New Year, New Hannah

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- Write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself."   -Neil Gaiman

This is the last day of 2013 and boy am I happy. Goodbye to the most stressful, painful, exhausting year of my life! It seems that years ending in odd numbers aren't lucky for me.

Today also marks the last show of this year for us. And after this show there will be lots of changes. To the material, the costumes, the scripts, the hair, the makeup, the office work... it's ALL changing and definitely for the better. I'm retiring two of my most "iconic" costumes tonight and I couldn't be happier. Most of my costumes I have had since I started in magic at the young age of 15. So needless to say they are starting to look quite immature on me and I have far outgrown them.

My hair I am going to start repairing back to its original color. I found an awesome red hair shampoo that can do that for me. Then to work on finding a style. I am refusing wigs now so it is just trying to find me a good way to get volume and maybe some curls.

The Many Faces of Hannah.
Yes that is Ariel. I'm also planning to become a mermaid this year.

As far as makeup goes I'm ready to start doing a Smokey eye and I really should start wearing more fake eyelashes. And get a shade of foundation that is my skin tone. Believe it or not even red heads tan a little when you live at the beach for a year.

We are completely redoing our office work techniques. Brandon has been reading lots of Dave Ramsey and has lots of plans for the new year. Lately we have been working a lot on our personal lives and getting it in better shape. Now it's time to tackle the rest.

This year I will take over as my role as a magician truly for the first time. I'm going to build a small show just for myself and come up with some of my own routines for our show together. We're also hoping to get some more boxes for me to jump in and out of. Maybe I'll get to finally levitate soon? I'll guess we will find out.

Performing my first solo routine back in October

So as this year winds down I KNOW that the coming year will be better. But I also know that because of what all has happened this year I'm going to be a stronger person and able to take on whatever gets thrown at me next.

I'm counting it down. Only a few hours left and I can't wait. Break out the sparkling grape juice. It's time for the New Year, New Me.

Start Over

Just in case you hadn't heard, lately we have been busy rebranding our company. Which is super exciting but it's almost like starting over. We are getting a new name. The company has and always will be "Wagster Magic" but since Brandon started it in 2009 he has always been called The Magic of Brandon Wagster and when I came along, that didn't change.
Now as we are switching over to more of a duo magic act the name has to change to accommodate that. A few people have been asking "Does that mean you won't be a magic assistant anymore?". I will ALWAYS be a magic assistant no matter what. I will always be the one jumping in and out of the boxes and I will always make sure that I present Brandon and make him look good. We may become a duo team but he will still always be my magician first and foremost.
Since we are still the Wagster Magic company, website will stay as www.wagstermagic.com. Unfortunately we do have to start from scratch on our Facebook fan page though, you can't change the name after you have so many likes. Very sad! But like I said, with some of this we just kind of have to start over.
Our official launch date will be on October 31st. The website, fan page, and new merchandise will all be released at our big Halloween show.

Wagster Magic Halloween Show Page

Which in case you haven't heard about the show, we are super excited! After almost 4 years of having the idea in our heads we are finally able to do it. If you're in the Myrtle Beach area on that night, please come out and see it. This will be the first chance for you to get our new merchandise and our audience will be the first to see the new logo!
Along with our rebranding, we will be changing our own personal looks too. Our costumes and hair are changing. It's honestly pretty stressful what all we have been doing lately but it will be worth it in the long run!
I'm finally changing my "featured" outfit to something more mature looking and for the first time I'm starting to wear shorts on stage, which is awesome by the way.

We have finally figured out who we are with this logo and I hope you all agree that it is the perfect look for us when we release it!

Go Broke, Get Rich... Maybe

How is it that out of all the areas of magic we could have chosen, we pick the most expensive by far? Oh because that’s just how it goes. We chose to be illusionists. That means we’re the guys doing the tricks with big boxes.  Amongst other magicians, you have to work extremely hard and pay your dues to earn that title.

In our spare time over the summer Brandon and I both worked at our local magic shop to help out. After every time a trick is pitched and the potential buyer hears the price they just freak out. Come on it’s only $17.99. That’s nothing. 

The problem with wanting to be an illusionist is that the majority of your show needs to be illusions to really be considered as one. And man do they cost money.  We have to save up thousands for just one illusion. But seriously, it’s worth it! To make money you have to spend it first and literally go in the hole to buy a few big props so you can move from the title magician to illusionist.

Fairchild Magic Illusions

There are lots of things that make illusions expensive though so the price really isn’t that bad when you think about all that goes into it. First off, you have to pay for the building materials. Then a lot of labor and TLC goes into getting them put together and all pretty. And many illusions have certain builders who are the only ones allowed to build and sell them. And of course it took an extremely smart and creative person to come up with the idea! They deserve to get paid for it. That also includes the rights to perform it.

Then after you finally get your prop you can’t forget having road cases, which can be just as much as the prop sometimes.  Professionally built illusions are made to last. But we've seen a lot of guys who just throw their props in the back of a trailer or van like it’s nothing and it destroys them. You can’t just wrap them in bubble wrap or blankets and expect them to withstand travel. Those cases are tough and for a reason; you have to protect the illusion. It's really smart to spend the extra money and get the case.

 

Our sweet Isabell in front of some of our road cases

Once you spend tens of thousands of dollars then you can start performing in larger venues for bigger audiences and hopefully make the big money. Go broke, get rich. It hurts to spend money like that I assure you, but it’s worth it in the end. 

Illusion Brainstorming

Last night Brandon and I had a lot of fun planning our new show. In case some of you didn’t know we will be rebranding our entire business through the rest of this year and we will have a new name, logo, promo video, and website being launched in January of next year. With this rebrand I will be a much bigger part of the show so as of now we are designing routines that will include me as often as possible. As opposed to the normal of me just being on stage for just illusions and maybe one or two other tricks, I will be onstage the majority of the time.

Current Illusions

Well we officially picked our next 3 illusions that we should be getting in the next year. One will be released with all the new rebranding material and should hopefully be on the promo video. This is an original illusion that no one has seen before and we are really excited to get it done! The other two we will buy in 2014. I cannot wait to perform them! As of now Brandon and I constantly perform 3 illusions and our 4^th illusion is in the workshop being redesigned so it isn't pictured above. We actually just got rid of 2 illusions to make room for bigger & better things. So in our magic career we have retired and given 3 illusions to better homes.

 

Past Illusions

So our show is definitely in the transition stage as of now. When living in Columbia it was always about perfecting the show, and just building it every so often. Now being in a tourist town, we have to be able to revamp our show every year and switch out routines and illusions in order to keep our audiences happy. People will come back every year to the same place just to see you perform and that’s awesome! We have definitely been extremely happy with the way things have turned out since we moved here. This town has so much more potential for us.

I feel like with this completely new dynamic for us with our new look we are finally finding “ourselves” as performers. We always thought we knew what our look was but sometimes it takes an outside eye to help you really see. Now that we have a logo and a feel for who we are, it seems to be so much easier to decide what tricks and illusions fit us best. We don’t want to blend in with other magicians and illusionists. We want to stand out in our own way. Even if we don’t have the most unique tricks out there, we want to be known for our entertainment value. That is our main purpose.

Magic is Evil?

Believe it or not, it is possible to be a Christian and do magic. A lot of people take magic out to be as only a bad thing associated with witch craft. We don’t conjure spirits from the dead or cast out spells on people. We know that everything we do isn't real. Would it be cool sometimes if we could really levitate? Heck yeah! But it’s not real. Everything is an illusion.

Unfortunately other Christians don’t always believe that. Brandon and I love performing in churches and that is actually our hardest jobs to book. To try and convince church people that we aren't evil or the devil proves to be quite difficult sometimes.

The big thing that will decide on if magicians get a job in church or not, depends on what you title yourself as. To get more church shows you have to be an illusionist. That means to the booking person that everything you do is an illusion. Which is true of magic completely. But some people do take it too far and try to make audiences believe everything they do really is magic.

Okay this picture is ridiculous, but it made me laugh. I couldn't find a good "Gospel Magic" picture that I liked.

There’s a secret to everything, our goal is to entertain you, not to fool you. If you leave a show and you enjoyed yourself, then we did our job. It’s awesome when we actually do get to do that in a church and help minister to our audience. We never straight up preach to you because well if that’s what Brandon was good at, then he’d be a preacher. We tie in a message with the magic that helps you understand better why we do what we do. And we hope that our actions of keeping a clean family friendly show and keeping my outfits appropriate make a difference. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Brandon and I attend NewSpring Church which is a huge church or I should say church chain in South Carolina. There are several campuses and we of course attend the Myrtle Beach one. Today we got the opportunity to meet our head pastor, Perry Noble. Someone mentioned to Perry that we did magic and he was so excited and asked Brandon to do a card trick for him. That’s the kind of excitement we want to see about magic from the church community! What we do isn't bad regardless of some experiences you may have had previously.

Click on the link below to watch the trick he did for Perry!

Brandon's Card Trick for Perry Noble

Living in the “Bible Belt” definitely sometimes serves as a problem when wanting to do magic in churches but the longer we do this, the more we learn. It is possible to make a living doing magic in this area, regardless of what a lot of magicians think. It's our audiences that keep us going and make it possible for us to keep performing!