Top 5 Ways to Get Gigs
How to get paid for doing what you love
I recently started a residency at a restaurant so I’m excited to work on new material. My current favourite to pull out is Pyro wallet, which isn’t much of a trick but when you pull it out after someone asks if you do “black magic”, it’s those little moments that make me all warm and fuzzy inside.
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When you start getting into the hobby of magic, practicing at home in front of the mirror and then showing friends and family a few tricks, you may eventually get to a point where you’ll want to get paid for the art you’ve put time and effort into learning.
So where do you go to get gigs? You can’t really go online and apply for a job as a magician, unless you do so with one of those children’s entertainer companies, but that probably isn’t what you’re looking for. Busking is another viable option, although it’s better to want to be and stay as a busking magician than use it as a platform into the gig market.
Count down with me five solid ways to get gigs, with more sprinkled at the end to keep you going.
5. Referrals from other magicians
If you’re a magician, hopefully you also have working magician friends who can get you a leg up with finding work.
Your friends should be able to determine where your skill and entertainment level is at before referring you to clients for gigs. In my case, I did gigs with The BlackTies at charity events to show that I was a suitable fit in magic and professionalism before getting work through them. This is different from doing a free gig for exposure as it’s more like a job interview where your performance and first impressions matters.
Work on your magic and don’t be afraid to ask your working magician mates if you can tag along at a gig, take photos/videos of them in exchange for performing and potentially getting future work.
4. Booking Agent
This service is one for those who a generally more experienced, established and are commanding higher prices than the average magician.
Essentially you have an agent that books and schedules work for you, and they take a cut. This frees you up to focus less on the business and marketing side of magic and more on what you got into this art for, performing!
Agents may work with many different entertainers, so you would want to have a good relationship with them, so you remain top of mind.
3. Your Website
You might not think you need a website as long as people can look you up on any social media platform but unless you’re street magician Jason Maher, make sure you have a website.
Your website is your brochure, where you have all the important information about what performance options you offer, media and how to contact you. Creating a website these days is very easy with services like Wix (My website uses this) and Squarespace, just pick a template that look clean and good and fill it with your information, photos and videos. Look at other websites for inspiration but don’t plagiarise their copy word for word!
There’s a lot more to be said about websites in a separate article but I believe the information needs to be clear, easy to find with photos and making it easily editable is important so you can make changes when required without relying on someone else.
2. Referral Websites
If you don’t have a website, you can use referral services like Gig Salad (US), Book Entertainment (UK), Crowd Pleaser (AUS), Book A Magician (Global) or the equivalent alternative wherever you’re located.
The upside of these services is that they do the marketing for you in a way, customers go to their site and find a magician for their event. The downside is that you’re competing with many other magicians on that site. In order to get a leg up, your copywriting should be on point, and if the service allows, providing a link to your site might make the difference as they check your site out.
Not all services allow for website linking, which might not matter to some but if you’re looking to improve the SEO of your own website, having it backlinked with a reputable and high-quality site can only help you.
Book A Magician
One such site that allows you to be featured and provides a high-quality backlink to your website is Book A Magician.
This is a new service created by Rory Adams, creator of the successful magic newsletter One Ahead. This service allows magicians worldwide to be featured so when potential clients google for magicians nearby, Book a Magician aims to be the site they see and click on. You have full control of your profile and can backlink to the site which will improve your own site’s chances of ranking higher on Google.
This service is still new so positioning on Google currently varies, but Rory is working on making sure the site grows to become the premier site for booking magicians. If you use the code DAVID20 you can sign up for 20% off a year before the price inevitably goes up.
1. Word of Mouth
The best way to get gigs is through people seeing you and talking about you to others.
Always be prepared to perform when you’re out an about, prospective clients often don’t know they want a magician at their event until they’ve seen one. Have a business card or some way to share your contact details, and theirs so you can follow up afterwards. When people see you perform, whether at a gig or elsewhere and they enjoy your magic, they’ll tell others about you when conversations about birthdays, weddings or any sort of event comes up.
Be memorable as a person and entertaining as a magician so people will want to book you when they need entertainment for their event.
Other Ways to get gigs
There are more ways to get gigs outside of the five I just listed, here are some others and brief bit about them.
Fax/Email marketing - Basically cold contacting companies offering your services. Bonus points for places still using fax.
Pro Bono - Extension on word of mouth, but just doing free gigs to get your name and business card out there (Yes, I know this is for exposure).
Charity gigs are great for this.Repeat Clients - Get in contact with past clients when Christmas, Birthdays and other milestones are coming up to get that repeat gig goodness!
Google Reviews - An extension of your website but having lots of positive Google reviews gives you instant credibility when people search for magicians.
Leave a comment with how you get your gigs and if there’s any method not listed here.
Things Worth Sharing
Instagram Link Blaise Serra posted a clip of him at Magic Live doing a card trick with insane sleight of hand. It’s the kind of thing that magicians appreciate at a deeper level because of what goes on to achieve the effect.
Ollie Mealing is a creative cardician, recently finishing a mini project where he took random suggestions and created a trick out of them. While you might work out how each one is done if you’re a magician, it’s a great lesson in creativity.
Rediscovering old material is always fun, I randomly decided to go through T. Nelson Downs The Art of Magic and found a bookmark (a playing card of course) in the middle, I have no memory of marking this spot but now I’ve gone down a rabbit hole of learning the trick and everything around it. What a joy!