Discourse in Magic

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 info@discourseinmagic.com 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 know what is going on maybe it’s time to reign yourself in.  And if you decide not to reign yourself in you might be responsible for…  Twizards! No video exists of this grandest of failures. For that we can all be grateful. But if you’ve ever seen Jonan and Ben dressed up as wizards you can know that they own those costumes because of this idea.  The Twizards was going to be a show to teach people about magic, where they could learn tricks and understand the methods. But rather than just create a simple teaching program like everyone else Ben and Jonah decided to shoot for the moon and create a disney-esque TV show about a paid of wizards trapped in a library having to learn tricks to escape their prison while Ben and Jonah watch them on TV and learn the tricks in the real world. Sound confusing? That’s because it was confusing.  Not only did Ben and Jonah have no experience scripting and producing a TV program, they’re also not actors or comedians or scriptwriters. They bit off way more than they could chew and soon found themselves so wrapped up in figuring out how to create special effects on a green screen that they forgot that the whole reason they created this project in the first place was to be a fun and simple way to teach people about magic.  Grand ideas are fun to have but the lessons to be learned here are to ask yourself honestly if anyone is asking for the thing you’re trying to make. Learning From Failure Over the course of 2020 Ben and Jonah have tried lots of things and from the failures they’ve learned that one of the most important secrets to success is to give yourself the time to succeed. You can’t complete your high concept project if you’re waiting until the last minute to put the finishing details on it. If you’re putting together your thing a week before your show you’re already too late. As well, be creative in the execution and be level-headed in the creation, create with practicality in mind and execute with creativity in mind. 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

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 next Thursday. Peace!

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