What is cheese wrestling?

AtPG

Supply and demand. I think that always has to be considered. These days it's all about XCM ( a name I dispise BTW ). You suggest that more difficult effects should comand a higher price. IS there a higher demand for more difficult effect? Is there a lesser supply of more difficult effects?

I think you will find that your audience could care less how difficult the effects you perform are. In fact, I think if you stop and give it some consideration, you will find that the goal of our collective job, is not to perform more difficult effects. I think you will find that job to be to perform more entertaining magic. I think you will also find that the more entertaining you are, the higher a price you will be able to command.

I think the very title of this thread suggest completely misplaced priorities. The kind of priorities that create performers who perform awe inspiring effects that no one cares about. Stop trying to impress magicians, and go entertain your audience.

I have to add something, having actualy read through the thread. Would you rather pay thousands of dollars for a painting by a bad painter who practiced realy realy hard at what he did, but wasn't any good, or for a fantastic painting that was the artists very first attempt. The quality of a product is often, but not always effected by the amount of time and effort that has been put into it.

If you have worked hard to become a flicking finger, but are not entertaining, rather than trying to charge more than you are actualy worth, perhaps you should consider another line of work. One which gives a greater reward for the effort you put into it.

-your product is not valuable, just because you tried realy hard-

As Vernon said, concentrate on THE EFFECT.

An important process in business these days is something called Value Chain Analysis. The idea is that there are a lot of things a business must do to remain in business, but many of those things are of no importance to the customer.

For example, your client will probably care about how nicethe suit you wear when you perform is and how well you are groomed. They will probably also care that you prepared magical giveaways to remind their guests about the event. Those are good things to invest time and money in.

On the other hand, there are things that you must do that are of no value whatsoever to the client. They don't care how many hours a week it takes you to balance your books, or how much the storage locker where you keep your stage illusions is costing you. If you can cut back in areas like that without impacting the service you offer, then all the time and money goes straight to your bottom line.

Whether it tought you 3 months to master the double lift or 3 years to master the pass it doesn't change the value that your clients place on your services.

That being said, maybe advanced sleight of hand has a different kind of value. Like it or not, sleights and secrets can have a very high value in the magical community. Perci Diaconus was invited to sit at a table with some of the biggest names in card magic because the Professor walked by a table where he was practicing dealing seconds and said "From now on, you sit with us." If you could sit at a table like that and ask "Hey what do you think about this?" you would learn more in ten minutes than you would practicing the diagonal palm shift for ten years.