Last night I was at a comedy show and one of the comedians asked me if I knew a local magician. I said yes, and they had mentioned they were chatting with them earlier today. One thing that came up was the magician said they had a hard time with the local magic crowd.
Right now in the Seattle area we have a pretty active magic scene. There are three national magic clubs, then a weekly magic meet up that’s not affiliated with any club. In addition to that there are a couple of monthly “magic open mic” type shows.
The magician that thinks the local crowd doesn’t support them, doesn’t go to any of these magic clubs or hangouts. This magician frequently tries to get other magicians to hang out, HOWEVER it’s done in this way, “Let’s hang out. Come to my show on Thursday, and we’ll hang out afterward“, and then there’s a link to buy tickets.
If you want to meet the other local magicians, why not come out to one of the eight magic events that happen each month. The whole “buy a ticket to my show to hang out with me” thing makes me not want to hang out with this magician.
There are a lot of local magicians who have worked hard at building a magic community in Seattle, one that doesn’t require buying a ticket to a show. In fact all of them have a component that’s free (i.e. you could attend and never pay a dime).
The moral of the story is when you support the magic community, it will support you.