Magic Wrapped:

2024 by the numbers

Dec 27, 2024

I started this Substack in April with the intention of documenting, in real time, the process of doing professional magic in New York City.

In this post, I’m breaking down my growth from 2023 to 2024, because I learned a lot of important lessons. I think it will be helpful to give you real numbers, so I’m including data about the amount of shows I did, and some general revenue figures as well.

The goal is to show that there’s multiple avenues to making a living in the arts—my particular breakdown skews heavily toward public shows, but that won’t be the case for everybody.

A note on definitions: Corporate shows are paid for by companies, private shows are paid for out of pocket (think: 40th birthday party), and public shows are ticketed performances open to anyone. Let’s do it:

Total Number of Shows:

2023: 110

2024: 152

Corporate Shows:

2023: 25

2024: 28

Private Shows:

2023: 22

2024: 21

Public Shows:

2023: 63

2024: 103

So, I did 42 more shows this year than last year—nearly one extra show per week. But let’s be honest—this is only my second year doing magic full-time. There was a lot of space to fill on the calendar. It’s possible that this level of growth could continue in 2025, but it’s too early to say. I wasn’t expecting to tour this year, so there are likely plenty of surprises in store.

Likewise, not only was my biggest increase in public shows, it was my only meaningful increase. Private shows actually went down (from 22 to 21).

Because public shows were by far my most meaningful category (I did almost as many public shows this year as I did shows last year), let’s break it down further:

Public Show Breakdown:

Stand-Up Magic NYC:

2023: 10

2024: 25

Stand-Up Magic Denver:

2023: 0

2024: 10

Tour Shows:

2023: 0

2024: 22

So, we’re looking at large increases in each category, and this makes sense because it reflects the effort I put into public shows. Again, my corporate and private work stayed identical because I didn’t try to increase them.

Before we get into more analysis, I think this the most interesting lesson is that inputs and outputs are not proportional. Quantity of shows does not have a linear relationship to dollars earned. You need to look in the details to see where, specifically, the money is coming from.

Percentage of Income Breakdown:

Corporate:

2023: 64%

2024: 46%

Private:

2023: 15%

2024: 22%

Public:

2023: 16%

2024: 26%

(If you’re wondering why the numbers don’t add up to 100, it’s because I had a few other very small freelance projects that don’t factor in here).

Think about this: I did nearly four times more public shows than corporate shows this year (103 vs 28). But corporate shows still accounted for 20% more income! So, while I love public shows, corporate clearly still plays a key role in my income.

2 Key Takeaways:

There is no ceiling to how much money you can make: When you’re self-employed, you’re playing a high-risk, high-reward game. The risk is that could have a $0 per year income with no benefits. But the ceiling, unlike a traditional salary, isn’t capped. So you could, conceivably, give yourself a 50% raise every year if your quality got that much better. Mostly, the formula I think about is this: By increasing the amount of shows I do, and increasing the price as the quality goes up (as a function of quality reps), I get more, higher quality shows over time.
Incremental changes go a long way: This is the reason you do certain shows for little or no money—you’re playing the long game. You’re getting better during those shows, which allows you down the line to raise your rates. For example: Each show on tour had $30 tickets. We got noticeably better on tour, and we left with a better product than we started with. Therefore, we’re going to charge $35 per ticket on our upcoming tour. And by raising rates by only $5, we’ll profit an extra $7,350 (based on 1470 tickets sold). We’re actually doing more shows on tour this time, so that number could go up.

Key Point of Growth in 2024:

We did Stand-Up Magic 55 times in 12 cities compared to last year’s 10 shows in 1 city. It went from a small baby to a legitimate show that we toured with. It made up more than one third of my total shows this year, and I hope that percentage increases in 2025. It’s already looking like it will.

Key Point of Struggle in 2024:

Holiday Season: I did 13 shows in December this year compared to 19 last year, and made significantly less money. December is supposed to be a cash cow, and it wasn’t. For better or worse, this makes sense—I put a ton of effort into marketing public shows, and I didn’t put that effort into marketing corporate and private shows. If I’m not putting in the work to get those shows, then my December isn’t going to be significantly better than any other months. It’s that simple.

As you saw above, I still need corporate and private shows to pay my rent. Combined, they made up 66% of my income in 2024. So, they’re exactly 2/3 of my income while being exactly 1/3 of my work. Clearly, they’re worth doing if I can maintain that ratio.

But here’s the lesson: Doing so many public shows makes my corporate shows better. It’s simply a matter of getting reps—the more you do, the better you get. Those public shows make my corporate shows worth more money. And then the corporate shows add legitimacy to my brand, increasing the likelihood that people will come to my public shows. It’s a really nice positive feedback loop.

To summarize: One set of shows generates substantially more income (corporate), and the other generates substantially more experience/reps (public). The income gives me time to get experience, the experience makes my quality higher, and I generate more income. Corporate and public shows complement each other.

The Evolution of Public Show Revenue:

Public shows can pay as much as corporate shows if you sell enough tickets. I’m encouraged to continue chasing those shows, because I’ve always felt like public shows are where my heart is. Let’s say, completely hypothetically, that you charge a company $2000 for a show. You can sell one person on a $2000 show. Or you can sell 100 people on a $20 ticket. Both are valid strategies. I personally prefer the latter, because I’m increasingly viewing myself as a public performer. To be clear, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the corporate route, it’s just not totally my style.

Was Tour Worth It?:

Tour made up 7% of my income this year. If every month in the year was equal, they would each account for 8.3% of my income. So financially, tour was just below average. However, it was the most above average month of my life. I probably mention it every day. When someone at a gig asks me about my career, I can say “I went on tour,” and that gives me a kind of legitimacy that I’ve never had before. Again, inputs and outputs are not proportional.

Instead of income, let’s look at total shows: Tour made up 15% of my shows this year. If you assume shows are evenly distributed throughout the year, one month would include 8.3% of my yearly shows. So 15% is a significant number.

Tour generated such valuable experience and legitimacy for my personal brand that because I got to walk away with average income and an above average amount of shows, I absolutely consider that a success.

Huge credit goes to The Nudge for helping to promote the tour—we simply would not have been able to do it without them.

Goals for next year:

1. Do as many Public Shows as possible:

Then, let the corporate and private gigs come naturally. I think it’s clear why this is the case. Quality reps in public shows make you a better performer who can charge more money to the small percentage of clients that make up a large percentage of your income. There is a direct relationship between doing a show in a back room of a bar and getting well-paying corporate gigs.

You might be thinking “well, just get really good at corporate shows, and then you can always make that kind of money.” You’re totally correct, but on a purely personal level, I prefer public shows.

Goal #2: Grow my email list:

Having a direct relationship with the people who like your work is the single most valuable thing an artist can have. Email, unlike social media, is not determined by a for-profit algorithm. And opting into your email list is a higher barrier to entry than a social media following. Therefore, a smaller email list is orders of magnitude more valuable than a large social media following. I still need to figure out my exact metrics, but I’m really going to try to grow the list. If you aren’t on it, you can subscribe on my website for free.

Goal #3: Grow the Substack:

I’ve really enjoyed writing this, and my subscribers have increased noticeably over the past few weeks. I’m really grateful for everyone who reads this, and I’m dedicating more time to each post to make sure that you get real value from each one. I don’t have specific metrics I’m trying to hit quite yet, beyond making sure I get a post out every Friday all year. If you’re enjoying this and you haven’t already subscribed, you can do so for free! You can also pay, but you’ll still get 75% of the content for free.

In Sum:

Doing this breakdown was eye opening. Before I checked, I would’ve sworn that I did more public and private shows this year. Instead, the numbers barely budged, but I charged more and made more money doing, in theory, the same amount of work. That’s very helpful to know. I would encourage you to compare your previous two years, and maintain the data in a CRM (I recommend 17hats).

It’s scary not to know how many shows I’ll do next year, or how much money I’ll make. It’s also liberating—because there’s also no ceiling on what I can do.

I’m mostly grateful to have a career that I love, with people (that’s you!) who are along for the ride. Big things are coming in 2025. Let’s make it happen together.

Onward.