Cody Clark to talk about his sensory sensitivity shows for autistic audiences, performing with autism, and the obstacles that still remain in the magic community for minority and disabled performers. Won Over By Magic Cody shares with us the story of his autism diagnosis and the choices his parents made at the time to not subject him to harmful treatments but instead continue to offer him the same opportunities that his neurotypical siblings were being offered. As he grew up he wanted to lean heavily into the arts or sports but both proved to be full of challenging barriers. That was until he attended a magic performance where he was invited onstage to help saw another audience member in half. Here he found something he could do. He immediately purchased his first magic kit and joined up with a local magic club. Overcoming Barriers As an austic performer, Cody is passionate about ensuring this shows are accessible to all audiences and provides unique sensory sensitivity shows where other autistic people can enjoy the magic without loud noises, like having a focus on silk magic. From there, Cody has found a niche in the fringe festival circuit where he’s carved out a space for himself. However he shares with Jonah the continued barriers he faces in simply working with his market to be fairly paid for his work in a world that systemically undervalues disabled people and still allows for disabled workers to be paid below minimum wage in many countries, including the US. Embracing Passion Cody will share how a love of trains, a love of old school country music, and a love of magic have all combined to form his stage personas and offers advice to other performers on how to step out of their comfort and ask for advice or help when they need it. It’s been Cody’s experience that there is no better community to ask for him than in the magic community. Wrap-Up Endless Chain There was one mentor of mine I’ve been saving for this moment. I consciously did not mention them in other moments because I wanted to bring them up now. The big unsung hero of magic, the person who’s given me stage time and so many other stage time through indie magic, monthly, and also a transgender magician who does magic as Rodney The Younger, who does magic as Andrea Merlin, Queen of Magic,. Taylor Martin,. They’ve been a professional magician for about 60 years. Based in Indianapolis and they are an unsung hero because they weren’t necessarily, well, they knew they were trans of course, but, they weren’t necessarily intentionally, like, I’m going to break barriers here, here, and here, like even I was. Instead, they just needed to make a living in this world and how they’ve dealt with the hurdles from places like the Magic Castle of all places. That’s up to Taylor if they want to elaborate, but they had the best Magic Castle rejection story I’ve heard, I will say that. What about all these barriers, how Taylor’s toppled these barriers has been so inspiring to me and that Taylor’s characters are why I have Conductor Cody, why I have Nudie Suit Cody and why I have just Plain Suit Cody. The whole character thing comes from Taylor. What do you like about modern magic? To compare the things I like I will compare two hobbies, one that I left when I got into magic, and then of course magic. I’m into toy trains, especially Lionel Trains. When I left trains and got into magic, both hobbies were the exact same, old white guy hobbies who were dated. One hobby has since evolved and is currently publicly relevant. The other has stayed dying. Guess which is which. Magic has listened to those critiques, magic has figured out how to evolve, how to be relevant, how to invent new ecosystems, to learn magic, how to get people exposed into it whilst retaining its core charm about what magic is. Where toy trains have continued the descent downward. And they literally think, “oh, just make it operable on your iPhone. That will get kids in”. Where really, that’s just a bandaid on a larger problem with that industry. Where magic for all the faults that still has, it is now a relevant part of the ecosphere again. It’s gone from people being bullied for being a magician to people being celebrated for being a magician. That’s the big thing I like about magic a lot. What do you not like? I think there’s a lot of throwing the baby out with the bathwater in magic right now, because there is a lot about old white guy magic that needs to die. But at the same time, a lot of it’s still good material. Those L&L DVD still have a lot of gems. The elders are still in the magic club, the elders are still at the magic conventions. There are still great people with great advice. But yet, I feel like we’re too eager to abandon those old routines. In my professional career, I consider myself like the country singer Emmylou Harris. I

This week Jonah connects with John Gaspard and Jim Cunningham, the minds behind Sunday Night Magic and the Eli Marks series of mystery novels. Together they talk about creating content adjacent to magic and the joy of creating works that are not intended to make any money. Neither Jim or John identify as working magicians, but they both share a profound love the art form and have each found unique ways to get involved in the magic community using the strengths that they each possess proving that even if you’re not a working magician you can still contribute and help grow the magic community, even when creating magic adjacent content. Sunday Night Magic When John Gaspard wanted to start writing with magic as a focus in his mysteries he needed to learn how magic worked. In Minneapolis he met Suzanne who agreed to give John lessons in magic. Soon after a friendship struck up and an idea was proposed to create a monthly event where magicians would be invited to give a lecture and perform for a public audience. John brought Jim Cunningham on board because of his connections in the magic community and his experience as an MC and with their combined talents Sunday Night Magic was born. Eli Marks Mysteries Of course, Sunday Night Magic was just a side effect of John’s efforts to create a mystery novel centred around magic in an authentic way. He has always put in a lot of work to ensure that his central character, Eli Marks, thinks and behaves like a real working magician and nothing bugs him more than when authors write about a specific field without doing their research. One of his favourite highlights, that he recounts for us, is receiving feedback from Teller himself after reading The Linking Rings and saying that the book really got all the details right. Currently John has seven books available in the Eli Marks Mystery series, with an eighth on the way, and if you listen to the audiobooks you’ll be hearing the voice of Jim Cunningham narrating the novels. Behind the Page To help promote the books, and get to know more about the inspirations behind the tricks featured in each mystery, John and Jim has also started up the Behind the Page: The Eli Marks Podcast. Where they not only offer up behind the scenes conversations behind each book in the series but also interview the magicians whose tricks they feature in the novels. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Jeff Atlman. You might think you don’t know him but you do. He’s a prolific comedian and actor who has now moved back into magic in his semi-retirement. Jay Johnson is a ventriloquist who was a great friend of Harry Anderson who is insightful and funny and has a billion stories about magic and performing. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? John really enjoys Fools Us and how they are presenting, and respecting, magic. Jim really likes how artistic and dramatic the magic artform is becoming and no longer relying solely on comedy and spectacle. Seeing magic presented as a theatrcial event that can rock your world is really special. John doesn’t like seeing performers running on auto-pilot and are no longer critically analyzing their performances. It’s not fun to watch. Jim doesn’t like that it is still very hard for many local communities to be exposed to live magic. If you don’t live near the right city or can travel to the right location you might never be exposed to really wonderful local live acts. Take home point Just say yes and don’t worry about things being money makers. Be open to try new projects. And magic is such a cool artform and you don’t have to perform to love it and enjoy it. Plugs Sunday Night Magic can be found on facebook at facebook.com/sundaynightmagic All things Eli Marks can be found at elimarksmysteries.com Jim Cunningham also performs each year at The Phantom’s Feast which you can learn more about by visiting trailofterrormn.com/phantoms

Jonah is back with Ben Train with the Toronto Magic Company to ask him questions about how they’re handling the virtual slowdown during the summer, how they’re preparing for the future of Unconventional.fun, and what tools they’re using to run their business and coordinate with their growing team. The Virtual Slowdown Jonah and Ben share their feelings for the future. Will there be a future for virtual shows even after the world re-opens and returns to normal? Will some people want to keep booking and hosting virtual gigs? What about a hybrid model where you might do some in-person gigs mixed with virtual entertainment? Learning At Home Ben and Jonah have had to adjust a lot after working from home for a year. How has Ben’s lifestyle and priorities changed? As things slowly go back to normal not everyone is hoping it will return to normal. So many people have adjusted to working from home and many may want to keep working from home going forward, and that means there’s still a future for virtual events. Tools To Run Your Business Learning to run your business from home after a year we’ve just had has meant finding new tools. Ben and Jonah will recommend some of their favourite organization tools they’ve used to run the Toronto Magic Company, especially as they’ve had to expand the company in the past year and bring more people onto the team. The Future of Unconventional.fun Ben and Jonah are currently planning the next convention and today they’ll pull back the curtain on how they plan the convention and process involved in scouting and booking guests for the show. There’s also still time to sign up for future Unconventional.fun events by visiting Unconventional.fun!

This week Jonah connects with Peter Samelson where he offers up three questions we can ask ourselves to make our magic scripts better. Something Theatre Couldn’t Do Peter Samelson originally focused on theatre with an intention to do something with his life that was worthwhile and mattered. After training to become an actor and moving to New York to make an impact in the theatre scene he realized he was going to struggle to make that impact. At first he was fed up with magic, mostly because he wasn’t attracted to the primary focus of deceiving or fooling people, but once he moved to New York and began seeing how magic could impact a theatre audience and the difference it could make to the theatre scene he began to view magic in a new light. With magic, he had an opportunity to reach people in ways that many people in theatre couldn’t do. Magic As A Moving Image Peter also offers up a master class in dissecting your script. He explains about the images of magic. Magic is a real-time moving three-dimensional image. It almost doesn’t matter what the script is around it, the image has a potency. In a script you need to not only have imagery but imagery that is not just personal imagery, you need universal imagery. Three Questions The best way to approach any bit of magic that you’re trying to find a script for is to ask yourself these three questions. Why, what, and who. Why am I doing this and why should anybody care about this? What is this about and what would it look like if it was real magic. Finally, who is your audience and who are you in relationship to them? Wrap-Up Endless Chain Christian Cagigal or Todd Robbins What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Peter likes the fact that the focus on social media and on online performances has led to an exposure and driven magic forward to develop new effects and new solutions to problems. Peter doesn’t like the idea that just publishing something doesn’t give you the right to perform it. There’s been a back on forth discussion on performance rights. Peter is of the mind that if you are publishing a book that the understanding of it is that the person who picks up that book is going to use it. Take home point Keep asking yourself why. Why are you doing this trick? Why are you doing this routine? And, more importantly, why should anybody care? Plugs You can find Peter on Facebook (facebook.com/peter.samelson) and Instagram (@samelsonmagic) and on his website at Samelsonmagic.com   Jonah also recommends a wonderful masterclass on vanishing ink that you can find out by visiting vanishingincmagic.com/magician/Peter-Samelson

This week Jonah connects with Doc Dixon to talk about comedy in magic and the work that goes into getting those laughs. If you’ve been in magic for a while then you definitely know the name Doc Dixon. He is a creator, a thinker, a performer, and a worker. He has appeared on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us twice (and fooled them once!) and you’ve probably seen him at a convention or you’ve seen something he has come up with. In this interview, we learn about what he loves to do. We talk about being a worker, we talk about writing, we talk about creating magic, and so much more. Comedy Is Simple, Deception Is Hard Making magic funny is pretty simple for Doc Dixon. Did they laugh? If they didn’t, then it’s not funny! Doc Dixon talks about how he builds jokes into his routines and how he discovers where the laughs will be from audiences on virtual performances to making Teller laugh out loud on Fool Us. Do Good Magic Throughout his career, Doc Dixon has set out to do one thing. Do good magic. He’s a big believer that it’s not about the number of tricks you can squeeze into a performance but that it’s more important to know your timing and understand how long new tricks will take up in your act vs old tricks where the routine has accumulated jokes over time, “like barnacles on a ship”. Understanding your routine, it’s timing, and where the personality lies in your performance will always be more important than the number of tricks you have at your disposal. Never Too Late When the pandemic hit and every live show in the world was cancelled, Doc Dixon thought he could wait it out. And he kept waiting. And waiting. And pretty soon he was worried he had waited too long. So he reached out to Jonah and the Toronto Magic Company and signed up for the Upgrade Academy to polish up his business skills and launch his virtual magic business. He learned how to market his show as well as learned who to market to, as he soon learned that the audiences that attend virtual shows are different than the audiences that did, and soon will again, attend live in-person shows. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Charlie Frye. He’s great at magic. He’s a great juggler. He’s a great artist. And he’s a kind person… he’s gotta be a serial killer! (Doc Dixon clarifies that he’s joking). What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? It used to be that everything about magic was clouded in secrecy like a secret society. Now the information is available to everyone to learn and share, even if you have you weed through a lot of useless information. It’s sad to see performers that expose tricks just for youtube hits. Take home point If you want to have a piece that’s really good, you don’t have to keep looking for new magic. Take that piece you’ve been doing a long time and focus on it and work it. The jokes, the comedy, the bits, are going to expand while it gets smaller in some weird wonderful way. You’re going to take out the dead weight and you’re going to put on new stuff. Plugs Dixonmagic.com where you can also follow Doc’s latest blog post. If you’d like to stay informed on Doc’s upcoming writing projects, the best thing to do is subscribe to his newsletter at dixonmagic.com/contact where you’ll also be included in special messages that he only shares with those who subscribe.

This week Jonah shares three success stories from the Upgrade Academy. If you want to super-charge your magic business and equip yourself with the skills and knowledge you need to host successful virtual shows you can sign up for the Upgrade Academy by visiting discourseinmagic.com/upgrade Case Study 1: Doc Dixon Doc Dixon is well known, you might have already seen him on Fool Us, and is absolutely incredible. But he was very nervous about getting into running a virtual business. Which is understandable! There’s no way to know, when you invest in a new project, how it’s going to pan out. So Jonah told Doc Dixon about his two-week guarantee, which means you can try everything in the program and, if it doesn’t work for you, you can get a full refund and some tacos from Jonah so that even if you didn’t get anything from the program you at least get to walk away with some tacos. Doc Dixon ended up with amazing results and while he never got those tacos he does believe that the Upgrade Academy was worth every dollar. Case Study 2: Durgy Spade Before the Pandemic, Durgy Spade was making his income through performing and MCing at weddings. He’s arguably the best in the biz at what he does. And then, all at once, all of his infrastructure vanished. With no more big giant weddings, Durgy needed to reinvent himself. He needed to find a new way to get the magic going and he waited, and waited, and waited, and worried he had waited too long. But he decided to go for it and joined Upgrade Academy to get the wheels moving with incredible results. Case Study 3: Chris Wall Over the course of the past twelve months, Chris Wall has gone through a phenomenal transition. When the pandemic began he had a website with a handful of photos and nobody was booking him, which is probably a situation that many magicians can relate to. Over the last twelve months Chris has participated in many different Upgrade Academy programs and has gone from growing his business to now being a part of the Mastermind program, trying to scale his business past making three to five thousand dollars per month. Chris will share with you some of the biggest difference makers that you can steal. Upgrade Your Magic Business If you want to work with Jonah and find out how he can help you add three to five thousand dollars per month in virtual magic income, or in in-person magic income, then go to discourseinmagic.com/upgrade. In June, Jonah will be doing some live sessions all about the transition back to in-person performances. UnConventional.fun Is Coming Up! The two-day eight-bit video game virtual magic convention is happening May 29th and 30th and you can grab your tickets to return to Magic Land at UnConventional.fun

This week Jonah connects with Chris Cox to discuss his unique brand of mentalism, what it’s been like to go from touring every day to virtual shows at home, and why he loves magic but doesn’t find magic very interesting. Chis Cox is a mentalist who has performed on Broadway and on the BBC and toured as “The Mentalist” in the Illusionists. He’s also spent the past year crushing it in virtual shows, after thinking he would pass on it and enjoy the break after his grueling non-stop touring schedule was abruptly cancelled along with everything else. Always A Performer Chris has always been a performer and has always had a love for theatre. Unfortunately for him he can’t sing, can’t dance, and wasn’t funny enough for stand up. But he always loved magic and in his early teens discovered mentalism and realized instantly that this was the thing for him, as mentalism was all performance. Loves Theatre More Than Magic A lot of people love magic and have no desire to be on TV or perform in front of a large audience. Chris is not those people. He loves theatre more than he loves magic and that has informed his presentation throughout his career. Watching a great play inspires him and investigating why it connects to him informs his thinking about everything he does. Consuming all kinds of theatre can inform you so much more about how the magic happens than watching the same tricks performed the same way over and over again. The goal is the performance and the presentation. Happiest on Stage Chris is happiest on stage. He loves it, it’s exhausting, and he misses it terribly. When the pandemic started Chris avoided adopting any kind of virtual show performance. He was burnt out from two years of touring and thought he could just wait it out. Eventually it got to the point where he couldn’t avoid it anymore and he found his background in radio helped get him excited about virtual show producing. Since launching his virtual shows he’s learned lots of lessons about what to exploit and how to make it fun with his audiences. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Here comes a list of people that Chris gets a lot from when he talks to them: – Mark Cailen Mark Kalin Jonathan Goodwin Andy Nyman Tyler Wilson Noel Qualter Young & Strange And also Paul Dabek! What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? What they like What they don’t like Take home point Who you are now isn’t who you were or who you are going to be but who you are now is what you’ve got to work with. Finding out who you are as a performer is more important than anything else. Plugs Everything Chris Cox can be found at MagicCox.com Or Facebook at facebook.com/ilovecox Or Twitter @bigcox And also, fingers crossed, Wonderment will be returning soon to the London West End and if you are able to attend you should drop Chris a message and let him know so you can say hi from a safe distance.

Ben and Jonah are back with the latest from the Toronto Magic Company. This week they’re returning to MagicLand and they want you to return with them. UnConventional.fun is returning for its third convention, Return To MagicLand, and is happening May 29th and 30th. New Experiences If you’ve been to previous UnConventional.fun events you’ll be excited to hear that Ben has been spending the last three months building up MagicLand to be even more immersive with more secret rooms and puzzles that will allow attendees to work together to unlock real-world prizes. And if this is your first time you’ll be able to log in and hang out with magicians from around the world, where you can attend lectures and also walk around a virtual magic themed amusement park and meet with other attendees and jam with them just like you would at an in-person magic convention in the real-world. Exciting Events and Headline Lectures Make sure to visit UnConventional.fun to see the complete list of all the amazing guests who will be appearing at Return To MagicLand. On top of the lectures, Ben has been working closely with Kevin Ho to create The Museum of Cardistry to show off the most beautiful creations in cardistry. If you’re a fellow cardist you’ll be able to appreciate all the hard work that Kevin has put into curating this special event and if you’re unfamiliar with cardistry you’re going to have your mind blown by the exhibits on display. Get Your Tickets Now There’s still time to get your tickets to UnConventional.fun: Return To MagicLand and Jonah is very excited to see this event grow and bring in more magicians to form an engaging community sharing their love for magic and virtual magic events. Find out more by visiting UnCovnentional.fun

This week Jonah connects with Trigg Watson where they break down how he quit his corporate job to perform in magic full time, how he developed his reputation as the “tech magician”, and his advice for you when developing magic for a video camera lens. The Perfect Vessel Trigg was four years old when one of his friends performed magic for him for the first time. He doesn’t remember what the trick was, only that a mint disappeared in his hands and that experience stuck with him ever since. Trigg always enjoyed making stuff and a lot of preparation and learning magic means a lot of arts and crafts and constructing your own equipment and so magic became the perfect vessel for his love of performance and his love of creation. Starting With The Backup First Trigg has always lived in two worlds, with his more academic side conflicting with his creativity edgy side. Being both a business and a theatre major in college meant that he was having to be wearing a tie in one moment to putting on leotards in the next. Finally Trigg decided it would be easier for him to do his backup job first. So he left magic behind and went into becoming a business consultant. Starting with his backup job first meant that when he was finally in a position to quit his corporate life and move into magic full time he wouldn’t have his backup anymore to fall into, it would be a total commitment with no room for error. It also meant that he had spent years developing professional relationships with key people in the corporate world who know very well his charisma and his personality and even before he was a full time magician Trigg would always make sure to work in his theatre training into his presentations and networking so that he would always leave an impression in the minds of the people he met. Finding His Place Trigg is keenly aware that the best magicians have a unique angle and a persona that is very definable. And being a comedic nice-guy magician was very hard to define. They all wore the same smiles, and the same sports coat, and were all kind of fun but it was hard to distinguish one from the other. But one strength Trigg has always had is being able to see into the modern world and notice trends and potentials and his years spent in the corporate world meant that when he first saw an iPad he immediately saw the potential it represented for unique and refreshing new takes on magic. Recognizing his talent for working with modern equipment he doubled down to market himself as the “tech magician” which has set himself apart from his contemporaries and allowed him to continue his craft with his love of crafting. Advice For Magicians Trigg will share with you some of his advice for performing on TV, or in front of a camera lens, and some of the lessons he’s learned about how different magic is when it’s performed in front of a camera. The camera looks at magic differently and it’s really tough to learn but just throwing yourself in front of a camera and trying to figure it out. Trigg’s biggest advice for aspiring magicians who want to know what it takes to perform on TV is to find someone who is already performing in front of a camera and support them and help them create content. On top of learning how to perform in front of a camera Trigg also strongly believes every magician could work more to learn how to be more engaging and dramatic actors. Having acting training is the one key element that Trigg can point to for his success. Understanding the importance of a script and creating emotionally engaging moments is what will hit your audiences powerfully. Acting is about listening and responding. It’s not about just showing your emotions but being affected by people that those emotions manifest. Acting makes you more present and more of a listener and that makes you seem more real. And that’s really good because it covers up the fact that we’re also lying. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Stewart Macleod What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? I love that I can create magic moments for people that aren’t in the same room as me. I don’t like how hard it is to create authentic moments of astonishment and control people’s focus. Take home point If we can just listen to our audience and be more present then that will take our magic further than any trick we could buy. Plugs You can find Trigg on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and many other locations @TriggWatson

Ben Train returns to join Jonah in another check in with the Toronto Magic Company where they discuss the changing dynamics of the magic industry during the pandemic, the launch of their YouTube programming, and their fears about the future of virtual magic. The Plateau The global pandemic changed everything when it came to live events for magic and Ben and Jonah break down the different stages that they’ve observed the magic community going through since the start of the pandemic. First there was panic, then followed optimism, and finally opportunity. And as magic has, by and large, shifted to virtual events they’re noticing another stage creeping in. The plateau. At first, virtual magic was new and untested and there was a lot of anxiety mixed with anticipation. Nobody had attempted stuff like this before! Now one year later you might be performing seven shows in a row every single day and with that routine comes a restless sort of boredom and a sense of being stuck in auto-pilot. What Ben and Jonah talk about is how they throw each other “for a loop” to change things up and keep their performances fresh, if only just for themselves, so that they don’t fall into the trappings of routine and everyone gets more accustomed to virtual shows becoming the new normal. Take The Tarbell Challenge Ben and Jonah have also launched their YouTube channel where they’ve started documenting more of their work and putting on fun shows and testing out new ideas. One of those ideas has been the Tarbell Challenge, where they each challenge the other to go through one of the Tarbell magic books and learn a trick from it and see who wins in a faceoff against each other. It’s been a lot of fun and because the Tarbell books are all in the public domain you can easily get a copy for yourself online and join Ben and Jonah in the Tarbell Challenge yourself! Unconventional.pass Hot off the heels of Unconventional.fun: Magic Land, Ben and Jonah have since announced three more Unconventional.fun events happening in 2021, with the next one coming up in May. You can also upgrade your experience by signing up for the Unconventional.pass where Ben and Jonah promise that you will be able to play Magic Land like it’s a real video game complete with points and prizes. Snag your pass now and check out the Unconventional.fun site for all the details on the events happening and the guests who are attending. The Future of Virtual Magic Finally, Ben and Jonah break down their predictions about the future of Virtual Magic as parts of the world slowly start returning to in-person events. Will there still be a need for virtual shows as halls and theatres begging to open up? Do magicians even want to return to gigging on the road now that they’ve had a taste of what virtual events have to offer them? Only time will tell but both Jonah and Ben believe, and hope, that virtual magic isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Stay Connected If you’d like to learn more about what the Toronto Magic Company is up to be sure to check out their youtube channel at youtube.com/torontomagiccompany And don’t forget to snag your Unconventional.pass today at Unconventional.fun

This week Jonah and Kayla Drescher team up for a crossover episode with Discourse in Magic and Shezam! In it they talk about producing magic podcasts, hosting virtual conventions, and the challenges facing the magic community today. Podcasting With Magic Jonah and Kayla break down the differences and similarities between their two shows and ask each other what they would like to see done in the world of magic podcasting that hasn’t been done before? They also talk about the different purposes that their shows serve and Kayla shares with Jonah the lessons she’s learned from interviewing her guests on the tougher subjects of representation, sexism, and cultural appropriation and the importance of talking to people with opposing views and holding them to account. Virtual Conventions Both Jonah and Kayla are producing virtual conventions and they get into the behind the scenes of what goes into planning, booking, and hosting these live and virtual weekend events and why Jonah and Kayla both believe they’re not going to be going away anytime soon. Representation Matters The magic community still has a lot of challenges ahead to face including better representation and giving platforms to diverse guests and tackling the uncomfortable reality that cultural appropriation is woven into many classical magic acts that may not be appropriate to replicate today in front of a modern audience. Having these discussions and challenging these assumptions help the magic community grow, lead to better shows and develop better acts that are more inclusive and representative of the people sitting in your audience. And Jonah and Kayla are quick to point out that this doesn’t just affect the older generation of magic performers, that younger performers also have their own challenges to address that may not be as easy to spot as an overtly racist act. Plugs Be sure to check out Kayla Drescher on the Shezam podcast at shezampod.com And for more information about the Online Wonder Gala check out shezampod.com/owg You can also check out UnConventional.fun to find out more about the next three UnConventional.fun events and there’s still time to sign up for the UnConventional.pass by visiting unconventional.fun

Is virtual magic ending? Are virtual magic shows going to go away? Jonah doesn’t know but he will tell you one thing, he doesn’t think they’re going to disappear because he think that’s going to be hard to get the toothpaste back in the bottle. If virtual employees keep existing, at least in some regard, so will virtual magic shows. So, you must be thinking the question, how much longer do we have for virtual magic? What else can you do to squeeze the lemon of virtual magic and then also, what do you do to be part of the transition back to in-person events? In today’s Magical Appetizer, Jonah is going to tell you the answers to those questions. How Much Time Do We Have Left? We are now entering one year in the world of virtual magic and we don’t know how much longer is left. So, whatever thing you were thinking about doing, such as reaching out to your family, reaching out to your peers, doing some posts on social media, Jonah would recommend that you do those. Those are the low hanging fruits. And now is one of the best times for anybody who needs this kind of entertainment and needs this kind of support. And it all happens over Zoom so you’re in a really, really good boat to be the person to serve them. What Can We Do In The Remaining Time? There’s only a little bit of time left and the answer to that question is to put on a ticketed virtual magic show. As somebody that put on paid virtual magic shows in person, Jonah can tell you two things. Number one, they’re an amazing lead generator that also makes a lot of sales because people see you live and then they want to hire you. The second thing is it’s really expensive to four-wall a theater in person but virtually it costs nothing. You’ve probably already paid for the pro Zoom account, which means it doesn’t really cost you anything to four-wall your own theater. It’s fun, it’s awesome, and it generates leads for your email list. It generates actual sales because people see your show and if you’re good, they want to hire you for their company, for their family, for their birthday parties, for their teams. Jonah promises you, if virtual shrinks and these kinds of things go away, you are going to regret not putting on your own ticketed virtual magic show. If you were looking for a sign. This is that sign. How Do We Transition Back To In-Person Events? How do we make the transition back be seamless and not be challenging and frustrating. And the answer is to be part of our clients conversations about the transition. Here is one sentence that you can use for the next three or four months with every single client: “Are you doing your event virtually or in person?” You can send that to every single past client and you can send that to prospective clients. It is an easy question for people to answer because they are planning their event. And if you play your cards right you have options to serve them for both. So if the companies or teams or schools planned a virtual event, because they didn’t know where the legislation was going to be, you’ve got a virtual event for them. If they planned an in-person event, great, you’ve got an in-person magic event for them and you can be part of the transition. Be part of your client’s transition, ask them if they’re doing the event this year in person or virtually and ask them if you can help. Now is the time to do favors for people directly in your target market because they are going to be going through a challenging time, re-transitioning back to things being in person. Be part of the conversation and be part of the transition. Don’t wait for them to reach out to you. They’re going to be thinking of a million other things. You reach out to them and support them in the transition. That is how you’re top of mind. What If I Need A Little More Help? If you need a little bit more help, such as help getting bookings, growing your virtual magic, exiting virtual magic, running the systems, marketing, pricing, all of that good stuff, then feel free to send me a message to [email protected] with the word “UPGRADE”. That way he’ll know that you want to know about working together. And he’ll send you all the deets.

Jonah is joined by virtual magician extraordinaire, Harrison Kramer, to discuss all things virtual magic and why it’s here to stay forever. Harrison started off 2020 like most other professional magicians, with a ton of bookings and a bright future ahead. And when the pandemic hit and everything got cancelled he originally hated doing virtual shows. But not soon after he came to realize that virtual is not a substitute for in-person events but rather something entirely different. It’s exciting, it’s new, it’s lucrative, and it’s here to stay… forever. From Juggling to Magic Harrison Kramer started juggling when he was eight years old and first got to see magic being performed by his dad when he was ten. For the next decade Harrison describes himself as someone who knew about magic but wasn’t a magician but after college he connected with a magician over craigslist who started setting him up with small kids shows. After that his career in magic has continued to grow. The Great Cancellation At the start of 2020 Harrison’s calendar was booked with events and, like everyone else, was faced with every gig he had cancelled. His first virtual magic show was for a kid’s birthday party and after that show he remembers telling his wife how much he hated virtual magic and thought it was stupid. But by April and early May he started getting contacted by more and more corporate clients and getting referrals and soon he realized he was earning more money than he was making the year before with in-person events. Realizing the earning potential of virtual magic, and embracing the differences that virtual events represent, Harrison has come around on virtual magic. It’s Not A Substitute And It’s Here To Stay Some of the great strengths that Harrison has noticed with virtual magic include the proliferation of close-up magic that would never make sense in a live stage show, as well as the ability to be able to practice and rehearse your performance in the exact same space you will be performing in. Harrison doesn’t believe that virtual magic is a substitute for in-person shows but rather it’s something completely unique to in-person events. The shows he hosts on Zoom, and the people who attend those events, can’t be compared to live in-person shows and even as the pandemic ends and the world reopens and live events start back up again Harrison is convinced that the growth seen in the rise of virtual shows will continue forever. Harrison is so convinced in the power of virtual events, and it’s earning potential, that he doesn’t foresee a future where he will ever return to full time live in-person shows. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Gary Ferrar. He’s a more advanced, smarter version of Harrison and is also doing as much as Harrison is doing virtually. And Devonte. He’s a talented magician who is good at connecting with people, especially in the virtual space. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? What Harrison loves is that anybody can do it. Anybody can get a website and buy a deck of cards and start a youtube channel. If you want to be a magician you can go out and be a magician. There is no barrier to entry. The thing that Harrison doesn’t like is the trend of social media magic. There’s a certain portion of magic these days that has nothing to do with entertaining people with magic. Harrison is really only interested in getting in front of people and getting them to enjoy themselves. It has to be about the people you’re interacting with or it’s just not interesting. Take home point I told you so. This is just the very beginning of virtual magic entertainment. Plugs Visit harrisonkramer.com and check out his instagram @harrisonkramermagic

Ben joins Jonah to talk about their biggest business failures of 2020, how they happened, and what they learned from those experiences. When 2020 started, like everyone else, Ben and Jonah had big plans. Then everything got cancelled and they had to figure out what the Toronto Magic Company and their careers as magicians would look like. They took a lot of risks and found a lot of success. But these are the stories of their biggest failures from 2020 and we hope you learn something from these lessons. UnConventional Book Following the success of the first UnConventional.fun, the original plan was to send a book to everyone who attended. It was a good idea in theory and it would have made a wonderful physical keepsake of a memorable weekend but unfortunately for everyone Ben wasn’t used to sending out massive projects in the mail. Ben admits it was a stupid mistake but by mislabelling the packages they ended up sending hundreds of books through the mail system only to have them either disappear entirely or end up back in Toronto where they started. Additional delays in assembling the content for the book, editing, and designing the layout meant that promises to deliver the books in a timely manner couldn’t be honoured and many hundreds of books were lost or delivered to the wrong address. Ben and Jonah learned to plan in advance, especially when working with unfamiliar processes and trying something new, like designing a book. Take your time and don’t be too proud to ask for advice and look up the proper procedure especially when dealing with complicated rules like packaging and labelling your international shipments. Toronto Magic Company Merch Jonah warned Ben that if they decided to sell merchandise to their audience who attended their virtual shows that the end result would be that their apartment, which they both share as roommates, would become filled with unsold merchandise. Skip ahead to 2021 and their apartment is filled with unsold merchandise. One entire closet is dedicated to their merch. They wear the extra clothing almost every day and drink out of mugs with their logo on it. Their apartment is a shrine to unsold Toronto Magic Company swag. Ben and Jonah learned to think ahead of the outcomes of their projects and find more efficient ways to provide tokens of appreciation to their audience. Mugs and t-shirts are fun at conventions but how many people who attend a virtual magic show want the name of the production company sent to them on a t-shirt? As it turns out, not that many. The Halloween Show You might remember that Ben and Jonah hosted their first ever ticketed virtual magic show for halloween. What you might not remember was that the show itself took a lot of changes while it was being developed. The trailer video was made back when they intended the show to be super scary, but as they developed the program it was decided they would be more family friendly and funny and the tone shifted dramatically. People turned on by the scary trailer would visit the family friendly website and be turned off, while at the same time people enticed by the friendly website would see the trailer and decide that the show wasn’t for them either. Conflicting messaging and changing ideologies about the structure of the show lead to a lot of miscommunication in the marketing of the program and while the show itself was a lot of fun and those who attended had a great time, both Ben and Jonah knew that it could and should have been much more successful had they been consistent with their messaging. Magic Out Loud Following UnConventional.fun, Jonah and Ben decided they wanted to launch their own magic club. But after some feedback they realized that nobody needed more access to lectures and written material so they changed the focus to a club where magicians would be invited to perform in front of the lecturers and get feedback from them directly. On paper it seemed like a great idea but the result was Ben and Jonah begging for money and not getting enough people to sign up to make it a viable project. The lesson they took from this was to listen to the community you’re serving and try not invent needs that don’t exist. There was no desire for a magic club like this at this time and the only people left disappointed in the end were Ben and Jonah. Hat Tricks Speaking of trying to make something that nobody asked for… When Ben and Jonah learned that Netflix was open to pitches for magic shows they tried to put together a project they called Hat Tricks. To this day nobody outside of Ben’s brain knows exactly what this show was about. Was it the Chopped of magic? Was it a send up of shows like Wizard Wars? Was it a convoluted mess with a talking hat that nobody knew what the rules were? Creativity is great but you also need to know when to be pragmatic and realistic. Having a wacky high concept for a show can work but it also needs to be accessible, and comprehensible to a wide audience and if your own friends don’t

Jonah is joined by legendary magician and comedian Mac King to talk about his life growing up with magic, blending stand up comedy with magic performance, and moving to Vegas to perform at Harrah’s Hotel. Starting Young Mac King was first introduced to magic by his grandfathers who each had a love for magic tricks. The first time he ever saw magic performed was from one of his grandfathers and the other grandfather owned a collection of magic books that Mac was allowed to pour over them to learn their secrets. Once he was 14 he was allowed to join a local magic club and he remembers clearly the first night he attended a club that a crowd had gathered around another young magician to see him perform before the meeting began. That young magician was Lance Burton and he and Mac remained friends ever since. A Comic’s Approach To Magic Mac King’s act is a blend of stand up comedy and magic, a combination he notices is becoming more rare as time goes on. He got his work touring comedy clubs across the country and got to spend a lot of time in close proximity to other stand-up comedians and saw how they prepared for their shows. Early on he decided he needed to demonstrate to them that he was approaching magic the way a comic approaches comedy. He created his own tricks, and when he couldn’t do that he made sure to create his own presentations. Pretty soon he was tearing up the club scene and winning audiences over. Genuine Audience Interaction Seeing his live shows shut down for a year has been really difficult for Mac, he loves interacting genuinely with the audience. Dealing with a person on stage, not just as a prop but as a human being and becoming their friend as the show progresses. Adapting to virtual has been especially difficult for him because of the way he interacts with audiences at his live shows, so rather than pivot to virtual magic performances he’s found a new love in the form of producing a talk show on YouTube called Don’t Everybody Leave. Born out of a mix of missing live shows and not allowed to have friends over to play croquet and eat pie late at night in his backyard, he hopes this show scratches that performers itch until we’re all allowed to attend events in person again. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Jacob Jacks. Nobody has heard of him. He’s a street performer from Vegas. He’s a really good magician, he’s really funny, and he can talk about magic in a pretty smart way. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Mac King likes that there’s been a call around the world for more diversity in every profession and every walk of life and magic might be a little behind that but it’s catching up. What disappoints Mac is the lack of other stand-up comic magicians, he wishes there were more 17 or 18 year olds expressing an interest in doing what Mac does. Take home point Do more shows and listen. Plugs The official site is MacKingShow.com but for the more up to date news be sure to follow him on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook @MacKingShow And be sure to subscribe to his new talk show on YouTube, Don’t Everybody Leave with new episodes every week!

Jonah was invited onto the Of Sleights and Men podcast to talk about running his various businesses and the balance between his love of magic and his love of entrepreneurship. This episode is just a highlight of his full conversation with podcast hosts Benji and Jacob. Check out the Of Sleights and Men Podcast for the complete interview. The Toronto Magic Company Jonah opens up about the founding of the Toronto Magic Company and how it fits in with Discourse in Magic and his career as a magician. He pulls back the curtain to give an insight into how the business operates and the challenges he’s had to overcome with running three ongoing businesses at the same time. You’ll get to learn about the origins of the company and Jonah’s inspirations. The Love Of Entrepreneurship Jonah’s first love has always been magic but he shares with the Of Sleights and Men podcast how that love has changed over the years to prioritize the love of entrepreneurship and operating his own company. Through that love of entrepreneurship Jonah has learned important lessons about input and results and opens up about how much his process has changed as a magician. The Value Of Magic That said, Jonah still knows that magic is fun and magic is a release for a lot of people. He talks about what it’s like to live in a space where art is valued and the value that magic and performance plays in society. We are serving a need and making people happy and that is real and valuable and important and Jonah is happy to share that journey with people.

Jonah is joined by Scot Nery, a juggler, magician, and entertainer who now helps entertainers with their branding, marketing, and more helping to identify their value and the value they bring to their clients. Escaping The Magic Bug Scot Nery didn’t really stick with magic, not at first. Early on when he first joined a magic club and found a mentor he found that the club he was a part of was not very creative. They would perform tricks exactly as written, right down to the same patter. There was no room for deviation or change and at the time he thought that all magic was, which was repeating stuff that somebody had already seen. It was that reason which attracted him to juggling instead, since every time you see juggling it’s in the moment and the risk involved feels like each performance is something unique. What brought Scot Nery back into magic was he saw that it created hope, which is something he feels a lot of performers forget about when they’ve been performing for a while. The magical moment that gets everyone hooked to magic in the first place is a feeling of giving people hope. That a human can go beyond what you think is possible for a human to do. The Boobie Trap Scot is also the mastermind behind the hugely successful Boobie Trap show out of LA. It came from a desire to prove that he could host a show himself and to provide a platform for performers to kill it in front of an audience. Every show was different and was packed full of surprises, you never knew what guest or performances you were going to get each night. But you would be forgiven for thinking that Scot is not a magician, he lied his way into a marketing job and made his name performing in a one-man parody of a cooking show. But he’s also performed at Magic Castle and has made connections with magicians and entertainers around the world. Empathize With Your Customer When Boobie Trap was shut down due to the pandemic, Scot found out about Jonah’s consulting work with magicians. The two connected and now Scot offers consulting work of his own helping to identify the value of and empower magicians to grow their brand and their business. One of the big tips that Scot suggests is that if you’re having a hard time identifying your value that you empathize with your customer. You are likely much more than just a host when you are taking on a job for a client and you can offer them work in staging the show, set design, scripting, and lots of other details that a corporate client might overlook when booking a magician to host their big event. In the end it’s not really about what trick you are able to pull off but what problems you are able to solve and learning what problems you are able to solve can make all the difference in the world to a stressed out HR manager booking their next show. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Mark Collier. He’s an amazing clumsy card magician that does everything. He’s like Leonard Green fallen apart. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Scot likes taking a format or a genre and exploiting every aspect of it. Now there are no expectations for that a Zoom magic show should even look like Scot is very excited to see what develops from that. Scot doesn’t like that he’s still hearing people denigrating virtual shows. Take home point As long as we are trying to survive we are not going to be able to create the great stuff that moves us forward. We’re not going to be able to create the entertainment that changes people’s lives. First we have to thrive, we have to really take care of ourselves, and do awesome stuff for each other, and then we can make some amazing things that people can’t get from Netflix or Instagram. Plugs Visit Scot’s page at scot.fun and if you visit scot.fun/dim you can pick up something free from Scot right now just for Discourse in Magic listeners.

On this episode, we are talking about ticketed virtual magic shows. I’m going to give you three reasons why you absolutely should put on your first ever virtual ticketed magic show. We are talking about your virtual magic show, not the one you do for corporate clients, not the one you do for families, but the one that you sell tickets for. I know you’ve thought about it, some of you may have done it already, and I know many of you have successfully sold out virtual events. Some people are struggling to get people to attend their events without having to bother people one at a time or individually and some of you are doing it but want to figure out how to do it better. I want to walk through three reasons why you should be thinking about putting on a ticketed virtual magic show. Reason #1: Word Of Mouth The first reason has to do with your peers, your friends, your family, your family’s friends, and your friends’ family all work at companies. And those companies have not been able to gather together in person and even though it may be really difficult for you to get in contact with the HR person at those companies, it’s very easy for you to get in contact with one of the employees who puts in a good word for you. You reach out to your friend, your peer, and you get them to know about your brand. That way, when something comes up at the company and they’re asked if they have any ideas they can put their hand up and say they know just the person. If you’ve been doing magic for any amount of time, especially if you’re in the first few phases, a lot of your bookings are going to come from word of mouth. Putting on a ticketed show literally puts you and your magic in front of your friends, your family, your family’s friends, and your friends’ family. Your peers get to see what you do. And then two weeks later at their company event, when they’re doing bingo or something, and it’s really boring and they really don’t like it, they’re going to think back to the ticketed magic show that they went to and they’re going to wish that they had something like this at their company. you will start to see that the friends that you have are going to be recommending you for their company.Your show acts as an audition so that they can see it. They can know that they like you. People are seeing what you’re doing instead of sitting at home and twiddling your thumbs. Reason #2: An E-Mail List Throughout the course of the pandemic, my email list has been my safe haven. Having thousands of people that know me and like what I do has allowed me to sell new and unique ideas. When we launched virtual magic shows, we sold it to the email list of people that were interested. When we put on a ticketed show, we sold it to the email list. Even when we put on a virtual magic convention, I was grateful to have an email list so that I could tell all the people who already like what I do about all of the cool things that I’m doing. When you build fans of your brand, if they’re just a fan of yours on Facebook or Instagram, you can’t guarantee that when you post something they’re going to see it. But if they’re on your email list then you can guarantee that you’re going to see it. A ticketed virtual magic show is an epic way right now to get people onto your email list. Not only do they pay money but after the show you can send them bonuses. You can send them epic stuff to their emails. They love it. And they love getting emails from you, which means when the time comes that you want to send an email about an upcoming product and upcoming project it becomes easy to do. You don’t have to go and start posting on social media to collect all those people, instead, you just send an email out to your email list. In the last seven years that I’ve been in any kind of business my email list has been the number one asset in my business. Reason #3: It Makes Money I did an interview a couple of years ago with an incredible magician and speaker, Brian Miller, and he said something that’s always resonated with me. He said, the reason why restaurant magic is so amazing is because they pay you to market yourself. How awesome is that? They pay you to go around and give out business cards. And I want you to think about your ticketed virtual magic show in the same way. People are paying to come and see your show and at that show you get to promote whatever you want. Usually you’re either spending your money or spending your time to do lead generating activities. This is a lead generating activity that makes you money.   That’s it for this week, we are still kind of decompressing from Unconventional.fun a few days ago. It was awesome and Ben and I will do a little episode talking a little bit about that, but otherwise I just want to say thank you. Thanks for joining us on this little magician appetizer and I will see you all n

Jonah is joined by Ryan Kane, author of “Out of Stock: A Magician’s Guide to Writing Your Own Lines”, where they talk about the importance of writing your own lines when performing your magic and Ryan takes one of Jonah’s own lines and takes it through his process to replace it with something new or something better. Original Content Ryan Kane has exploded in the last twelve months, not only because he’s been doing a lot of virtual magic, but also because he’s been giving opportunities to a lot of magicians to perform by hosting open mic nights and helping to build up the community by helping magicians to work on their magic. Ryan does the deep work on magic, on writing your own lines, and if you see him perform you know that he’s written every single word. The Prevalence of Stock Lines Ryan is passionate about challenging the use of stock lines in performances. They’re functional and easy to get used to always using but, as Ryan points out, they can cheapen the entire performance if someone in your audience has heard that line somewhere else. Ryan has developed a system to help break down the use of your stock lines, examine what use they’re actually serving, and work towards creating newer and better lines that not only will be original lines that you’ve created for yourself but might also bring out aspects of your show that have grown stale over time. Endless Chain David Gerard. He’s a fantastic mentalist magician from the Bay Area and when it comes to a magical thinker he’s among the top. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? I like being able to connect with a lot of magicians that I normally don’t. I don’t like that this is a boy’s club and we need to get up to the time with and we need to stop making excuses for ourselves and become more inclusive. Take home point Set a new standard for yourself. Figure out that you’re not going to do this anymore, I’m gonna get rid of stock lines, I’m gonna do more stage time, I’m gonna be better about watching tape… these are easy little things that will make a massive change in your show and in your life. Plugs The Mostly Magicians Virtual Open Mic is completely free and you can request to join the public Facebook link by visiting facebook.com/groups/mostlymagiciansvirtualopenmic Out of Stock: A Magician’s Guide to Writing Your Own Lines is available now on Amazon And you can find out more about Ryan Kane at ryankanemagic.com

Today Jonah tells you about Unconventional.fun 2: Magicland. He’ll explain to you what this is, how it came to be, and then give you six reasons why this may be something that you want to be a part of. What is Unconventional.fun? Six months ago, Ben Trane and Jonah launched the first ever eight-bit video-game virtual-magic convention. What that meant was that not only did you have all the cool parts of a convention, like lectures and shows and things like that, but the thing that they did was create a virtual world, kind of like an old video game, where you would mingle around the world with arrow keys. When you got close to other attendees, you could jam with each other. You could hang out because you could see each other’s cameras and hear each other’s voice. So it was kind of like a real magic convention but placed in a video game world. If you wanted, you could go to enjoy the lectures and panels and shows but you could also hang out with the cool kids in the back jamming or just connect with some of your favorite magicians and hangout and talk like you would at a real convention. It was awesome. They had 250 magicians but made two big obvious glaring errors that they are not going to make again. Two Big Mistakes The first big, huge mistake that they made was that they had 13 hours of lectures and shows and panels but they didn’t record a single thing. Which is funny because this is magic 101… record your shows and record your stuff! The first reason why they didn’t record anything was because they were worried that it was all going to crash completely. It was earlier in the whole zoom world. The second reason why they didn’t record it was because they wanted to make it a live event, a kind of in-person thing, so everyone would be there. But what they didn’t realize was that there’s people all over the world and what’s two o’clock for them in the afternoon was maybe the middle of the night for somebody else. So a lot of people stayed up very late to be a part of the whole entire thing, which was epic but a mistake on their part. The second mistake that they made was that they built a video game world. Jonah and Ben teamed together with coders and designers to make a world that was whatever they wanted. And with unlimited creativity, with unlimited power, the world that they built was … a convention center. They built a floor of a hotel lobby, and it was awesome, they had a dealer’s room, a main stage, jamming areas, a bar, and a lot of different cool stuff like you would have at a real convention. But when they decided to do it again, they knew that they had to make something cool. So after the first convention, they sent out a survey asking if people wanted to do it again. And 96% said yes! So they knew they were going to do another one and they knew they were going to have to make some big changes. Two Big Changes The first big change is that they are recording all of the lectures, panels, and shows so you can watch them afterwards if you can’t make it, or like a convention, if instead of a lecture you’d want to meet up or jam with somebody who’s not lecturing at that time, you can totally do that and watch the lectures afterwards. The second big change is that they built Magicland. It’s a magic themed amusement park. So instead of a dealer’s room, they have a midway. Instead of having a bar, they’ve got food trucks. So now when you walk around the virtual world, you are in a unique place that doesn’t look just like a hotel convention center, but instead it looks like something magical and impossible that has never existed before. What To Expect The first Unconventional.fun was a one day eight bit virtual magic convention. And now, Unconventional.fun 2 will be a two day eight bit video game virtual magic convention. And the days that it’s happening are Saturday, February 27th and Sunday, February 28. Unconventional.fun 2: Magicland is the second ever video game virtual magic convention. Just like the first one, there’s lectures, panels, and shows and also you mingle around with the arrow keys. When you get close to the other attendees your camera and mic fade into view. So you can jam, you can hang out, and you can spend time together. That means that if you come find Jonah, we can jam and hang out with him. You can also hang out with some of the other magicians that are there. Not only the ones on the lineup. At Unconventional.fun 2, you can jam with Eric Jones, Suzanne, Caleb Wiles, Asi Wind, Paul Vigil, Moritz Mueller, and so many different magicians that are going to be there. Six Reasons Why You Should Go Number one: lectures. Ben and Jonah have brought some of the best lecturers together. Not only people who have been crushing in virtual but also just people who absolutely crush it. So not only do they have a John Guastaferro lecture, which is going to be amazing, they’ve got a

Jonah is joined by Ben Seidman to talk about working as a consultant on Mindfreak, appearing on Fool Us, and learning how to throw out everything you’ve heard when designing your own show. He Started Terrible And Then He Got Better Ben doesn’t think his origin story is all that interesting. He was interested in magic and got his dad to buy him a magic kit and he was really bad at it and then he got better. Throughout his early years he says there were two “aha” moments for him that stuck with him throughout his career. The first was the feeling of “crushing” a show and the second was the realization that he was coming up with ideas that nobody else was doing. One of those first ideas, a pick pocket routine he invented when he was 21, would land him his first consulting job on Mindfreak and open the doors to the rest of his future career performing in magic.   At Mindfreak Ben found himself working between Johnny Thompson and Banachek and for someone so young it was inevitable that he would be feeling some imposter syndrome. But once he offered up ideas that they would say were cool too it was validating enough to allow Ben to give himself permission to admit that the work he was doing had value as well. Ben’s time as a consultant and advisor helped him to find his footing but performing had always been his goal. Each of his favourite magicians followed what he calls the holy trifecta, they’re very creative, amazing on stage, and also very technically skilled. Checking off those boxes are important to Ben as well as creating emotional hooks with the audience but also keeping it really funny. The Importance of Remaining Original Ben is a passionate advocate for original content. Far too many magicians, including Ben up to a point, have relied on phrases and jokes and lines from other performers. Perhaps it’s from the culture where we get the magic and included is the patter and the instructions tell you what to say and so you say it. But if you’re going to perform magic the only thing you can guarantee will be original will be you. Everyone is performing magic and it’s all just… magic. If you hear a line that another magician says Ben will emphatically tell you that you should never use that line in your own routine.   Who you are and what you say is vastly more important to your connection with the audience. The things that you say are what create the moments. So look through what you say in each trick and if you’ve ever heard that line anywhere else just cross it out. If you take those things out you still have to fill that space. You will start saying the things that are you because you have to. If you put yourself in a position where it’s sink or swim, something will come out of you. Pivoting To Virtual Ben also stuck around to share more about how the past year of virtual magic has been for him. One of the things he’s noticed is that it’s much easier to connect with fans of his work. Normally while touring his name alone would not be a huge draw on the marquee. He might have a lot of fans but they’re spread out all over the world. Now thanks to virtual magic they can all gather in the same place. So rather than performing on a live stage to an audience that might not know who he is, he’s been able to perform to fans who know his work and are excited for his unique brand of magic. And that wouldn’t have been possible before virtual magic.   Ben is quick to point out that virtual magic shows are not the same kind of magic as a netflix special. You have to make sure you are interacting with your audience, that’s the one major strength you have in a virtual show that you can’t do in a pre-recorded tv special. He’ll also warn you about over spending and over producing your show. You don’t necessarily need a five camera setup with expensive lights and a set. There’s no shame in doing your show on your laptop camera and seeing how it works out before investing more money into your tech. Focus on what you can bring first. Wrap-Up Endless Chain David Jerard. David is a magician and mentalist based out of San Francisco. David is also one of the people that Ben bounces ideas off of. And also Joe Monti. Joe is strange strange man who Ben loves dearly. He also worked on Mindfreak and has a unique perspective and is super goofy. He talks a mile a minute and his brain works just as fast. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Ben likes that more people have access to magic. There was a time when you only saw magic when you were in the upper crust, now anyone can see magic. Ben doesn’t like that more people have access to magic. There’s a problem with magic becoming trivialised. Far too many people are putting out magic online before it’s ready to be performed. A moment of magic should be a unique thing but if you can access it non-stop, especially from any level of quality, then it’s no longer this profound and beautiful thing. Take home point Be Original. If you forge your own path a

Jonah is joined by Ben Train, his Toronto Magic Company business partner, to offer up a glimpse of what life is like at the Toronto Magic Company, how it’s adapted to the world of virtual magic, upcoming events they’re hosting, and the lessons that he and Ben have learned after almost a full year of pivoting to the virtual. A New Mission Ben and Jonah launched the Toronto Magic Company four years ago with the mission to share magic with public shows and programming for lay people around the Toronto area. When all live events were cancelled in March 2020 they had to shift the Magic Company to an all virtual environment and now their mission is to simply share magic. Now, thanks to virtual magic, Jonah and Ben are able to share magic not just in their geographic area of Toronto but all over the world, which has really helped to make the work they do a ton of fun. Having Fun With Virtual Magic For Ben, virtual magic has changed his relationship with magic. In the past Ben has been honest about how challenging live shows can be. With all the prep work, stress, and travelling involved it can really take a toll on someone. Virtual magic has reinvigorated Ben and shown him just how much fun there is to have with magic. Ben feels more creative and more free than he could be on stage, he feels comfortable in his setting rather than feeling nervous before shows and for a variety of reasons this past year has helped Ben fall in love again with magic. For Jonah, there’s always been so much mystery when you go to a private event to perform and you’re not always guaranteed a receptive audience. With virtual magic, Jonah has discovered a world of enthusiastic audiences excited to see magic done in a novel way. There’s something very special happening right now and the full potential for virtual magic is just beginning to be realized. Living With Your Business Partner Shortly after founding the Toronto Magic Company, Jonah and Ben made the decision to move in together as roommates to better coordinate their business projects. So what’s it like living together when each of you are fundamentally very different people? Jonah and Ben pull back the curtain on their home and living arrangement and share stories about how they couldn’t have pulled off this company without the other’s unique input. They also share how they overcome creative differences and lessons they’ve learned over the past several years in resolving conflicts and taking risks. Next Stop, Magicland! Unconventional.fun is coming back in 2021 and this year they’re taking a bold leap into a magic park setting. You might recall that in 2020 Ben and Jonah hosted the inaugural Unconventional.fun virtual magic convention by recreating an 8-bit virtual hotel environment where magicians could mill about and jam in the lobby and attend lectures and workshops. For their very first time doing it they wanted to recreate the familiar setting of a conventional convention, but this year they’re pulling out all the stops and embracing the creative freedom that a virtual environment offers. This year Unconventional.fun is going to Magicland, a virtual amusement park for magicians. More details will be coming out soon so for now you should sign up to the mailing list by visiting Unconventional.fun to be notified when tickets go live.

Jonah is joined by Mat Franco where they get to discuss his dominating performance on America’s Got Talent, opening up a For-Real-Life show in Vegas, and knowing from an early age that Mat was destined to live his dream as a magician. Ever since he was five, Mat has dedicated his life to learning and performing magic, from show-and-tell in kindergarten, to the college touring circuit, to winning on America’s Got Talent, to producing a show in Vegas. No Backup Plan Seeing magic on TV, a five year old Mat asked him parents for some magic tricks and soon after he was performing for his kindergarten class. By elementary school he was performing on stage for the local high school and from then on it’s been non-stop performing. He might claim that he went to business school as a backup plan but the reality is he never had one, it’s always been magic. Tough and ruthless was the name of the game when it came time to get booking to perform on the college circuit and through a mix of good luck, a good show, and being able to speak the language of leadership and business to those who were doing the booking Mat found himself performing for colleges across America. Winning Wasn’t The Plan The idea for signing up for America’s Got Talent was to be able to get footage of his acts to use to book more gigs at colleges. It was never his intention or belief that he would progress through the competition all the way to winning in the finale. But, as Mat puts it, he was “young, stupid, naive, and tenacious” and able to problem solve his way to adapt the tricks he had in his inner rolodex to performing on the show. Still A Beginner In Magic Mat still considers himself a beginner in magic and it’s that mindset that he believes has helped him to achieve the success he has found. He never had big dreams, the most he hoped for was to make magic and share it with people. At the end of the day it’s all about attitude, personality, entertaining people, interaction, that’s the real magic, that’s the x-factor, that is intangible. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Bill Malone What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Shows like the Carbonaro Effect and Fool Us which are reframing magic for modern audiences in a way that’s positive and uplifting. For a time magic was being associated with cruel pranks online and it’s nice to see it moving away from that. On the other hand magic is currently suffering from a voyeuristic approach, where people mostly watch magic being done to other people, and Mat would like to see new ways to present magic that allow the person watching it to be more directly involved in the experience. Take home point I do believe experience is the best teacher. I believe you should follow your passions. And I’m also a believer in good solid technique in whatever it is you’re doing. Not to overlook a good solid base, a good solid background in technique, a toolbox to draw from, that will allow you to create better things. If you get really good at the scales you can write better songs. Plugs You can listen to Mat co-host the Mind Over Magic podcast with Eric Ditelman Instagram @matfrancomagic Twitter @matfrancomagic Youtube And be sure to visit matfranco.com

Today, we are talking about the three systems that every virtual magician needs in their business. A lot of people ask me, how is it that I can have a podcast, and a virtual magic business, and interview people, and coach magicians, and also post on social media everyday, how I do all of those things. And the answer is not that I wake up really early and drink a ginger root tea or have apple cider vinegar at 6AM, none of those things are true. The reality is, I rely on systems to make sure that my business grows, even when I’m not putting in the work, and systems are critical for your business because having systems in place, having things in place that work, means that one unit of input doesn’t necessarily mean one unit of output. One unit of input could mean two or five or ten or twenty units of output. A Lead Generating System For many of us, we do what’s called hope marketing, which is we cross our fingers and we hope that somebody inquires on our website or asks us about what we’re doing. And the reality is if we do not have a system to bring people into our business, then we don’t really have a business. We don’t really have something that regularly makes money. We only make money when other people want us to make money. So we need to have a system to bring leads into our business. Now you’ve probably been in magic long enough to know that there’s not just one way to do this. It could be social media, you could do ads, you could do events, ticket events, live streams, email outreach, email newsletter, cold calling, referrals… there’s a million different systems that you can have, but just ask yourself right now, do you have a lead generating system? Is there something that if I said tomorrow, I need you to push the button that’s going to bring more leads into your business. Would you know what button to push? A Sales System If you do not have an organized system that takes an interested person to an inquiry, takes an inquiry to a phone call, takes a phone call to a pitch, and then a pitch to a close. Then what happens is you basically just cross your fingers every time that somebody asks you about an event. Because you’re hoping that they decide that it’s good for them. And obviously it’s a two way decision, you know, we’re not deciding if they should hire us, but certainly by having a system, you can be very, very sure about what needs to happen at each phase of the process, instead of hoping that they know what they want, how they want it, when they want it, you decide how it works. You tell them what you offer, what’s most popular, what they should get. You tell them that you schedule phone calls. You tell them how it works, because otherwise you are beholden to their buying process. If they want to buy later, if they don’t want to buy now, if they’re not interested, if they want this and not that you have to do whatever it is that they want. So instead build out your sales system. An Outsourcing System Maybe you’re wondering how it is that I can have a podcast episode every Thursday for the past four years and be a full-time magician and produce ticketed shows and run a coaching program and all of these different things. The answer is outsourcing. I hire out the things that I’m not so good at. There’s only important bits that I do. I write the posts, I say the podcast, but it’s critically important that I find incredibly talented people to put in positions where they do something better than I could ever do. It was cheaper for me because instead of me spending five hours, hours that I totally could have and should have spent doing way more important things, I spent those sitting in front of my computer editing. So ask yourself what processes in your virtual business right now are you doing that maybe you shouldn’t be doing. What pieces can you hand off to somebody else that you do not have to do. Upgrade Your Business These are the three systems that every virtual magician needs. I hope that this was helpful for you. If you want some help doing this, if you want some assistance, then send an e-mail to [email protected] with the word “Upgrade” and I’ll tell you a little more info about the private coaching that I run for virtual magicians.

Jonah is joined by Moritz Mueller where they discuss how to reach out to some of the biggest names in the magic world, different theories of magic and how it can practically apply your work, and how Moritz prepares and learns his own tricks. Moritz is an incredibly talented magician and, at twenty years old, he’s very young for someone with his expertise and skill. So what is he doing that other magicians aren’t? How has he accomplished in less than ten years of sleight of hand that other magicians haven’t been able to do in twenty or thirty? In this interview Jonah and Moritz talk about coin magic and card magic, how to bump elbows with the best of the best, and what it was like to appear on Ellen! The Magic At Home Advantage Moritz had one major advantage over many other magicians in that his father was already a hobby magician. As Moritz was developing his own interest in magic his father would point out when a trick he was looking to purchase was worth his time or not. Having a magician in the family to help guide his early years meant bypassing a lot of the experimenting that other magicians have to face. By the time he was ready to start performing on his own he already had years of mentorship. What grabbed Moritz’s attention to magic was the small details. How a very small change in detail can have a major impact on a trick’s effectiveness. Those minute details captured Moritz’s ambitions; he would spend years just practicing and learning all the nuances he could and refining those small details. Eventually he drew the attention of others who invited him to attend conventions where he would meet some of the biggest names in the magic community and begin learning and befriending them. If you ask him how he’s ended up with so many big names as personal contacts he’ll happily point out that many of the people he’s met in the magic community are very open to being approached and contacted. As long as you approach them with respect and express your feelings and ask a question you might find that a lot of people are more willing to respond in kind than you might think. The Man Who Has Practiced One Move 10,000 Times Rather than casting a wide net Moritz focused a very narrow beam early on. It can be very overwhelming thinking that you need to learn all of these many moves to be a successful magician and you can either end up burning out or never developing enough skill in any one move to really be successful. So, being inspired by a famous quote from Bruce Lee, Moritz focused on one thing at a time obsessing over the tiny changes he could do to a single move and it was in coin magic that he discovered was a great playground for him to practice in. Moritz has a lot to say about coin magic. It’s difficulty stems from how simple it is at its core. There are only so many effects possible and the methods are oftentimes equally simple. But there is a very steep learning curve and so much that needs to be done before it even begins to be deceptive and that is what Moritz finds so interesting. He attributes much of career success in magic to the time he invested in coin magic early on because there is so much work that needs to be done before you can even call it magic. Walking Your Own Path Moritz knows that there’s no real “right” way to live your magic life and thinks that what it comes down to is reflection. How often do you stop along your path and actually think if this is the right thing? How often do you question why you are working on a certain routine or a certain move? What Moritz has always tried to do is realize wrong turns as soon as possible by stopping and questioning himself. Moritz’s advice to you is if you find yourself practicing a lot of things at once and you find yourself so scatterbrained that you can’t keep track of what you’re doing then that might be a sign to keep it simple and focus on one thing at a time. And also read more magic books instead of youtube videos. The theories found in those books will help you understand what you’re seeing in those videos so much more that your entire perspective on magic will shift. There’s not that many magic theory books out there and Jonah has a whole bookshelf of recommendations that you’ve likely heard mentioned dozens of times in the past on this podcast but Moritz can’t recommend “Expert Card Technique” enough. The theory part is so good that Moritz believes that it’s put so concisely that it’s a very good all rounder of magic theory. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Jan Logemann – “He is just an amazing close up performer… you can’t really put him in a box, he just does great magic” What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Moritz likes that he’s seeing people use gimmicks in ways he hasn’t seen before, especially on Instagram. To an extent where the gimmick is being used in a way that can only work on Instagram. What Moritz doesn’t like is the overconfidence of new magicians who think that they don’t need to hear what you ha

This is not an episode. This is a thank you. 2020 was a really, really strange year for everybody. It was a strange year for me, and I assume it was a strange year for you too. A Year Of Firsts It was a year full of firsts. It was the first time we had our calendars wiped clean. It was the first time that we all did virtual magic shows. And it’s the first time that many of us rose to that occasion. For me, it was a lot of really crazy firsts. All in 2020, we released episodes with Juan Tamariz, Derren Brown, and Teller, which snuck out just before the end. Thank You! And the reason I’m recording this episode is to thank you. To thank you all so much for your support, not just your support in this year, not just your support in the last few episodes, but your support in the last few years. Your support in being a part of this from the start, you know, I know many of you have been listening to this since day one, and I know there’s so many different things that you could be doing with your time, so much different content you could be consuming. And I am so glad that you spend it all here with me. So thank you, thank you, thank you so much. New Year Resolutions In the past, I’ve done new year’s magic resolution episodes. I used to do them with Tyler. I used to do them with Ben and Jackie and Chris, but this year because of the quarantine, because of the pandemic, because of the, everything I want to say this. Last year, when we did the episode, one of the pieces of feedback that I got from everybody was that usually when I do episodes, I’m either doing an interview or I’m either giving out advice, but the new year’s magic resolution, I kind of give a peek behind the scenes as to what’s going on in my life. What’s going on in the Toronto magic company. And what my mindset is going into the new year. So instead of us doing an episode about all the things we had planned for 2020, and then how all of those plans went horribly wrong instead, Ben and I are going to be doing monthly Toronto magic company episodes here on the podcast. So we’re going to be tuning in once a month to share what we got planned, what’s going on. And if you’re interested in what we’re doing, how we’re handling virtual, if you want to see us doing virtual magic shows, we’re going to be talking about all that, all of our plans, Unconventional.Fun, all of that good stuff. Get More From Behind The Scenes In 2021 So this episode I’m recording because I want to say thank you. Next episode will be back to interviews, but I just want you to know that over the next 12 months, basically, I’m going to be doing some more behind the scenes episodes to share with you what I’m doing, what I’m up to and what I’m thinking as well. Thanks so much for being here this year and the last five years of this podcast existing, you guys mean the world. I love you all so much. See you next Thursday, Peace!

In this episode, we are talking about if and why you should run your own ticketed virtual magic show and Jonah is going to give you five reasons why you may want to do your very first ticketed virtual magic show. #1: It Makes Money Let’s be honest, it makes money. Why do you think that people keep doing them? Because they’re profitable. They make money. There are dozens and dozens of people who know and love you, and they know that you do magic and they love your work. But they don’t get the opportunity all that often to support you. Maybe they don’t live in the same city as you, maybe they’ve got kids and they don’t get to leave their house all that often to go to your events. Maybe you don’t put on a lot of ticketed public events. So the first reason why you should do this is because there are so many people in your network who wants to come see you perform and they’ve just never been given the opportunity and this is a wonderful opportunity. #2: To Test Your Material The second reason why you may want to put on your own virtual magic show is because there is no better place for you to test material. Think about it, you’re inviting all of these people to come watch you and these are likely people, especially your first few shows, who know you. They like you. They trust you. These are people in your community. Maybe people on your newsletter, maybe these are people who are on your social media channels, who you’ve been friends with, who you’ve been communicating with. This is the safest environment for you to test out new material that is going to potentially make it into your professional or corporate level shows. #3: It’s Easy! The third reason is that it is easy. I’m going to be honest with you. I have produced ticketed events, both in-person and online, and the amount of moving parts that you need to put in place to do an in-person event is way harder than for an online event. When renting out a space and selling the tickets yourself, the costs associated with that are astronomical. The cost associated with doing it in virtual are very, very reasonable. It’s the cost of zoom. Which you already have, and then whatever processing fees for whatever software you use for the tickets, maybe it’s Eventbright, maybe it’s Well-Attended. And if you’re really savvy and you’ve done a few of them and you want to start experimenting into Facebook ads, then you can start spending some money there. But compared to in-person events, you’ve got to spend money on traveling there and back. You got to spend money on dry cleaning. You’ve got to maybe spend money on drinks or on food and on going out. There’s all these different things you have to spend money on. There’s different objects or items needed to bring to the venue, which are costly for you to bring. At home, you don’t have any of that. So if you ever dreamed of doing your own show and selling tickets or dreamed of having your own theater or dreamed of putting on your own show, this is basically the easiest least expensive way to ever, ever try it out and it’ll make you money. #4: Brings In New Bookings The fourth reason, and this is kind of sneaky too, is it is one of the best ways I have found in the world of virtual to bring in new bookings. When somebody goes and they see your virtual magic show, maybe they go to it for free, or they pay $10 or $20 or $50, whatever, they see your virtual magic show. And now they think, “Wow, that’s something I want to do for my friend!”, or, “Wow! That’s something that I want to do for my company!” Every single person who goes to see your show either works at a company or their husband or wife works at a company or their kids go to a school or their kids are having a birthday party. There are so many opportunities for an individual to want to hire a virtual magician that you putting on a ticketed show is more or less your audition to all of these people to tell them, “Hey, I am open for business and you can hire me if you’d like to, because I do virtual magic shows and they look. Epic.” #5: It’s Fun! I know that I’m going to sound a little bit like a sixth grade talent show, but the fifth reason why you should put on your own ticketed virtual magic show is it’s fun. It is fun. It is really, really, really fun. When you do a company show or you do a show for a big bank or whatever, 50-75% of the people there didn’t sign up to go to a magic show. For the most part, they didn’t even know that there was going to be a magic show! So then when you show up, you have to win them over. When somebody who is in your network, someone who’s known you in the past, buys a ticket to your show and then comes to the show, they’re going to have a good time. Because they like magic and they like you. They&#8217

Jonah is joined by none other than Teller himself to discuss his history in magic, the challenges of producing Fool Us during a global pandemic, and how he views a world where every magic secret can easily be researched online. Not Always The Silent Type Teller wasn’t always silent and he opens up about his early days struggling as a magician performing for fraternities that wouldn’t pay attention to him and would throw hard candy and cups of beer at him. As he got more silent in his routines he found that the audiences got drawn in and would pay more attention. As Teller puts it, he discovered he had an innate skill for lying with his body. Before he was one half of the most famous magic duo in the world he was a public school teacher. Invited by Penn to a renaissance fair, he took a leave of absence to explore the possibility of working as a magician full time and never returned to his old job. But it would be years of performing in relative obscurity mixed with a dash of major financial losses from failed attempts before they would end up performing off Broadway in the 80’s and begin to change the magic business forever. Magic For TV From their infamous appearances on David Letterman, to their mind warping presentation on Saturday Night Live, to producing Fool Us today, Teller has had a great deal of opportunity to consider how to create magic for a television audience. He and Penn learned quite early on that the best way to perform on camera was to perform towards someone, like David Letterman, and to use the stage as an opportunity to bring the audience backstage with them and become culpable in the acts, like on Saturday Night Live where the audience in the studio could see they were upside down long before the audience at home was aware of the illusion. All of those lessons they have learned have culminated into Fool Us where instead of performing for the camera the contestants on the show perform for Penn & Teller. The Game of Magic Fool Us also breaks one of the other “rules” of magic and encourages the act of trying to figure out how the trick is done. Teller is honest about his feelings that for many people watching magic that’s a major part of the fun of magic. By framing their entire show around trying to guess how a trick is performed they’re also able to acknowledge and embrace how most people consume magic while still speaking in code to preserve secrets and not truly bring the audience backstage. While most people attending a magic show are trying to figure out how the trick is done, in reality they probably don’t really want to know how it’s done as Teller points out that most magic secrets are really very dull, boring, and usually involve grueling mundane tasks. The better the trick looks on the stage the more dull the trick is back stage. So for Teller it becomes a balancing act of finding out how much “backstage” to appear to let the audience in on while in reality preserving the fantastic qualities of what the audience thinks is really going on. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Teller thinks we would have great fun with Piff The Magic Dragon and one magician that Teller finds absolutely fascinating is Bob Farmer What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Teller likes the proliferation of magic on the internet like being able to watch performances online that you otherwise wouldn’t see. Teller doesn’t find very satisfying magic that is just being done for the camera lens and doesn’t give him the fair chance to do the intellectual part. If it just looks impossible and is impossible then it doesn’t feel like the “game” part of magic is as fun. Take home point “My definition of misdirection is the story you get the audience to tell itself. If you think about that for a while you may find it a very fruitful definition of misdirection. What you’re trying to do is to get the audience is to tell itself a story. You’re inducing them to tell that story to themselves. And what’s you start thinking of those terms, it’s a helpful concept”. Plugs If you think you have what it takes to appear on Fool Us then you should e-mail [email protected] and you will be invited to send a videotape of what you are proposing and Teller will never know about it. If you’ve never watched any of the zombie movies that Teller made with Ezekiel Zabrowski then you really should look into it.

This episode with Jonah is going to be ridiculously short because it’s not really an episode. But First, Congratulations Jonah wants to say two things. The first thing is to say congratulations. This year has been really strange. And for many of us, it kind of all accumulated to December, which was for many of us, our busiest virtual magic month ever, where 12 months ago, not one of us was doing virtual magic. So you owe yourself a pat on the back for an interesting, fun, and strange, and a little bit of a hopefully memorable year that you’re going to remember for the rest of your life. Give yourself a Pat on the back for some of the amazing stuff that you’ve done. And Now, For Something Completely Amazing The second reason for this episode is to tell you about next week’s episode. At the end of every Discourse in Magic podcast, Jonah asks each guest about the “Endless Chain”. In order to keep the podcast going on for eternity, each guest is asked to recommend another guest that would be perfect for the show. There are two reasons why Jonah does this. The first reason is to help introduce us to new people that we don’t know and help to keep the podcast go on forever. But the second reason is to get in contact with some very specific, very hard to reach people, who have a lot of important things to say in the world of magic. It is without exaggeration that we tell you that the episode coming out next week is one of the most exciting episodes that we have ever released. Not only is this someone who you know and love, but he over delivered on the episode and we are so excited to share it with you. We can’t say too much about who it is yet, but what we can say is, for those of you that get it, we hope this makes up for our April Fools prank a few years back…

Jonah is joined by Eric Dittelman where they talk about performing on TV, the usefulness of having an agent, the challenges of the past year going virtual, and the importance of creating a space where you can be bad. Eric has competed on America’s Got Talent, appeared on Ellen, and performed on Penn & Teller Fool Us. He’s toured the United States performing at colleges and has produced shows in New York like the experimental magic and comedy show Amazeballs. Doing His Own Thing Eric wasn’t even aware there were magic organizations or clubs until he was in college. Until then he cultivated his interest in magic by visiting random shops and pursuing his own hobby on his own terms, which he looks back on now as a strength having not been influenced by other people he was able to come into his own identity as a performer. That independent streak led him to mentalism where the cross between improvisation and psychological studies really appealed to him. As he found books to read by people like Bannachek and Bob Cassidy he began seeking them out, if there was an event where one was hosting a discussion he would be there to meet them and make connections. Those connections would foster lifelong friendships and mentorships, which Eric notes was very important to have. Stumbling Onto The Small Screen Eric is quick to point out that he stumbled into all his tv performances. If you have goals and you work towards them everyday they’ll eventually manifest and it’s just being ready and prepared for when those opportunities arise. After a producer saw one of Eric’s viral video gags he posted online he was encouraged to apply to America’s Got Talent, which lead to someone scouting him for Ellen, which opened doors later to appearing on Penn & Teller Fool Us. At first Eric kept his expectations low, at most he expected to be able to get a single clip from appearing on TV that he could use to compete for booking on the college circuit and he didn’t even tell anyone he was auditioning for America’s Got Talent. Eric shares his strategy on AGT and the risks he took at the end performing a trick for the judges that had only worked once before in rehearsal. Surviving In Virtual When the pandemic closed every live show in New York and across the country in March, Eric pulled back to take time to consider his next move. At first he was convinced that mentalism could not perform in the virtual space but after thinking about radio shows in the past and the shows he enjoyed listening to he decided to try a livestream show on Youtube with a “call in” line where viewers could join in via Zoom one at a time just like a radio call in show and have their minds read. While sharing his story about setting up his virtual shows Eric expands on that to include his history in improv and the importance he’s learned in being able to create spaces where you can be bad in. You can’t be bad at a paying gig so you also can’t take the same risks or experiment with ideas you haven’t fully formed. But by creating a space, either with friends or colleagues, or a low-rent studio where the cost of failure isn’t going to harm you, you can push your creative limits and find new innovative ways to improve your performances. Never underestimate the power of letting yourself fail. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Mat Franco or Michael Kent or Peter Boie or Colin Cloud or Vinnie Deponto (is that enough names?) What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Eric loves the moment of creativity where people find their own voice and find their own way Eric doesn’t like the arrogance in the magic community which he doesn’t think is necessary to be a good magician. Take home point Create your own space and find a place to do your thing, and to actually DO the thing! “You do it because the doing of it is the thing. The doing is the thing. The talking and worrying and thinking is not the thing.” ― Amy Poehler, Yes Please Plugs ericdittleman.com (try and find a misspelling of the domain that doesn’t work!) Twitter – @EDittelman And check out Mind Over Magic, his new podcast with Mat Franco!

This week Jonah is joined by the dynamic duo of Kyle and Mistie Knight. Kyle & Mistie have been on tours with Disney Cruise, they’ve appeared on Penn and Teller Fool Us, and they even have the distinction of winning Wizard Wars! Today you’re going to learn all about how they got to where they are with Kyle’s background in working, building, and creating magic and Mistie’s incredible work on managing the business. Their lives, like everyone else’s, were turned upside down during the pandemic and after years spent living on the road they’ve had to reinvent their magic to work from their home in the virtual space while planning for whatever future lies ahead. It Started With A Cruise Kyle and Mistie are celebrating eighteen years together and it all began when they met on a cruise. Kyle invited Mistie to see one of his magic performances and even though she never ended up seeing his show they kept in touch and a year later she cancelled her return ticket from Las Vegas while visiting Kyle and they’ve been partners ever since.   Initially Kyle and Mistie’s show was more illusion based with Mistie playing the role of the traditional assistant but after an agent failed to warn the duo that a show they were performing in Europe would be in front of an audience that only spoke spanish it was up to Mistie, who knew enough words to get by, to step up and take on a more featured role in the show. After experiencing how well audiences received seeing the pair share the stage equally it’s become their primary focus ever since. If You Built It… Kyle also has a reputation as a magic builder with a strong background in behind the scenes support. Most of what he knows he’s had to teach himself, from adapting pieces to fit the shorter Mistie to creating lightweight tables that can easily be stored and deployed at conventions and touring shows, which have now seen a surge in popularity during the pandemic where magicians are searching for efficient constructions to incorporate into their work-from-home virtual setups. From A Life At Sea to Locked Down At Home For a performing couple who make most of their business touring with cruise lines, to say that the pandemic shutdown of the cruise industry has turned their business and personal lives upside would be a massive understatement. Kyle and Mistie have a lot of positive things to say about working with cruise contracts, from the incredible amount of travelling they get to do, to being able to get feedback from having much closer contact with their audiences who remain with them for days at a time. Now they’ve had to reinvent how to do their business, from having to manage their own clients to constructing their own virtual business from the ground up. You might remember hearing Mistie in a previous episode of Discourse in Magic where she took part in a demo sales call with Jonah. Now, having completed Jonah’s workshop, she’s managing her own client calls and setting up new contracts and despite having lost all their business with the cruise lines this year they’ve managed to end the year earning more than they would have had their initial contracts not been cancelled. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Naathan Phan and Mike Hammer What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Mistie is most excited about women in magic. In the last couple years we’ve seen real changes in how audiences view women in magic and how performers incorporate women into their show. Long gone is the days of women only being seen as the assistant on the stage. Kyle loves how everything is exposed online and you can learn anything and what that is doing to force magic to evolve into something new. Kyle does not like the “seriousness” of magic with the sparkly jackets and serious mood lighting, even if Mistie disagrees and is adamant that there is an audience for every act. Take home point Don’t be afraid to think outside of your own box. Try new things and take risks. If Kyle and Mistie had said no they would have missed so many opportunities. Say yes and make it work. Plugs You can follow up with Kyle and Mistie by following them on instagram @kyleandmistie Check out their facebook page at kyleandmistie And visit their website knightmagic.com

Today’s advice from Jonah is directed towards stage magicians who are transitioning from big stage or parlor shows to performing for the camera in virtual shows and he’s looking to the world of acting for the answers. Ready For Your Close Up You used to be a stage performer, or you used to be a parlor performer, and now you are a virtual magician. And one thing that you’ll notice in virtual magic is you’re a little bit closer to your audience than you would be before. You’re quite close to the camera. Sometimes actors have to transition from the world of theater acting to the world of camera acting. And one thing that happens when actors make that switch, is the directors often have to tell them over and over again, to play smaller. Do less. And here’s what that means. It means that they’re used to performing on a stage. That means that they talk with their hands. They express themselves with their whole body. If they’re sad, they’re not just sad with their face they’re sad with their shoulders so that the people sitting in the back row knows that the performer is feeling sad or looking sad. But for an actor who is acting for a camera for television, they actually need to make their emotions very small. If they’re looking angry, it’s more about adding a little bit of anger to their face, to their facial expression than it is to adding a whole lot of anger to their body. Or maybe if they’re looking excited, it’s about raising their eyes up a little bit. So the viewers at home can really intuit that they’re feeling excited because they’re close up to their face. They don’t have to throw their arms in the air and get incredibly excited. Play Small, Do Less That is the exact same piece of advice that Jonah is going to share for those of you that are translating from the world of parlor magic to the world of virtual magic, which is kind of an alternate close-up magic. You should be playing smaller, not necessarily the magic, but your expressions about it should be playing smaller, especially if you’re positioned close to your camera. If you’re positioned close to your camera, it’s much more important what it is that your face is doing than it is what your arms and what your body’s doing, because your face probably takes up to 40% of the screen. So if we’re looking really bored on our face but we think that doing interesting stuff with our hands is going to really help. It’s not. People are going to see a boring face. If we look excited and overly excited with our face, people are going to think that we are completely out of our minds because they’re right up close to our face. So sometimes if you’re making that transition, from stage magic to the world of virtual magic, we’re going to take the advice that directors give to actors who are transitioning from theater to camera. And that is do less or play smaller. So not big with your arms, not big with your legs, not big with your body, but instead the small movements in your face, that express the way you’re feeling, your excitement, your anticipation. That might be a change that’s going to help you really connect with the people on the other side of the screen. Ask For More Help We hope this was helpful for you. Please let us know and leave a comment. We want to know if this is the kind of stuff that you want to know And if you need help with your virtual magic show, especially getting more bookings, getting higher paid bookings and systematizing the whole thing so it doesn’t drain your entire life, then send Jonah a message. Send an email titled “hello” to [email protected] and he will make sure to help you out.

This week Jonah is joined by Adrian Lacroix who has really popped onto the scene during the era of virtual shows with his videos and creations helping people to get into the business of virtual magic. Adrian Lacroix has worked in some of the most exclusive places in Buenos Aires and in the past year has embraced virtual magic and virtual magic effects releasing tricks through Penguin Magic. He’s also become a prolific participants in panels and discussions helping to rally the magic community around the new normal of virtual magic shows. You can hear him participating in one such panel from our very own UnConventional.fun Virtual Panel. Performing Miracles At Home Adrian’s introduction to magic wasn’t at a party or seeing magic performed in person, it was on a tv screen at 10pm at night when he was eight years old. David Copperfield was performing Misled, a pencil penetration trick, and that amazed Adrian to see a miracle being performed with elements you could find around your home. That love of magic would stay with Adrian into his teens when he would once again come across another tv special, this time David Blaine’s street magic, and the way the crowds reacted to the street magic encouraged Adrian to try performing himself to see if he could get the same reactions, which of course he did. Reverse Engineering Magic Without anyone to play the role of mentor, Adrian is mostly self-taught. He turned to watching magic performances closely, attending shows multiple times to see how the performance changed with each iteration and tracking down each detail of every trick and people involved to study how to perform them himself. In the pre-internet and youtube era this meant buying every VHS and book he could get his hands on to figure out the process on his own. If you put a problem in front of Adrian to solve, he’s going to try to solve it. Adrian admits he struggles with finding his inner motivation but if someone tries to prove him wrong his competitive side will kick in and he’ll be able to push himself to create and prove them wrong. Accepting Change and Accepting Virtual It’s difficult to change, we are all creatures of habit and at the start of this year many accepted that they might not find work for a couple of months but wouldn’t have to drastically change the nature of their business. But now that we’re looking at possibly another year of pandemic related restrictions Adrian has some advice to share for magicians struggling to adapt to the changing landscape. The first step is to accept that you can’t keep doing the same thing. Even if it means watching someone else and copying what they’re doing that’s working, as long as you’re changing things up and learning how to adapt you’ll fare a lot better than those who are rigidly sticking to their ways. We need to keep things moving forward. You also need to ask yourself why you are doing magic. Are you performing for the audience? Or are you performing for you own enjoyment? These different motivations may lead to different approaches. Then you need to be honest with the audience. Everyone is in the same level now. We’re all stuck in our homes and they are not expecting you to be in a place that you are not with forced background and heavy special effects. Accepting this will help us all find news ways to perform. “If we make them understand the impossibility of the conditions we are working in now and then we make the magic happen, the tricks for me are even stronger. Because you’ve removed the magician physically from the place where the magic is happening.” Wrap-Up Endless Chain Juan Esteban Varela, who performs magic in the dark for blind audiences. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Adrian loves the feeling when he performs and how audiences feel when he performs. He loves how easy it is to make new friends in this field. That you can travel anywhere in the world and visit a magic store and be invited to join a meeting. It’s like a big family. Adrian would like to see more diverse innovation and more original thought. Take home point You should think about why you are doing this in the first place. Why have you chosen to do magic and chosen to perform? If you find this answer you won’t care if you’re doing it over zoom, or in close up, or the stage. Plugs Adrian’s creations can be found at Penguin Magic And you can visit Adrian’s website at adrianlacroix.com

This week Jonah offers up essential tips to help you break out your virtual magic business from just a fun idea to a viable choice. A lot of the people are getting started in virtual magic right now. They’re trying to take the leap and they want to get their first few gigs from social media but they don’t know how to do it. It’s kind of nerve wracking to try to post and say, “Hey friends, hire me for your events” and you’ve seen your friends do those posts and then not get a lot of traction and not get a lot of excitement. Here are three things that you can do right now. Hashtag Hunting Hashtag Hunting is especially helpful if you have a target market, such as a specific industry like working with schools, with camps, with cruise ships, or with corporate gigs. If you have a target market all you gotta do is figure out what hashtags those groups use when you’re using social media and you search those hashtags. That is going to allow you to find the people and the companies that are hiring you because you know exactly who it is that you’re looking for. The “Media” In Social Media Facebook rewards those who help people stay on Facebook. If you do things that help keep people on Facebook, then Facebook will reward you by having more people see your posts. If you make a post that says “click here to go to my website” then if the post works then everybody leaves Facebook and that’s not what Facebook wants. So instead you should have a post that encourages the user to leave a comment or you should post a video or a live stream because those things keep people staring at the video or watching and engaging with the live stream, which is exactly what Facebook wants. Let them in behind the scenes so they know what it’s like to be you. Use behind the scenes posts to generate more bookings and more interest than “please hire me” posts. The “Social” In Social Media If we’re using our social media channels correctly, they should be filled with people that like and trust us and are filled with people that we’ve already built relationships with. So instead of feeling that social media is that black box that you post in you actually have thousands of friends, people that you actually know on those platforms that you can go start conversations with. Go chat with them, ask how they’re doing, ask if they’re still working at The Keg, and then ask if The Keg needs a year-end event, and then you can tell them about the stuff that you are doing. The magic of sales happens inside of conversations. Talk to your friends and family and find out if you can help serve their events, their company events, their family events, their holiday events, whatever it is that’s coming. Need More Help? Jonah is currently starting a case study program, helping 10 magicians transition into the world of virtual. If you think that’s you send an email titled “case study” to [email protected]. Jonah would love to help you get into the world of virtual

This week Jonah brings you three secret tips for growing your virtual magic business. You probably know by now that Jonah loves virtual magic but you might not be aware just how much he loves sales and marketing. So much so that Jonah spends his own money to hire sales trainers to help him on his virtual sales business. Through this training he’s learned three “aha” moments that has helped him with his own virtual magic sales and he’s going to pass them onto you in this week’s episode. The Sales Call and Demo Call A sales call is when you explain to them exactly what is involved in a show and what it looks like. A demo call is when you show them what is involved in a show and what it looks like. Both of these calls work but Jonah finds that both work better than nothing at all. If all you are doing is sending out e-mails you have to ask yourself if you’re willing to commit to doing a sales call or a demo call. Listen to Appetizer #16 “How to Sell A Virtual Magic Show” to hear an example of a sales call. We Will Manage All Of The Tech For every client that is calling you, this is the time where they have to take last year’s in person event and convert it into this year’s virtual event. But you are different, over the course of the last nine months you’ve performed countless virtual shows and know the technical aspects of it inside and out. You know what works and what doesn’t work and you can make their lives a thousand times easier by offering to handle all the technical aspects of your show. If you tell them, on your sales call, that you can handle all of the tech on your own and manage all aspects of the show on your own you have taken a lot of worry and stress away from them. If they don’t have to solve the entire event because you can handle those issues for them you are much more likely to close the sale. Make Their Lives Easier With A Slide Deck The bulk of the people reaching out to Jonah to book year end shows are HR people inside of the company. After they are done speaking to you on your sales or demo call they are going to take what you have told them and present it to their team or the person in charge and re-pitch your show to them. If you provide for them a slide-deck to present to their team on your behalf you are not only going to have a stronger presentation for them but you are once again taking work off of the HR person’s plate and helping make their lives a lot easier. Your presentation will look nicer than all the other presentations because you’ve spent the time to hire a graphics designer to make it absolutely beautiful. Need More Help? If you want to learn more about the things that have been working for Jonah, you can book a free fifteen minute call to talk about your virtual magic business and to learn more secrets to help you grow.

Jonah is joined by Alex Boyce, a millennial magician who, rather than something new like other magicians his age, focuses on the old school and classic eras of magic. Alex Boyce is a NYC magician performing for corporate events and at institutions like The Friar’s Club, The Player’s Club, and The Rainbow Room. He can frequently be found performing at Speakeasy Magick at the McKittrick Hotel. It Was Probably A Rerun Alex’s introduction to magic was a television broadcast of World’s Greatest Magic: 5 when he was about four years old. The images of magic tricks got him very excited and his mom was able to find a colour changing silks through the hand, which she assured the young Alex was a professional’s trick and not like those other tricks in his beginner kit. Soon came the summer camps and a memorable experience when he was eleven where he failed to make into the finals, despite what he believed was a great James Bond act involving a rocky racoon and a flipped over box. Eventually he’d focus on acting and attend NYU. The Frame Of The Moment Alex puts a value on different stage pictures and images with the goal of creating interesting magic. Using props just for the sake of using props isn’t the purpose but a great scene with a great frame is really exciting. The interesting prop comes from the choices to create memorable moments. What’s A Classic Alex isn’t surprised that young people don’t focus on the classics of magic. When their introduction to magic is a David Blaine special then that’s the path they’re going to go down. But Alex will also question what it means to be a classic act? There are lots of acts happening right now that everyone does that should be considered classics. Whenever someone performs acts like Coins Through Table, Coins Across, Ambitious Card, Cups and Balls, or a variation thereof, they’re performing classic magic, even if they don’t realize it.   Wrap-Up Endless Chain Todd Robbins What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Alex loves the ability to connect with people and magic across age and experience. The community is what he enjoys beyond the actual performance of magic. What Alex doesn’t enjoy is the backend of the marketplace for magic. He feels it puts the goals in the wrong places, making products for magicians that might not be as good as they should be because that’s where the incentives are. Take home point The same way Alex has been able to reach out and create relationships he hopes that others can reach out to him and create relationships too because he gets so much out of the relationships he has in magic. Plugs Boycemagic.com Instagram – @boycealex

Jonah is joined by Jon Armstrong where they share an honest discussion on the difficulty of being a performer in 2020, learning how to embrace virtual shows, and how to plan for the eventual return to in-person performances. Jon Armstrong is a performer, creator, and lecturer and you might recognize his name from any of his lectures, from his appearances at the Magic Castle, from Penn & Teller: Fool Us, or perhaps you recognize him for his very tiny plunger. From Theme Parks to Parlours Growing up in Orlando meant working in theme parks for Jon Armstrong. He fell in love with the magicians performing at Disney and at the age of 14 was brought on to be mentored under another magician and since then magic is all he’s cared about. By age 20 he was working at Disney’s Epcot and taking every job available to perform. After five years of theme parks he moved to vegas to chase his dream and arrived to find no work at all. Starting back at the bottom it was by the grace of friends he had made along the way that he was able to perform up and down the aisles of theatres before shows would begin. A random happenstance would land his demo video on the top of the pile to be selected to fill in for a show at the Cesar’s Magical Empire’s close up room, The Secret Pagoda. Riding on the success he found in Vegas he left for LA to start all over again at the bottom just to be close to Magic Castle and build his client base. From Cruise Ships to Virtual Shows This year was going to be a banner year for Jon, performing on an extended contract with Disney Cruise, but the COVID-19 pandemic curtailed all those plans. With a newborn on the way and opportunities disappearing Jon is honest about how hard this year has been both for his career and his mental health. Now, like every other magician, it’s all about the world of virtual performances and he’s learned the new skills necessary to thrive in this environment. He’s rebuilding his shows to work in the unique spaces of interactive video performances and finding new ways to deliver old tricks in a fresh light. Planning Beyond Virtual Beyond his advice to upgrade your computer, Jon’s advice to magicians performing and developing virtual shows is to look to the future and think about how this new arrangement might inform stage shows, when they eventually return. If you’re developing a new trick for virtual shows try to imagine how you can also develop it for stage shows and in-person performances. Having a new repertoire of tricks when you return to stage performances is the light at the end of the tunnel for Jon. One Big Tiny Plunger But what about that tiny plunger? Jon breaks down his experience with Penn & Teller: Fool Us, his development of the tiny plunger that has become his signature piece and how a small variation on a theme has blossomed into a major magic business venture with tiny plungers being sold around the world and requested at every show he performs. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Taylor Hughes What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Jon likes how we have shown that we can be adaptable. That’s something to be proud of that we can adapt to this weirdness. But what Jon doesn’t like is the opposite, that there are still people who are so unwilling to adapt anything into the virtual space and continue to look down on those who are adapting to grow in the virtual space. Take home point Really think about how you and the audience feels when performing magic. The best way to understand an audience is to understand how you feel from their reactions as well as how they’re feeling from what you’re doing. Plugs You can reach out to Jon at cardjon.com

Jonah is joined by Erik Tait to discuss his brand of magic, producing magic for Penguin, and venturing into the world of live stream events. Erik Tait is a top graduate of Toronto’s own Humber College Comedy Writing and Performance Program, has appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, and was the 2018 International Brotherhood of Magicians Gold Cups Close Up Competition Champion Juggling At The Comedy Barn and Sneaking Into Stand-Up Erik Tait did not start out to become a magician, he started out as a juggler. In middle school he met the juggling duo Jessie and James who got him onto the path of becoming a professional juggler. After landing a job at the Comedy Barn, as a juggler, he soon found himself working the magic booth selling magic products and having to put on shows to customers to demonstrate. Thanks to a friendly ventriloquist who taught him what he needed to know he soon found himself as a magic pitch man. But the bug hadn’t bit Erik yet and rather than magic it was stand-up comedy that Erik was drawn toward. That eventually led him to Humber College’s comedy program where he learned the business of comedy as well as the craft of sketch, clown, mime, dance, tv production, and comedy writing. It was here that he came to learn that performance is a craft as much as it is an art. Good at Comedy but Great at Magic It’s ok to not be great at something you love. Erik was a good comedian but after years of trying to make his career break out his partner took him aside and pointed out that as good as he was at stand-up comedy he was great as a magician. Within a year after leaving stand-up comedy behind he had appeared on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, won the IBM, and landed a job at Penguin Magic producing their video content for magic demos. Today he can be found hosting livestream events for Penguin’s Sunday livestream, the host of the Penguin Magic Podcast, and his own Suspicious Wizard channel. It’s Ok To Not Be Great At Something You Love Erik admits that he’d love to be a mentalist but is never going to be good at that. It’s ok to recognize that some people are just going to be better at some things than others. You can still enjoy doing that thing you love, even if you’re not good at it, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or those around you. Erik is also really bad at playing Fortnite, for example, but that hasn’t stopped him from streaming his example of terrible gameplay on his twitch channel. But finding that thing you are good at and honing in on that talent can be very rewarding, even if it’s not the first choice on your list. It took Erik years to come around to accepting magic performance as a legitimate choice for him and it meant leaving behind comedy, juggling, and accepting that he was never going to be a mentalist, no matter how many angora sweaters he buys. Wrap-Up Endless Chain Nick Locapo. He’s one of the best close up workers who doesn’t know he’s one of the best close up workers in the country. What do you like about modern magic? What do you not like? Erik likes the awareness and they are affected and a part of the culture and society around them. With the Black Lives Matter and Me Too movements happening there are real growing pains that are important and as difficult as it has been for some to face in the mirror, it’s ultimately going to be a good thing. Erik does not like the inexorable passage of time. He regrets not approaching and talking to magic masters he almost met in the past and he knows that one day people that admire him won’t be able to approach him either. So seize the moment and talk to your heroes when you have the chance. Plugs Erik Tait dot com Penguin Magic Podcast Penguin Magic Facebook Page (and home of the Sunday live stream) Sup1cious Wizard Gaming

This week Jonah breaks down all the basics you need to know about running ads on Facebook. These are the first things Jonah works with when consulting with other magicians to help them set up their Facebook ads. Through the Toronto Magic Company, Jonah has sold out shows for years using Facebook ads and recently successfully sold two-hundred tickets to UnConventional.fun using Facebook ads. In this episode Jonah will walk you through exactly how to use Facebook ads for your next show. The Almighty Facebook Pixel The Facebook pixel is a tiny piece of code that you put on all of the pages of the websites that you are using your Facebook ad to send people to. That code allows Facebook to understand what people are visiting your webpage. And later it will help you define rules for specific groups and demographics as you gather who is visiting your pages. In the future, if you want to up rules so that your ads target only the people who visited a specific page on your site but not other people who visited a different page the only way to do that is by using the Facebook pixel now before you start running traffic through the page. If you try to run ads on Facebook without the pixel it’s not going to be very good. And that’s because Facebook needs to be able to talk and listen to your site. It needs to know what people are going to your site and end up buying something, like a ticket for your next show, and what people are not. The Facebook pixel will help ensure that your ads actually work. The Basics of Targeting Jonah helps to break down what internal targeting is and the kinds of groups you can target with Facebook ads. As an example, UnConventional.fun was sold using pixeling and targeting only people that had been to the website, watched the video, or engaged with their social media page.   External targeting is much harder because you know the people who liked your page already but now you want to reach a new audience who has never visited your page before. External targeting takes more creativity and brainstorming to think of who might be interested in being introduced to your product. The Power of Testing The secret to Facebook ads is testing. Seeing what works and what doesn’t work. Once you define who you want to target you’ll need to go into your data and see what actually worked and what didn’t. After looking at the data stop doing ads for the targets that didn’t generate results and start doing more ads for the rules that worked.   Every aspect of your ad should be tested. The more you test the better it will work. Turn off the aspects that don’t work. Try at least three to five different images in the ads, see which ones engage with your targets and which ones don’t and lose the images that don’t perform. Same thing with text, try five different versions of the text and see which ones people engage with which ones people don’t and lose the ones that they don’t engage with. By testing, what ends up happening over time is you keep the things that work and you throw out the things that don’t and eventually the ad that you’re using over and over again is the best worded and best presented ad and best targeted ad that you can muster. Book A Free Call With Jonah If you want to work with Jonah directly to get in depth about the specifics of your Facebook ads and what has worked well for Jonah, you can book a free fifteen minute call to talk about your virtual magic business and to see what’s working and what can be improved with your own marketing strategy.