Chris asks: Is there a monthly magic subscription box for beginners?

If you have not come across them before, the concept is simple. You pay a monthly subscription, and each month or quarter you receive a box full of cool tricks, and tutorials to learn that month. Sometimes this is followed up with a members forum to share ideas and opinions about what's in the box.

For the subscriber it's exciting, often cheaper than the cost of buying the items individually and (in theory) you get a curated collection of great magic tricks to learn each month together with a community of fellow subscribers to socialise with.

For the magic dealers it's a great way to sell a bulk batch of each item.. It's a steady constant income stream that can grow rapidly as your subscriber list increases. Your subscribers stay loyal and profitable over a long period.

I've never liked the idea of a magic subscription box.

From the point of view of a magic teacher I think they are a very bad way to look after magicians that trust you to teach them. From a business point of view a magic subscription box may be profitable.. and from a distance they appear to be helpful, but they usually fail to deliver any real results. MoM is about pushing magicians to develop their magic into performance, and that isn't helped in any way by the restrictions a subscription box puts on a beginner.

 

The importance of being actively selective

The sooner beginners are pushed to be ‘actively selective’ about the material they spend their valuable practice time on the better. Beginners waste enough time on disjointed random effects and purposeless moves without application already...

The key to building an effective magic training program for your magic is to be very selective about the material that you spend your time working on. You should aim to slowly build up mastery of the core moves in card and coin work, together with the basics of misdirection. Each trick you learn should be picked because it fit's into building you an act of material to perform... Not because a dealer managed to get a large wholesale deal on a particular beginners item to throw into this months magic subscription box. You deserve better than that.

Netflix for magicians

Another option that gets suggested a lot is a subscription service for download tuition. Again, some customers will see value in it for the short term, but ask yourself this:

Are you buying magic tricks to entertain yourself, or to teach yourself? A buffet of content is fun, but you don't need that much material in your training program. Too much choice is the enemy of structured practice... It leads to simply jumping from one trick to the next, never stoping long enough to master anything. The pull for the 'new' distracts you from working on something long enough to be anything more than average at it's performance. Slowly, choice turns to boredom, and that is the most common cause of people drifting away from magic over time.

Pick just a few items that you REALLY want to master.

I’d always recommend a good slow paced individually focused magic course. A structures way to drill of core moves, and then routines that reinforce those moves. So much better than a lucky dip of random easy tricks each month..

If you contact the support team at the magic shop, they will discuss what you already perform, what you’re struggling with... and then get a good suggestion of the next material to work on to push you forward. Any good magic shop will give you the time to do that for you.

Best wishes and good luck with your magic

Dominic Reyes