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Hiring a magician can be a great way to liven up birthday parties, corporate events, festivals, and conventions, and bring a surprising and memorable experience to all who attend. There are a wide range of magicians working across the country, and each has their own specialties, skills, and rates. To help you hire the right magician for your next event, it's good to familiarize yourself with some industry basics, so you can be sure you're working with an experienced professional who offers services tailored to your needs.
A magician is a stage performer who entertains crowds with sleight of hand tricks, special effects, and illusions. Often, they create illusions by taking advantage of the way our senses perceive and process information. Such illusions often take hundreds of hours of practice to perfect.
A corporate magician is one who specializes in entertaining crowds at corporate events. Often, they incorporate logos or slogans into their routine to help promote brand awareness for their corporate employer. In some cases, they may even incorporate new products into their act.
A good magician needs to have two key qualities. First, they should have a natural stage presence that allows them to be entertaining, even while performing complex maneuvers. Second, they should be willing and able to put in the many hours of practice required to perfect sleight of hand tricks.
Magicians are real-world sleight of hand artists who practice rigorously to create illusions in front of crowds. Wizards, on the other hand, are fictional characters who acquire arcane knowledge of magic for the purpose of casting spells.
On average, you can expect to pay between $200 and $250 per hour for a magician to perform at a child's birthday party. However, this range can vary widely, based on your location, the type of magician you're looking to hire, their travel costs, and the number of children attending the party.
Magicians qualified to entertain at adult birthday parties tend to charge a bit more than those who perform at children's parties, and you can expect to pay around $500 for an hour-long act. Depending on how notable and respected the act is, you may pay as much as $1,200 for a performance.
David Copperfield is the wealthiest magician in the world, with a net worth of around $1 billion. His rates for individual shows aren't known, although he earns between $40 and $60 million each year and performs at more than 500 shows.
While men have traditionally been more likely to fill the role, the truth is that anyone can be a magician. Fay Presto, Misty Lee, and Kristen Johnson are all notable female magicians.
In the United States, magicians are most well-known wearing black suits and top hat, which has become their classic clothing choice. However, magicians have been performing for centuries all around the world, and have worn many types of traditional costumes. Some modern magicians even wear street clothes.
The classic choice of a rabbit for a magician's act comes down to practicality. Unlike cats and dogs, rabbits don't make noise, which makes them easier to conceal in hidden compartments. Their small size also makes them well-suited to many tricks.
Magicians use various techniques to create the illusion of disappearing. One well-known technique is for the magician or an assistant to enter a large cabinet with a concealed trap door in the back. Once the cabinet is closed, the participant slips out through the trap door and "disappears."
Generally speaking, magicians never reveal their secrets. The reason for this is because these secrets are their livelihood. Audiences who know the secret behind a trick will be less entertained by it and be less likely to pay admission to a show.
David Copperfield is the best-known magician in the world, performing on many television specials and in numerous live performances. Other notable magicians include Penn and Teller, David Blaine, James Randi, and Shin Lim. In history, Harry Houdini is one of the most skilled and best-known magicians.
As part of a performance in 1926, Harry Houdini asked to be punched in the stomach several times. Unfortunately, he was suffering from appendicitis at the time, and the blows caused the organ to rupture, leading to his death just days later.
While Joey Fatone has never performed magic as part of his work with the band N*Sync, it's well known by fans that he practices magic as a hobby. He's skilled at making coins, cards, and other small objects disappear.
Learning magic is different than learning biology or painting, as most magicians don't learn their craft through formal education. Instead, many recommend learning magic tricks from books, and then practicing them for many hours until they're perfected. With enough experience, you can even devise your own tricks.
A magician's skills largely depend on the type of magic they perform. A mentalist will be well-trained in the art of persuasion and psychology. A card magician will need to be very dexterous and nimble with their fingers. Stage magicians typically put a lot of work into creating elaborate props and routines.