According to a recent article about Las Vegas mentalists Gerry McCambridge and Luke Jermay, "The Masked Magician's TV exposés did a fair bit of damage to traditional Vegas stage magicians," says the writer in the story. And if you ask most magicians, magic is being attacked from all sides: the internet, television and more.
While exposure is a problem - don't get me wrong - I think an even bigger issue is that of keeping magic entertainment relevant.
Turns out that despite all of the magic secrets that are apparently out there, magicians continue to work in Las Vegas, on television, on cruise ships, in theaters and at a party somewhere near you.
On the lighter side, here's a "magic exposure" video to add to the chaos. This "secret" method can cause a coin to vanish.
More Reading:
YouTube Magic Exposure is No Problem
Five Steps to Deal With Magic Exposure
Has Exposure Caused You to Give-Up a Trick?
Opinion: Magic Exposure Vs. Education
Comments
I’ve found sometimes that people become even more interested in magic after learning the secret (even before they buy the trick many times). Of course, you always have the people that need the immediate gratification of finding out how something is done to suit their own ego, but to your point, it doesn’t slow down the pros one bit.
Looks like I’ll have to stock up on those magic coins, now that the whole world has seen them. I’m sure they’re going to be in high demand now.
Unfortunately, exposure hurts the smaller performer more so than the larger one. I’ve practically given up bar magic because too many people have already learned the secret thanks to TV or the Internet. I now sit around, practicing card sleights, and drinking on my own.
I used to keep people entertained. Now I’m doing well to show them something they haven’t already seen — and seen how it’s done!
As a former professional wrestler and novice magician, I see correlations between wrestling and magic all the time. The area of exposure is one of these areas. On one hand exposure makes it more difficult to entertain people as you need to do more to “suspend people’s disbelief”. On the other hand you end up with “smarks” or smart marks who think they know everything about wrestling( or magic – though they don’t try it themselves professionally ). The best entertainers use the smarks knowledge to better entertain everyone. In other words, it just changes the playing field, giving us new material to work with while possibly taking away a few choice “tricks”.
Magic isn’t tricks, it is a way.
I agree — first, exposure (on basic levels) often increases interest in magic. Second, the Masked Magician is just a novelty item. I also find it ironic that McCambridge and Jermay would take issue with the Masked Magician when the overwhelming majority of what the MM does is not mentalism.
I have full confidence that you do not mean that since the masked magician does not do many mentalism
those that do are somehow safe.
The m m program has been running over a year now and does show any indications of slowing down. Eventually mental magic will also be exposed.
If you want the program stopped phone the station and ask for audience services. They do not need your name or occupation.
My mother worked for Arbitron for a number of years.
Arbitron measures television viewing.
The one statistic that always stays with me is that oone telephone call to a television station amounts to 5,000 viewers. More than 4900 people are bepresentive of a single phone call.
If you call the television station their statistics will show that appox 5000 people feel the same way you do.