The magic market is essentially a monopoly run by one major distributor, Murphy’s. The sales of magic products are run by essentially two major companies, Vanishing Inc. and Penguin Magic. Sure there’s other online retailers and a few brick and mortar stores around but they’re stuck buying from Murphy’s. There’s also a handful of independent producers who are selling their products themselves but these are getting rarer.
One magic source has emerged in recent years – the subscription service. This direct-to-consumer service sprung up during the pandemic when magicians needed a way to get their products out when traditional avenues were closed.
A friend and I started to capture the various subscription services on a spreadsheet a few months ago. Currently we’ve logged 38 different services. Many have different levels of content with different prices. Prices range from free to $200 per month. I can’t imagine that many people subscribe to more than one or two. Nor can I imagine that these are huge subscription numbers for the creators as magic isn’t a big market.
Personally I have tried three different services: Ben Earl’s The Family, Lloyd Barnes’s Fourth Floor Labs, and Rory Adams’s One Ahead. I enjoyed and learned from each. I ended The Family after one year as it became too much content to process. I’m currently subscribed to Fourth Floor and One Ahead however I’m debating whether to continue.
The biggest challenge for magic consumers is making the choice of which service to use. You have to be a fan of the individual’s work. For the creators, there is the challenge of consistently making quality content worthy of the cost. It will be interesting to see how it evolves.
