When someone wakes up one morning and decides to become a professional magician – they got chops, they got a decent show or can at least perform competently and entertainingly, they love performing as much as they love life and they want to make it their lifes work they will inevitably come to the question of what to charge.
Magic is an emotionally driven experience and not a hard product. Charging for said emotionally driven experience can be difficult. I too have struggled with the problem for many many year (and I believe I have shot myself in the foot too). I had been performing on and off since I was 10 and my 14-year-old self could not imagine doing anything else. I had other interests but magic was always on my 14-year-old brain. I remember sitting at the kitchen table at my grandmother’s house trying to solve the problem… $150, $100, $50! No matter what number – my precious grandmother quivered saying “too expensive.” The problem with asking individuals who are not business-minded how much one should charge, you will get a price that is not good but I trust my grandmother so I went with a low number, a number that followed me for 10 years and I am too embarrassed to say it publicly lol.
Disabled people are the most exploited – they should charge more!
I have a dual diagnosis of both ADHD & Autism Spectrum. Surprise I am disabled. Many many people falsely equate disability with piss poor wages. I USED to think that was okay – as long as I was getting a show, getting paid something then that’s okay. More shows = more name recogntion = more money. NOPE! When you operate a business, you need profit to grow and expand operation capacity. As I said in a earlier blog– NEVER sacrifice quality for quantity. More shows doesn”t always mean more money. If you are getting a LOT of LOW VALUE shows, shows that don’t move your career forward, you will lose. As someone who is disabled – it is getting more and more important to me to do MORE HIGH VALUE performances and less low value.
People VALUE high-ticket experiences/items MORE than low ticket.
When people INVEST in something, they tend to take better care of it or at least feel better about the investment assuming quantity control is accounted for. This is why you FEEL better after a trip to Disney versus a trip to Six Flags – you PAY a premium for a premium experience and you feel great about it!
What you charge is a reflection of how YOU value your own product/self.
Me personally, I have struggled with self-esteem for much of my life. A majority of the struggle comes from this false sense that I don’t measure up. I have come to learn that people do not value self-pity. Now CONFIDENCE is not necessarily tied to self-esteem BUT sometimes there can be an interwined connection. Confidence is belief in one’s ability but when you ARE the product, and you have low self-esteem, it can impact confidence. A young man who walks up to a very attractive lady and takes his shot has a higher chance of success in the long run than the young man who hesitates or does nothing at all. A part of having self-esteem + confidence is knowing that failure is inevitable. Failure is going to happen. But it’s better to fail and learn than do nothing. I have learned over the years that not everyone is capable of being a client of mine.
An Anecdotal Caveat….
A few days ago a magician I used to chat with on Facebook Messenger messaged me with a problem… Some other magician had found out that he was charging $80 and was pissed! I was pissed too! I asked the person messaging me WHY on Earth he was charging so low. His response was “thats all anyone can afford”.
Now you need to bre reasonable in pricing.
I continued with the conversation – someone he and I both know suggested charging $15,000 a show. I laughed, $1500 for birthdays and church shows to me is a bit excessive. $200 at a mimum, $700 at most, $500 as a medium would have been a more reasonable fee. You don’t want to price yourself out.
Every industry / market has a standard.
Not every show is worth doing because not every client is an ideal match. Part of being a professional magician is to know the markets you work. Each market has a standard price range. Corporate magicians can expect to charge anywhere between $700 – $5,000 – $700 for small events all the way to the $5k trade shows. School assemblies can expect a $500 – $1k, birthday magicians can be $200 – $1K. All this takes location, skill level, travel, lodging and other factors into consideration.
YOU CAN LOSE CLIENTS BY UNDERCHARGING
Perception is reality and there is a reality in dollars. If somethine is too good to be true, it probably is. Imagine you are the marketing / event planner for a Fortune 500 company. You go down the list of possible entertainers for the end of the year banquet. You are working with a big budget as it is. You run into a magician claiming to be a regional premier with all kinds of media to his /her name. You reach out – things are going great, you think you found your magician but then he gives you the fee of $150. Red alarms in your head go off.
Okay you are probably not a Fortune 500 event planner so I will try and make this more relatable…. Some unknown guy walks up to you and offers you a Rolls Royce for $50. If you are smart, alarm bells should be going off and you should immediately start asking this salesman what the catch is – there is always a catch when there is low dollars attached to a high ticket item. Ask as many questions as you can and test drive that Rolls-Royce before you ever hand them that $50. Maybe you get an odd luck and its a repo, maybe you get scammed and its a high mile, depreciated to the $0 number.
“But they can’t afford….”
This was the excuse the magician I was conversating with earlier kept circling back to. This is a hard truth everyone as a professional must face… Not everyone can afford. If they can’t afford they can’t afford. NEVER depreciate your value. NEVER sacrifice quality for quantity. Lowering your fee to someone who can never afford you is an insult to every client that can. If they can afford a $5k Taylor Swift concert ticket, they can afford you.
Payment plans
Some magicians offer, some don’t. Installation payments, Save The Date Fees & or Security Deposits are all ways of making the paying process a little less hectic and they’re a surefire way of making sure you don’t get burned if they decide not to pay the full amount at the end of the contract. Make sure the first payment is NON-REFUNDABLE. Some magicians make the entire payment owed to them the security and they refund half or all if the show has to be cancelled without a rebook. These models may work for you or they may not – you will have to try.
Jordan Allen 