Appetizer #22: Ticketed Virtual Magic Shows
December 31st, 2020
business, marketing, online, show, virtual
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In this episode, we are talking about if and why you should run your own ticketed virtual magic show and Jonah is going to give you five reasons why you may want to do your very first ticketed virtual magic show.
#1: It Makes Money
Let’s be honest, it makes money. Why do you think that people keep doing them? Because they’re profitable. They make money.
There are dozens and dozens of people who know and love you, and they know that you do magic and they love your work. But they don’t get the opportunity all that often to support you. Maybe they don’t live in the same city as you, maybe they’ve got kids and they don’t get to leave their house all that often to go to your events. Maybe you don’t put on a lot of ticketed public events. So the first reason why you should do this is because there are so many people in your network who wants to come see you perform and they’ve just never been given the opportunity and this is a wonderful opportunity.
#2: To Test Your Material
The second reason why you may want to put on your own virtual magic show is because there is no better place for you to test material.
Think about it, you’re inviting all of these people to come watch you and these are likely people, especially your first few shows, who know you. They like you. They trust you. These are people in your community. Maybe people on your newsletter, maybe these are people who are on your social media channels, who you’ve been friends with, who you’ve been communicating with.
This is the safest environment for you to test out new material that is going to potentially make it into your professional or corporate level shows.
#3: It’s Easy!
The third reason is that it is easy. I’m going to be honest with you. I have produced ticketed events, both in-person and online, and the amount of moving parts that you need to put in place to do an in-person event is way harder than for an online event. When renting out a space and selling the tickets yourself, the costs associated with that are astronomical. The cost associated with doing it in virtual are very, very reasonable. It’s the cost of zoom. Which you already have, and then whatever processing fees for whatever software you use for the tickets, maybe it’s Eventbright, maybe it’s Well-Attended. And if you’re really savvy and you’ve done a few of them and you want to start experimenting into Facebook ads, then you can start spending some money there.
But compared to in-person events, you’ve got to spend money on traveling there and back. You got to spend money on dry cleaning. You’ve got to maybe spend money on drinks or on food and on going out. There’s all these different things you have to spend money on. There’s different objects or items needed to bring to the venue, which are costly for you to bring. At home, you don’t have any of that. So if you ever dreamed of doing your own show and selling tickets or dreamed of having your own theater or dreamed of putting on your own show, this is basically the easiest least expensive way to ever, ever try it out and it’ll make you money.
#4: Brings In New Bookings
The fourth reason, and this is kind of sneaky too, is it is one of the best ways I have found in the world of virtual to bring in new bookings. When somebody goes and they see your virtual magic show, maybe they go to it for free, or they pay $10 or $20 or $50, whatever, they see your virtual magic show. And now they think, “Wow, that’s something I want to do for my friend!”, or, “Wow! That’s something that I want to do for my company!”
Every single person who goes to see your show either works at a company or their husband or wife works at a company or their kids go to a school or their kids are having a birthday party. There are so many opportunities for an individual to want to hire a virtual magician that you putting on a ticketed show is more or less your audition to all of these people to tell them, “Hey, I am open for business and you can hire me if you’d like to, because I do virtual magic shows and they look. Epic.”
#5: It’s Fun!
I know that I’m going to sound a little bit like a sixth grade talent show, but the fifth reason why you should put on your own ticketed virtual magic show is it’s fun.
It is fun. It is really, really, really fun. When you do a company show or you do a show for a big bank or whatever, 50-75% of the people there didn’t sign up to go to a magic show. For the most part, they didn’t even know that there was going to be a magic show! So then when you show up, you have to win them over.
When somebody who is in your network, someone who’s known you in the past, buys a ticket to your show and then comes to the show, they’re going to have a good time. Because they like magic and they like you. They’ve already self-selected themselves. So your show is going to have better laughs, more fun, better thank-you’s and wonderful testimonials that come afterwards, just because you decided to step outside of the box and put on a virtual magic show of your own.
Join The Upgrade Academy
If you need help, if you need a little bit of assistance with putting on your own ticketed virtual magic show, then let me know, send me a message and I will tell you a little bit about some of the fun stuff that I do. Upgrade Academy, which is my private coaching group starting this January. If you want some help going crazy in the virtual space, let me know, I’d be pumped to help you.