So You Want To Do A Magic Lecture Tour By Illusion Concepts - Devin Knight

So You Want To Do A Magic Lecture Tour Copyright © 2017 by Devin Knight Magic All rights reserved. No part of this PDF may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval now known or to be invented, without written permission from the author. 2

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DISCLAIMER & NOTICES The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author as of the date of publication. Because conditions can change, all parties associated with this product reserve the right to change and update their opinions and views to reflect the change in conditions. This book has been written only for informational purposes. Every effort has been made to make this book as complete and accurate as possible. However, there may be mistakes in typography or content. This book should be used as a guide – not as the ultimate source. The purpose of this book is to educate. The author, publisher, resellers, and any other associated parties do not warrant that the information contained in this book is fully complete and shall not be responsible for any errors or omissions. The author, publisher, resellers, and any other associated parties shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information in this book. Every effort has been made to accurately represent this book and its potential, and no guarantees are made that the techniques discussed herein will work for you, or make you money. In fact, no references are made as to how much money you will make. Making decisions based on any information presented herein should be done only with the knowledge that you could experience losses, or make no money at all. Due to the nature of change on the Internet, links contained within may stop working. The author, publisher, affiliates, resellers, and any other associated parties to this information cannot be held accountable or responsible for any sites that may change and the results achieved by using such sites. All trademarks, company names, product names and logos are the property of their respected owners. The use of any trademark does not in anyway indicate endorsement by the trademark owners.

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INTRODUCTION So you want to do a lecture tour? Are you qualified? Who will book you? What will they pay you? How do you get your mail while on tour? How do you pay your bills while on tour? All these questions and much more are covered in this informative PDF. My name is Devin Knight, and I have done multiple lecture tours and hundreds of lectures during my career. In this book, I share with you a wealth of knowledge and experience. Not only do I show you how to book a lecture tour that can run anywhere from one week to two months or more; but, I show you how to conduct a successful lecture tour. I tell you how long your lecture should be, how many items to teach and how to conduct yourself at the actual lecture. A lecture tour can be a great experience, it will help get your name out there and make you more famous in the magic world. It is a great way to see the country too. I have done tours that took me from the east coast to the west coast and back. The excitement of seeing so many famous sites along the way is a bonus that makes it very worthwhile to do a lecture tour. Some magicians plan to vacation in certain areas and book lecture tours to help pay for their vacations. This gives you the best of both worlds. However, this book goes far beyond the basics. I show you how to get free food, and how to save money while touring. I also reveal everything you need to take with you during your tour. Skip one of these things and you could have major problems while touring. Much of the information in this book was derived from real world experiences in the trenches. I made many mistakes in my early days of touring and I share those with you so you can avoid my pitfalls. Everything I know about doing a lecture tour is included in this book. I have held nothing back. Even if you are not planning a lecture tour, the information in this book will be valuable to you if you do any kind of magic tour such as a school assembly tour. My tips on travel and hotels will prove to be invaluable to your career as a touring performer. This book is broken into sections; you can read it from cover to cover or just skip around reading things of interest. Whether you are a newbie wanting to break into the magic lecture field or an experienced lecturer, you will certainly find information within these pages that will help you.

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ARE YOU QUALIFIED? This is the most important question you can ask yourself if you have never done a lecture tour before. Who are you and why would people want to hire you to lecture? I will pull no punches about it; the lecture business is a very tough and competitive field. It is not easy to break into if you are an unknown. Magic clubs are inundated each month with offers for lectures. Many of these offers are from well-known performers; magicians they respect and know are good performers. These people are your competition. If you are unknown and send an e-mail to a club to lecture and they have an offer from Michael Ammar, the odds are you are going to lose out to Ammar. Club secretaries bring offers for lectures to the club’s board and they decide if your offer should be brought up before the membership. If they have never heard of you, the odds are your lecture offer will never be voted on by the general membership. Even if you get that far, many members will say who is this and how do we know if he is any good? Sad but true. In the past, too many clubs have been burned by bad lectures and most will not take a chance on an unknown performer. There are a few exceptions to this and I will explain them in this book. So how do you decide if you are qualified? First, do magicians know who you are? To have a fighting chance to get booked for a lecture, you have to have a name that is recognizable to most magicians. One way this is accomplished by having tricks and DVDs on the market that are sold by most magic dealers. I currently have over 87 tricks on the market sold by most magic shops, so that helps make me a household name among magicians. If you stop to think about it, most lecturers who have come to your club have many tricks and DVDs on the market. Do you have tricks on the market being sold by magic shops? If so, you may be known enough to lecture. Google your name, if page after page comes up listing your tricks, then you may be qualified to do a lecture tour. Have you written magic books that are sold by most dealers? If so, you may be qualified to do a lecture tour. Are you a regular performer at magic conventions? Even if you do not have dozens of tricks on the market, if you are a performer who is booked at a lot of magic conventions, then clubs will book you. 6

Have you recently won an award at FISM? Have you won the gold medal at the IBM convention? Have you won any prominent magic award for your performances? If you can answer yes to any of these questions, then you have a good chance of getting booked by magic clubs. Even if you are not that well known, if you contact a club and say you won the gold medal for a magic competition, they will take notice. After all, if you won a gold medal, then you MUST BE GOOD. They will definitely consider booking you. Assume that you do not fall into any of the previous categories. Does that mean you have to give up the idea of a lecture tour? Probably. There are exceptions, but for most of you, I would suggest getting some GOOD items on the market. Let your name get out there for a while. Give the magazines a chance to review your items and then proceed with trying to book a tour. You can use good reviews from magazines to aid in booking your tour. Earlier, I mentioned there were exceptions. These people are rare, but if it applies to you, then go for it! Are you another Lubor Fiedler? Do you have ideas that are so original and clever that they blow magicians away? Do other magicians at your magic club marvel and rave about how clever you are? Do you have original magic that fools magicians? A lot of performers fool themselves into thinking they are better than the really are, but, if club members are raving about your effects and originality then you may be qualified. It may be tough getting your first bookings, but here is what you do. Upload videos to YouTube.com showing you performing some of your best effects. These should be visual mind-boggling effects that fool magicians. When you contact the clubs to book you, be sure to tell them you are not that well known yet; but you have original material that fools magicians. Send them links to your videos on You Tube. If you are really talented and they can see your magic is outstanding; then you have a good chance of being booked by some of the clubs. After a few bookings, you can use references from these clubs to parlay more bookings. If you send links that you think are outstanding, but in reality, only show mediocre effects, you will kill future bookings. Clubs may look at your links initially, but if they are not impressed, they will ignore all future mailings from you. They will think this person is not that good as soon as they see your name. Before you send links, make sure they are examples of outstanding magic. Get opinions from other magicians you trust before you e-mail links to your videos. Do not fool yourself into thinking you are better than you are. Always check with others before you e-mail the links. This will save you a lot of possible embarrassment in the future. 7

Unfortunately, too many performers think they are qualified to do a lecture and they are not. Even if you manage to get a few bookings at the start, if you lecture is no good, word will spread. This is a small tightly knit community. A few bad lectures and you will kill your chances of any future bookings. Make sure you are qualified before you contact any clubs. I have covered in this section how to determine if you are qualified and bookable. I will assume that you have determined that you are qualified to do lectures. However, you must deal with an important issue before you contact the first club. Unless you have what I am going to cover in the next section, do not even consider a lecture tour. You will be asking for problems that can ruin your best-laid plans.

Do You Have A Reliable Car? This is the most important question you can ask yourself before embarking on a lecture tour. If your answer is no, then you need to temporary scrap any plans for a lecture tour until you get a reliable car. A lecture tour puts a lot of wear and tear on your car. You will be putting several hundred miles a day on your car. If you do not have a reliable car, you will be facing the potential of car problems and breakdowns that can interfere with your tour. If you book an extensive tour, you could be on tour for a month or more. Will your car stand up to the rigors of such an ordeal? If your car breaks down, you have no option but to rent a car to finish your tour. Renting a car to finish you tour can be very expensive, and a losing proposition for you. Before I booked a nationwide tour that had me on the road for two months, I bought a new van. I knew my current car would not make it to west coast and back without breaking down somewhere. It was a wise move, and the tour went well without a hitch. If you think you need to buy another car, then consider getting one with cruise control. It is a godsend when you have to drive several hundred miles each day. Having cruise control will help you arrive more refreshed at your lectures and make your long drives less tiring. Remember, you are a professional and clubs expect you to show up. There are only four acceptable reasons for cancelling a lecture date: Adverse weather, sudden illness on your part, a death in your immediate family or the club cancels you because of a local disaster or power outage. 8

Calling the club and telling them you cannot make it because your car broke down is UNACCEPTABLE! If your car breaks down, have it towed to a garage and rent a car. You are obligated to do the lecture and anything less than renting a car is extremely unprofessional and will reflect badly on you. I am talking from experience here, one time in my earlier tours; I did cancel a lecture because my car broke down. The club was very upset. I tried to reschedule it later, but the club refused. They said they did trust me and how did they know I would show up. I was NEVER able to book that club again, even in future tours. They always refused my lecture because I cancelled that one time. This only happened to me one time, and it was a lesson learned the hard way. I know if my vehicle breaks down, I better rent a car. If you cancel lectures, word spreads like wildfire and you will be blacklisted. Ensure that you have a reliable car and if something happens to it, then rent a car.

ABOUT YOUR LECTURE You must have a really good lecture before you contact any clubs for bookings. This should be obvious, but some performers put the cart before the horse and contact clubs BEFORE they have laid out a lecture. Unless you are a well-known performer in big demand, most clubs are going to want to know the details of your lecture. They will want to know what you will perform and teach. They need to put that information into a flyer and bring it before their members to vote on. In the past, Dai Vernon could get away with just having an agent say that Dai Vernon was on a farewell lecture tour. His lectures often consisted of what he wanted to perform or talk about at that moment. In many cases, few lectures were the same. That did not matter, he was “The Professor,” and clubs did not care what he would teach. It was an honor just to have him appear at their club. Unfortunately, few of us fit into this category. You are going to need a detailed list of every effect you will teach and how long your lecture is. How long should your lecture be? On the average, most clubs want a two-hour lecture. Your lecture should consist of eight to twelve items. In some cases, I have squeezed in as many as sixteen items, but this is an exception and not the rule. Unless the club tells you otherwise, always have a fifteen to twenty minute intermission in the middle of your lecture.

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The attendees need a break and the chance to visit the restroom. Many clubs serve refreshments during this time. It also gives you a chance to sell your goodies during the intermission. You will find that you will sell more during intermission than after the lecture. After your lecture, many people are in a hurry to get home because they have to be at work the next morning. You need to take full advantage of the intermission time. Try to make your lecture a variety of items. Try not to offer a lecture that consists only of card tricks. I have heard from many clubs that they are tired of people who come in and spend two hours only doing card or coin tricks. Clubs want variety. The more variety you can offer in your lecture, the better your chances of getting booked. My lectures consist of both stage and close-up magic. The effects are both magic and mentalism. I usually have a few card effects, but the rest of the lecture consists of effects using newspapers, photos, books, colored-cards, envelopes and even light bulbs. There are both serious and comedy effects. I try to offer something for everyone and this has helped me get many bookings. The first item in your lecture should be a quick and flashy effect. It should have the WOW factor. This gets your off to a great start and has the club members thinking this is going to be a great lecture. Avoid starting your lecture with a long drawn out effect that involves using people from the audience. Save these effects for the middle of the lecture. Finally, end with your strongest effect. In many ways, a good lecture is like a good magic show. Open with something quick and flashy to get the audience’s attention and end with your strongest effect. Space your tricks so the club gets a variety. If you have three card tricks, then space them through out the lecture. Do not do three card tricks in a row, unless yours is strictly a card lecture. Variety is what will hold your audience’s interest. If yours is strictly a card lecture, then you are going to lose many potential clubs. Sorry to say, but every magician does NOT want to learn umpteen thousand card tricks. Unless you are someone like Darwin Ortiz, who is known for his incredible card skills, most clubs will book a variety lecture over a lecture consisting strictly of card tricks. Your lecture needs to be within a two-hour range because most clubs meet on weeknights. They usually have a restaurant or meeting room for four hours. They have use of it from 6 PM until 10 PM. You can get in around 6 PM to set up your lecture and most lectures start at 7 PM. If your lecture ends at 9 PM, that gives you time to sell things afterward, pack up, and still be out by 10 PM. Some restaurants close at 10PM and in those cases you MUST be out by then. There are some exceptions to this rule; some clubs in bigger cities will have you start at 7:30 PM or 8 PM because of heavy traffic. 10

Sometimes, because of time restraints, clubs will ask you to cut your lecture down to an hour and half. Always be aware of time constraints, and ask the club when everyone has to be out of the building. I have found that roughly 80% of clubs meet in restaurants. Some of the members will arrive at 6 PM to eat dinner while you are setting up. The club may offer you a free dinner during this time, but in most cases, you will not have time to eat, as you are too busy setting up. If your set up time is brief and your have time to eat, then this is a nice bonus and will save you some money. Once you have put together your lecture, then you need to rehearse it repeatedly. It is the same as rehearsing your magic show. You need to know how long your lecture is going to last. If it is going over two hours then you need to cut some items out. An important factor to consider is time for questions. Do not plan your lecture so there is no time for questions. There will always be people in the audience who will have questions. You need to take this in consideration when planning your lecture. Have one or two bonus items in reserve, just in case you do not get many questions. That way your lecture will work out to about two hours. NOTE: I have found if you really explain your tricks in detail that you will not get that many questions. After you have your lecture down, invite your wife or girlfriend to watch your lecture from start to finish. If you mess up, keep going as if this was a real lecture. How did you do? Did you stay within the two-hour period? Our wives and girlfriends can be our worst critics. Ask her what she thought and listen to her. Does she have ideas for improvement? If so, is it something you should consider? If you think your lecture is ready to book, you need to do one more thing if this is your first time. Contact one of two local magic clubs and offer your lecture free in exchange for feedback from the members. This gives you a real world test. The lecture will not be completely free, because you can sell some lecture notes or tricks and still make a little extra money. After your lecture, ask the members for feedback and listen carefully. If everyone says it is a great lecture, then you are set to book a tour. If there are some valid criticisms, then you may need to change a few things before you embark on a tour. If everything went well, get a letter from the club president endorsing your lecture. This will help you book your tour. Always do at least two free lectures before you book your tour. If you got criticism, then make those changes. If need be, find another club and give a free lecture asking for feedback. This time everything should be 11

great and you are ready to book your tour. That is what I will be dealing with in the rest of this book.

WHO WILL BOOK YOU AND WHAT THEY PAY Magic clubs, magic shop and conventions, are the three main groups that will book you. Most lecture tours involve lecturing before local magic clubs with a few magic shops here and there. Some magic tours may include a convention, but these conventions dates are rare. At the time of this printing, most magic clubs and shops are paying $250 to $350 for lectures. The average price seems to be $250 with a few of the bigger clubs paying $300.00. Fees of $350 and sometimes even $450 are reserved for big name performers in big demand. If you are starting out, you need to price your lecture at $250, if you want to get a lot of bookings. Magic shops seldom pay over $250.00. Some will want you to work on a percentage; others only pay $150.00 and expect you to make up the difference by selling stuff. Some shops will pay you nothing, but will let you keep the take at the door. Usually, lecturers charge $15 to $25 at the door. Shops do this because a lecture draws people to the shop and the dealer knows he will probably sell a lot of magic that night. I have taken these deals, but be aware, you are competing with a magic shop full of items and it will cut into your sales. Sometimes you need to book a magic shop to fill an open date, and a gig in a magic shop is better than an open night with no lecture. It is customary for the club or shop to provide you with a hotel room the night of the lecture at their expense. Therefore, the deal for most lectures is $250 plus a hotel room. There are some lecturers offering their lecture for $300 without the club providing a hotel room. These magicians either book a cheap hotel for less than $50.00 or sleep in their car or camper. If you pull a camper and sleep in it, you can save a lot of money. By offering your lecture for $300, you save the club money as most clubs wind up paying almost a $100 or more for hotel rooms. Many lecturers just pull their camper in a 24-hour Wal-Mart after the lecture. This seems to be a safe place to park and you will see other campers in the parking lot too. Unfortunately, there are a few lecturers, and some of these are big name performers, who prefer to save money by sleeping in their cars. This is not recommended. One well-know performer a few years ago did a tour and offered his lecture for $250 with no hotel room charge. He got a lot of bookings because it was a good deal for the clubs. He was able to offer this deal by sleeping in his car.

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He did the tour, but did not make the best impression. Some club members told me, this person showed up unkempt, unshaven and it looked like he had slept in his car. There were also complaints about his body smell. There is no excuse for this. If it is warm and you want to sleep in your car, then do it, but do not show up at the lecture all smelly and looking like you slept in your car. Before your lecture, go to any major truck stop. For around $5.00, you can get a shower. Truckers do this all the time. This gives you a chance to shave, change clothes and arrive at your lecture looking fresh. No one need know you sleep in your car.

HOW MANY PEOPLE WILL ATTEND YOUR LECTURE? You never know until the lecture starts. Most clubs usually over estimate how many people will attend, especially if the members have to pay to see your lecture. The bottom line is that lecture attendance has been on the decline for the last few years. Many people think this is because of all barrage of new DVDs that hit the market every week. Watching a DVD is a lot like seeing a lecture. On the average, you will have eight to twelve people. On a good night, your attendance may be as much as 18 to 20 people. In bigger cites, usually the IMB and SAM will co-sponsor your lecture. This is when you may get 20 people or more. On the other side, I have driven over 500 miles and only had four people show up. No kidding, four people! Luckily, for me they were BIG FANS and wound up buying over $800 of product among the four of them. I did one lecture and the president told the prior lecture only had one person show up. He was doing a card lecture. Because of dwindling attendance, many well-known lecturers have quit touring. They find it disheartening to drive hundreds of miles and wind up doing their lecture for six or eight people. There are exceptions to the rule; I have had a few lectures where over a 100 people attended. These types of lectures are very rare and usually attendance like this is only possible in a major city where several clubs are within driving distances. You have to be fairly well known to draw a 100 people. Large attendance does not always translate to great sales. At the lecture with over a 100 people, I sold less than $300 in product. Compare that with the four people who spent $800.00. Go figure .

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MAGIC CONVENTIONS Magic conventions are a nice addition to your lecture tour. They can be very profitable and can be done as a stand-alone gig as well. To get booked into a magic convention you need to be a well-know performer. Conventions book people who will draw customers to their conventions. If you are an unknown, you will not draw people and it is highly unlikely you will get booked, unless you are very clever and can fool magicians. Fees for conventions vary, if you are a famous lecturer in big demand, you can just about write your own ticket, if it is a national or worldwide convention. However, from my experience most conventions pay $500 to $1000 for a prominent lecturer. Some smaller regional conventions may only pay the standard $250 lecture fee and give you a hotel room. Other small conventions may pay you nothing; they will give you free registration and a dealer’s booth. They expect to you to make your money from lecture sales and your dealer’s booth. Conventions are usually a good deal. Even if they do not pay you much, you can still make a lot from sales based on the amount of people attending. If you can book a convention, then go for it. Not only will you make some decent money, but it will add to your fame. Being booked at a convention will help you book more club lectures down the road.

WHEN IS THE BEST TIME TO TOUR? Before you book your tour, you have to decide when you want to tour. There are good times and there are bad times. In this section, I will discuss the pros and cons of the four seasons. Once you have determined when you want to tour, you can start planning your tour.

WINTER: In my opinion, winter is the worst time of the year to tour. I have had more than my share of winter tours and they can be very challenging. Most winter tours run from January to March. I did not include December as it is positively the worst month of the year to book a lecture and I recommend that you avoid December at all costs. First, few, if any clubs will book you during this month because the club meeting is usually a holiday party and they do not want a lecture. Secondly, most magicians have holiday bookings and many will be booked on the night of your lecture with their own gigs, so expect LOW attendance. The ones who do attend will not spend much money. It is the holiday season and they have presents to buy, so your magic sales could be very dismal. 14

I have done a few lectures the first week of December and did okay, as this was the end of a fall tour. However, if you do take a December date, make sure it is within the first few days of December. What about January, February and March? It depends on where you are touring. Let me say first of all, that it is easier to book a winter tour than any other time of year, especially in the Northeast. You have less competition, because most lecturers do not want the hassle of a winter tour. A winter tour can be a nightmare. If you are touring in the Midwest, Northwest, Northeast or Canada, you will run into snow. I would not recommend that you attempt a tour during the winter UNLESS you have a 4-wheel drive with heavy-duty snow tires, and a good heater. In some parts of Colorado, you may even need chains to travel on some of the mountainous roads. You will most likely have lectures that are cancelled because of adverse weather or the fact you cannot get there because the roads are closed. Even if you manage to arrive and the lecture is held, attendance may be low because of bad weather. Many magicians will not venture out in the freezing weather to see you, no matter how good you are. I remember a few winters ago that I had a lecture tour through the Northeast. A blizzard struck and knocked power out in several states for a few days. I had two lectures cancelled because the buildings had no power. Hotels were closed because they had no power. I had to drive to another state to find a hotel that was open. Another time I had just finished a lecture in the Midwest, the next day a major snowstorm hit, and I was stranded in my hotel for two days because the interstates were closed. If you want to do a winter tour, then look into booking the south. Those states do not get as much snow, but states like Texas still get snow in the winter. Even if you book the south, you still should have a 4-wheel drive or a car that will handle snow well. Overall, I do not recommend winter tours. You will run into snow, face power outages, and have to deal with cancellations from the clubs because of adverse weather conditions. Most importantly, you are putting your life at risk if you tour during the winter. A lecture tour is not worth wrecking your car over or getting into a serious accident. There is one exception. Some performers will book tours through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. This is a great idea, but unfortunately, every other lecturer is thinking the same thing. The competition for lecture dates in those states is fierce during the winter months. Unless you are a well-known performer in big demand, your chances are nil for bookings there during the winter months. 15

SPRING: On the flipside, spring is probably the best time of the year to book a lecture tour. People have been stuck inside during the cold months and are looking forward to getting out. You might say the magicians have “cabin fever.” I have found in my experience that spring tours seem to pull the most attendees and are the most profitable. Most anywhere in the country is suitable for a spring tour, but be aware, some states in the Midwest may still have snow during early spring. Most spring tours take place from late March until the last week of May.

SUMMER: Most summer tours take place during the months of June, July and August. Booking a solid tour through the summer can be tough. Many clubs do not have meetings during the summer months. This is because the magicians are going on vacation, doing summer shows and attending conventions You will find some clubs that will book you, but the jumps between towns can be much further than usual due to a lot of clubs not having meetings. This can mean costly dead time and nights in hotels at your own expense. Many clubs, even if they have summer meetings, will not book you because their members have recently gone to conventions and seen plenty of lectures. Many magicians will be lectured out! Luckily, the magic shops are still open, so if you want do a summer lecture tour, you need to focus on adding some magic shops to make up for the lack of club dates. The good news is that most magic conventions are held during the summer, so there is the chance (if you are well known) to book yourself into a convention or two as part of your lecture tour. I have never done a summer tour due to the reasons I have just mentioned, although I have done some stand-alone lectures at magic conventions during the summer. If it is too late to book spring, then I recommend you focus on a more profitable fall tour and forget the summer.

FALL: Lecture tours during the fall are my favorite. This is the second easiest time of the year to book a tour. Many clubs collect dues in September and they have money to spend for lectures. The weather is nice and a tour through the Rockies or Northeast is stunning with the fall foliage. Most fall tours fall with the time span of early Sept until the week before Thanksgiving.

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WHERE DO YOU WANT TO TOUR? Another question you have to ask yourself is where you want to tour? Do you want to do a national tour, or a short regional tour? I have done regional tours that lasted only two weeks and national tours that lasted two months taking me all over the country. If you want to do a regional tour, will it be in the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, or Northwest? Some lecturers will plan their tours around a vacation or some places they would like to visit. Assume you would like to visit and vacation in Nashville. Bring out your atlas and find where you live. Note the states between Nashville and yourself. Make a list of these states. The clubs and magic shops in these states are the ones you want to contact for bookings. Obviously, you will contact any clubs in the city you want to visit. In this case, there are magic clubs in the Nashville area. Another strategy is to choose a region in the country. Say the Northeast. Look in your atlas and see which states you would like to visit in that region. Almost every state has at least one magic club. Most have several. Then make note of the states you must travel through to get to the Northeast and make a list of them. The clubs and magic shops in these states are the one you will contact. Are you ambitious and want to shoot for a national tour? I have done it. It is very tiring, but an experience you will never forget. In this case, you will do a mass e-mailing to every club and every magic shop in every state. Depending on your initial response, you will then work out a rough tour schedule and then contact the clubs again that you need to fill in a route. In some cases, you may need to offer a club a special discount to fill an open night. A few times, I have given a club a discount. I only charged them $150 if I had a long jump and needed a lecture to fill in a gap. Usually, a national tour will not take you through every state, as it is rare that you can get that many bookings. If you work at it, you can get lectures in 30 to 35 cities. A tour of this magnitude will take about two months and it will take you across the country. Do not book a tour where you wind up on one side of the country and then have nothing to do. Schedule half your lectures on route to your furthest destination and the rest of your lectures on the way back.

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USE A LECTURE AGENCY I explain in this PDF how to book your own tour and where to find the contacts you need to e-mail your offer to. However, there is an easier way, especially if you are new at this. Get someone else to book the tour for you. There are several magicians booking other magicians on lecture tours. They have set up agencies to book magic lectures. As these agencies frequently change, I suggest you Google “Magic Lecture Agencies.” Does your local magic club have lectures supplied by a certain person every few months? If so, contact the club secretary and ask him to put you in touch with that person. The agent will arrange the tour and contact all the clubs and magic shops for you. Sometimes the agency has a set route that he will send you on. I have done three lecture tours for agents and all have been pleasant experiences. In most cases, the agent will have an easier time booking the clubs then you will. The clubs trust him and know as a rule, that he is only going to send them quality lectures. The only thing you have to do is convince the agent to book you. If you are new to this and unknown, an agent can get you into clubs who otherwise would not book you because they have not heard of you. If the agent says you are good, then the clubs will book you. Currently, most agents book you at $250 to $300. Currently, most agencies charge $50 commission for each club they book.

HOW TO FIND BRICK AND MORTAR MAGIC SHOPS As mentioned earlier, some magic shops will sponsor your lecture. How do you find them and get the contact information? There are three ways. First, you can look in magic magazines for actual brick and mortar shops, but this can be difficult as a lot of people running the ads are not actual magic shops but online stores that only exist on the web. You want lists of brick and mortar shops that can host your lecture. One place to find these is to go to whitepages.com. In the search box type in “magic shop” and in the state box type in the state you want to search. A list of magic shops will come up. Print that page. Now repeat the search, this time searching for “magician’s supplies.” Usually, a longer and different list of shops will come up. Print this page of listings, too. Repeat these two searches for every state you wish to tour. In most cases, there will not be an e-mail listed, so you will have to call the shops and ask if you can e-mail them information about your lecture. Unless you are world-famous, it is highly unlikely the shop will book you on the phone. The dealer will want you to email him information.

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Next, go to Yellowbook.com and do a search for “magic supplies” in each state you wish to tour. Check this list against your lists from whitepages.com. There will be some duplicates, but you may find some that were not listed on the other site. Once you have a list of all the shops in that state, then I suggest you call each shop and ask the dealer if he sponsors lectures. If so, get his e-mail and send him the information. Most shops do not sponsor lectures. When you do find one that does, keep the dealer’s name for future reference. Even if he does not book you now, he may a few years down the road. This will save you from having to call everyone all over again. Denny’s Magic Shop in Baltimore is well known for booking lectures and usually has one or two each month. I have done lectures there several times. Denny is a great person and this shop should be on your contact list. At the time of this printing, Murphy’s Magic and Penguin Magic conducts online lectures.. This has been going on for the last few years and is expected to continue. You have to be a well-known performer, as a rule, to get booked. The pay is very generous and they will even fly you in to lecture if you live too far away to drive. For more details contact: http://penguinmagic.com and https://murphysmagic.com

HOW TO FIND MAGIC CONVENTIONS You can look for upcoming conventions in magic magazines, but usually by the time the ad appears, it is too late to book them for that year. However, copy the contact information and save it for next year. Another thing you can do is just Google “list of magic conventions.”

HOW TO GET A LIST OF MAGIC CLUBS This is the where the real money is made and where most of your bookings will come from. If you are looking to tour Florida, then contact the Florida Magicians Association. Their website will give you a list of all the current magic clubs in Florida. Most of these clubs have e-mail addresses to contact them. http://www.flmagic.org/MagicClubs.htm

International Brotherhood Of Magicians Go to their website and you can get a list of all the clubs and e-mails in all the states. However, they do give you phone numbers and e-mail address. Their website is: http://www.magician.org/

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Society Of American Magicians For a list of all the SAM assemblies, visit their website. At the time of this printing, you can only obtain phone numbers from the site for local assemblies. You will have to call the contact phone number and get an e-mail to send information to. http://magicsam.com/local-assembly-search/ It is recommended that you call any of these clubs, if you do not have an e-mail address and get an e-mail address to send information to. Sending flyers by snail mail really gets expensive and can really cut into your bottom line.

OTHER WAYS TO GET BOOKINGS The Magic Castle in LA books magic lectures. Normally, they will require that you submit a demo tape of your lecture before they will book you. An easy way to get bookings is to buy small ads in the Linking Ring and M.U.M magazines advertising that you are planning a lecture tour. I would recommend this only if you are well known among magicians. Be sure and include your phone number and email. Ask clubs to contact you if interested. Another good way to get bookings is via The Magic Café website. There is a forum on the site called: So Happy Together. Here people list lecture dates, clubs post looking for lectures and you can announce that you are planning a tour and invite interested parties to contact you. Once you have your tour booked you can post the tour dates on the site and this will aid in getting better attendance. http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewforum.php?forum=31&30990 Finally, if you have a mailing list, you can announce you are planning a tour in a certain area and ask magicians to contact you if interested. I do this every time I do a tour, and my mailing list usually gets me a few bookings.

PLANNING YOUR TOUR At this point, you should know the time frame and area you wish to tour. Now you need to get more specific. You should have a list of all the clubs and shops in the states you wish to tour. Choose a city you would like to start in and the date you would like to lecture there. Next, look for the next closest town that has a club or magic shop. Put that down for the next day. Normally, you want to book towns that are three to five hours away so you can easily make the jump. 20

These dates are not firm yet, but you need to have an idea of where you want to lecture and the dates you want to be in that city. During this process, I suggest you log into http://mapquest.com . This site will allow you to put in cities and see the distance and driving time between them. Some cities may take you two days to get to, so you will need to put in an off day for travel. Normally, I do not recommend driving more than eight hours for a lecture the next day. Otherwise, you may be too tired to do a good lecture. Once you have completed this list, e-mail it to the clubs along with your lecture information. You may have a list of 15 towns with dates and travel days. Tell the clubs that this is the tentative tour list. Many clubs will automatically take the date you have listed for their city. This is why you send the tentative list. Your final tour will not be the same as the original list you sent, but it is a starting point. Some clubs will ask you if they can change to a different date. Accommodate their request if possible. As you continue to send e-mails each month to the clubs, you update the list. After the cities you have booked, you put CONFIRMED. After the other cities still unbooked, you put OPEN. Sometimes the clubs that are adamant about only having the lecture on their meeting nights can be convinced to change to a non-meeting night if you offer them a discount. You do what you have to do to fill a schedule and avoid a lot of backtracking. Some clubs will e-mail you and say they are not interested at this time. In that case, you remove them from the tentative lecture list for that date. On the updated list, just list the date and just type in OPEN when you e-mail again.

WHAT DO YOU INCLUDE IN THE E-MAIL? When you e-mail the clubs include an opening paragraph saying you are booking a lecture tour. Tell them a bit about yourself. If you have books, DVDs or effects on the market then include a short list of the most prominent ones. The next section should be a brief list of the effects you will teach with a short description of each effect. Try to keep the description down to one or two sentences. If you have demo videos on You Tube, then be sure and include some links to view the videos. As mentioned earlier, if you are an unknown performer these video are critical to getting booked. Tell the club how much your lecture fee is, and if your require them to supply you with overnight lodging. Finally, include the tentative list of tour dates along with information on how to contact you.

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Do not include attachments. This means do not send PDF flyers or attach photos. Many e-mail servers will automatically reject e-mails with attachments. Here is an insider secret that will ensure that you can get attachments to club without having them embedded in the e-mail. There is an online service called Sugar Sync. This is a file sharing service and has free accounts. You can upload photos and PDFs to their server. You then create a link you paste in your e-mail. If the club wants to book you and needs a photo, the person who got the e-mail only has to click on the link you included and the file will download to his computer. I use Sugar Sync even when I sell PDFs to my mailing list. I send the buyer a link to the download, he clicks it and the PDF downloads to his computer. Many lecturers try to send a PDF flyer to the clubs and never realize that many of the e-mails never are delivered because it has a PDF attached to it. Some PDFs are so large; it makes the size of the e-mail undeliverable to some accounts. Sugar Sync solves all these problems and best of all you can open a free account. Visit their website to open your free account. This is another godsend for booking lecture tours. https://www.sugarsync.com/

WHEN DO YOU CONTACT THE CLUBS? I have found that you normally want to start contacting clubs four to five months ahead of your tour. In the case of a long national tour, you may need to start making contact six months ahead. Most clubs have meetings planned two or three months ahead. If you wait until two months before, you will find that many clubs already have activities scheduled for that month. Some clubs are adamant and will only have lectures on regular meeting nights, so with this thought in mind, you need to give them enough leeway. Most clubs have to take your offer to the next meeting and vote on it, so that is why you must start contacting the clubs four to five months in advance. Normally, I start contacting clubs five months in advance and follow up with a new updated mailing each month until the tour starts. Usually, a few clubs will decide to book you at the last minute since you are in the area. In most cases, those lectures are not held on the club’s regular meeting night.

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HOW DO THE CLUBS GET THE MONEY? Some clubs with lots of members will pay you from their treasuries. Some clubs with small memberships only can afford to have one or two lectures a year. However, this is not the norm. I have found in my tours that most clubs wind up charging members anywhere from $10 to $25 to attend a lecture. If enough paying members do not show up to cover your fee, then the club has to make up the difference from their treasury. Since the members are paying out of their pockets, you want to have a lecture that he or she will want to pay to see. This is why variety in your lecture is of the utmost importance, especially if the lecture is not free for the members. In a few cases, you will find a generous member who really wants you to lecture at his club. He pays your lecture fee and hotel fee out of his pocket. This is rare, but I have had it happen to me a few times.

FILLING IN THE EMPTY DATES A lot of private deals are made with lecturers and clubs when empty dates need to be filled. Remember, any night you are not booked is a night you are paying for a hotel and road expenses out of your pocket. In these cases, some lecturers feel that some money is better than no money. Here is what is normally done. If you have several open dates and a long jump, you need something to bring in some income. I suggest calling the president of one of the clubs who said they could not afford you. Explain to him that you have open date and need to fill it. Offer him a big discount, if he will arrange to let you lecture on the date you have open. If need be cut the lecture fee to $100.00. In one case, I even did a lecture for $50.00. This is not a bad deal if you have lots of product to sell. Some magic dealers use to offer a free lecture and brought lots to sale. I have done this twice in my career when I needed to fill a date. I have lots of product to sell, so in two cases, I let the clubs have the lecture free and hoped I would make my money in product sales. Luckily, it paid off. If you only have lecture notes, then it is not going to be worth your time to do a free lecture. You need lots of product so you will get a few hundred in sales after your lecture. Another way to fill an open date is to contact a magic shop along your route and offer a 60/40 split at the door with you getting 60%. Many shops will take you up on this offer and promote your lecture at the last minute. The dealer will often call some of 23

his best customers and let them know your lecture is coming next week. It is a no risk proposition for the dealer. If you have lots to sell then you should do okay. Finally, a few lecturers have tried going into bigger cities where there are several clubs, but the clubs do not want to book you. These performers rent a meeting room at one of the local hotels and then ask the clubs to advertise you are putting on a lecture. You normally charge $20 to $25 at the door for your lecture. I have never done this, but I have heard that a few performers have made out okay with this arrangement.

YOU NEED LOTS OF STUFF TO SELL I cannot stress this enough. You need lots of stuff to sell. The lecture fees are not enough. Much of those fees will be eaten up with gas and hotels you pay for on off nights. It could cost you a hundred dollars to drive between lectures, depending on how far apart they are. You need another source of income during your tour. That income will be from the items you sell. At the very least, you will need lecture notes. I cover these in detail later in this book. If you are a well-known lecturer, then you probably have DVDs and books on the market. You probably have many effects with special props. You should bring all of these with you to sell at your lecture. If you demo special props in your lecture, have them available for sale that night. I recommend taking a minimum of 100 of each of your items; a short tour will easily sell all of these. You want to sell several hundred dollars worth of product at each lecture. It is rare that I sell less than $300 worth of product at my lectures. Some nights are great and I do a thousand dollars in sales. One time, I sold $1800 worth of product at a lecture. I have heard that some other well-known lecturers have done several thousand dollars in sales after a lecture at a convention. If you can, offer a package deal with a discount. Many lecturers have a special $100 package available with a $150 value, but at the lecture, the attendees get it for just $100. Package deals are very popular and sell well. If you can, shoot for a $100 package with good value. Be sure to have a printed price list that you can pass out during the lecture so everyone knows what your prices are. Print up several hundred of these for a long tour. You will need them. Have your name and mailing address on the price list. If you sell out of something, tell the person that he can order it from you and you will ship it postpaid when you get back home. Let the attendees know they can order anything off the price list in the future and you will ship it to them postpaid. 24

If your car has limited space, arrange for a friend to mail a big box of supplies to the president of one of the clubs and have him bring it to the lecture. This way you will never run out of stuff to sale.

E-MAIL SOFTWARE Good e-mail software if vital to your booking campaign. You need an effective way to manage your lecture tour mailing list and to send professional e-mails. Most regular e-mail programs are not suitable for making a bulk mailing. You need something specifically designed for mass mailings. I use Group Mail for this purpose and I highly recommend you purchase this software. It allows you to manage multiple email lists and to save them under any name. Assume you want to do the Nashville tour I mentioned earlier. You can open the program and enter all the e-mails for all the states you plan on touring through. You can even save the person’s name so when you send the e-mail, the e-mail will personally be addressed to him. Personalized e-mails always get better response and this program allows you to do that. Adding and removing e-mail addresses from the list is easy. Just type in the email address and search. It comes up and you can delete it. This is important while booking your tour. Once a club is booked, you remove them from the list. Otherwise, the club keeps getting e-mails from you to asking them to book. This can be annoying (especially, if they have already booked you) and very unprofessional. Other clubs may contact you and say they are not interested. You should remove them from the list so you do not keep e-mailing them. Group Mail makes it very easy to remove them. Group Mail has over 84 templates you can use to design a professional looking email in full color and with embedded photos. There are several versions of the software available including a free version. You can use the free version, but I recommend you buy the Personal Edition. I have no ties with this company, nor get any commission from sales; I just use the product to book my tours and highly recommend it. You can visit the company’s website here: http://group-mail.com/ In addition, while you are on tour, you will ask people to sign up for your emailing list. This is one of the big benefits of a lecture tour. You get valuable e-mails and new potential customers you can send offers of your new products in the future. Group Mail makes it easy to manage your personal mailing list. If you have not considered putting a sign-up list out during your lectures then you are leaving money on the table. Always tell the audience you have a mailing list and invite them to sign up and be among the first to know of your latest magic offerings. 25

SENDING E-MAILS This can be a problem at times. You can use your own ISP but this is not recommended. These are often poorly run and configured wrong, have unacceptable downtime, and come with untold daily restrictions on the number of emails you can send. Such servers often have nobody looking after their reputation - blacklisting is a near certainty. I recommend you use a professional remailing company to send your e-mails and the one I use is SMTP2GO. You can use SMTP2GO and rest easy knowing that your emails will always get to their destinations, no matter what. You can focus on what you do best, preparing for your lecture, and leave all the e-mail handling them. The Group Mail software integrates easily with STMP and makes it a cinch to do bulk mailings. There are no restrictions on how many e-mails you can send at one time. This company will send you a list of bounced e-mails so you can remove them from your Group Mail’s list. The cool thing is that you can use your normal e-mail address as the reply address. All replies wanting to book you will go directly to your regular e-mail’s inbox. Visit the company’s website here: http://www.smtp2go.com/ IMPORTANT: When using this company you must have a remove option in all your e-mails. At the bottom of the e-mail, you must have a notice that says something like: If you no longer wish to receive mailings about this lecture tour, then please reply with REMOVE, as the subject and I will remove you from future mailings.

WHAT YOU NEED BEFORE YOU START YOUR TOUR I am assuming you have done your mailings, you have made your contacts and after months of hard work and planning, you have a lecture tour booked. However, before you start your tour, there are things you need to know. There are also things that you MUST have. Without these things, you are facing potential problems. COMPLETE CONTACT INFORMATION: You need contact information for every lecture date. You should have the phone numbers of at least two club members and the location of the lecture venue. In most cases, the club prepays for a hotel room and has it reserved in your name. You need the address and phone number of that hotel. NOTE: In regards to hotels, sometimes the club will ask you to find your own hotel and will reimburse you the night of the lecture. Other times, they will give you a $100 allowance toward a room and include that with your lecture fee. 26

Occasionally, a club member will volunteer to let you stay at his home for the night. You will meet him after the lecture and follow him home. If the club plans to do any of these things, you need to be informed well ahead of the lecture. GPS: The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a satellite-based navigation system made up of a network of 24 satellites placed into orbit by the U.S. Department of Defense. GPS was originally intended for military applications, but in the 1980s, the government made the system available for civilian use. GPS works in any weather conditions, anywhere in the world, 24 hours a day. Nowadays, a GPS is a necessity for doing a lecture tour. The old days of stopping to ask for directions is over. No one seems to know where some place is, even if you stop to ask. A GPS makes it very easy to find your hotel or lecture venue. Just put in the address and you get step-by-step directions on how to get there and how many minutes it will take. I do not recommend printing out directions from Mapquest. It is too difficult to see street signs in the dark and some streets do not even have signs. If you miss your turn with Mapquest, you have to try to back track and pick up where you missed your turn. This can be a nightmare especially if you are on a one-way street. If you miss a turn with a GPS, it will correct the route within seconds and give you another way of getting there. The GPS is nice when planning your next day’s drive. While in your hotel room, put in the address for the hotel in the next town, and you will know how long it will take you to get there. No more guessing, you know how much time you need and with this information it may be possible for you to stop and see some sights along the way and still arrive at your next lecture in plenty of time. A GPS is truly a godsend. I often wonder how lecturers found venues in some of the earlier days before the advent of the GPS. You do not have to buy a dedicated GPS. Many smart phones have GPS programs built into them and work just as well, provided you are where there is a cell phone signal. During my tours, I used Verizon’s Navigator on my cell phone and was able to find everything. The only problem is that during long drives through the desserts of Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico you may find there is no signal. This is not a problem if you have a road atlas. ROAD ATLAS: You need a current road atlas. There are times you will want to see where the GPS is taking you. A road atlas gives you a chance to see the big picture, something a GPS will not show you. An atlas also lets you see what cities are near your route. Some of these cities may have attractions you wish to visit if you have time.

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If you are using a GPS on a smart phone, you will find that areas of the country have no signal and your GPS not work. In these cases, you need the atlas to find your way until you get a signal again. SMART PHONE APPS: If you are touring, you need these smart phone apps available from the Apple or Google store. BED BUG REGISTRY: Put in the name of any hotel and address and find out if the hotel has complaints of bed bugs. If so, contact the club and make them aware so a new hotel can be found. Don’t wait until the day of the lecture to do this. IEXIT: An important app that will tell you all the hotels, gas stations and restaurants off any interstate exit. A must have and it’s free. ANY E-MAIL APP: You need one to check your e-mail while on tour. EXPEDIA APP: Extremely useful for booking and finding the cheapest hotel when you don’t have a lecture date. YOUR LOCAL BANK APP: You need a app for your local bank so you can deposit checks from your phone and check balances. WEATHER BUG: So you can check the weather for where you are going. GAS BUDDY: Find the lowest prices for gas in the area you are traveling. This will save you money.

FREE FOOD WHILE ON TOUR This will save you lots of money. Most hotels the club provides you with will have a free breakfast available. This adds up over time and really saves you money. Also, I have found that most clubs will meet for dinner before the lecture. Usually, but not always, they will take you to dinner gratis. So while touring, you will seldom have to buy breakfast or dinner, it’s included with the lecture package.

ACCEPT CREDIT CARDS It’s easy to accept credit cards with no monthly fee on your smart phone. You can accept and swipe cards on your smart phone. I use PayPal Here because it instantly puts the fund in my PayPal account. The two best known and most used are: https://squareup.com/ and https://paypal.com 28

MOBILE BANK DEPOSITS Checks from magic clubs used to be problem, you had to go to the bank the next morning and cash them, as most clubs prefer to pay by check. This is no longer the case if you have your local bank’s app on your smart phone. You need only take a picture of the check and send it to your bank. The next day the funds are in your local bank account. This really makes things easier.

PAYING BILLS Since almost all bills can be paid online via your smart phone or laptop. This is no longer a problem, as it was many years ago. You can also set up with your local bank to automatically pay bills for you for a small fee.

GETTING MAIL Snail mail is no longer as important as it used to be. With the advent of smart phones and e-mails, it is seldom used. A family member or friend need only to call you with free long distances of smart phones, e-mail you or text you. If it is important you get a letter or paper, have it sent care of the president of the magic club, or include it within the package of additional sales items.

BUY A CD DUPLICATOR You can buy a CD duplicator for a few hundred dollars. I suggest putting your lecture notes on a CD as a PDF and burn them to a CD. Carry the duplicator with you and duplicate the CD in hotel rooms. This saves a lot of space and money printing notes which may cost a few dollars versus a CD which only cost about 25 cents. You can burn all the lecture notes you need while on tour. If you run out of CDs you can buy more at Staples or Walmart.

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