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solrak29 Special user NY Metro 936 Posts |
I'm curious on what product are deemed expensive.
I've found Ellusionist prices very competitive with any other web site or local shop. I mostly find Ellusionist products better priced than most shops or web sites. Excluding Amazon or Ebay, I have found the Card College Series complete is cheaper than in most places. There customer support, forums, products, and videos (Ellusionist made) are very high quality compared to most web sites and local shops. For example, I can go onto the forum and talk to Brad and others directly and get input on any of my moves or routines by posting and video or PM. They are extremely helpfull. And very keen on exposure.
To Find Me On The Pitch, Follow me :On Twitter
Checkout my pseudo blog : The Sidewalk Performers Forum "I intend to live forever, or die trying" - Groucho Marx |
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Seeker Special user Chicago 578 Posts |
I will have to agree here. Their customer support is worth is alone. If I have an issue, I can talk live to someone and they have it fixed in NO time. I would rather pay more for survice than a cheap product with no Garantee.
I've been training these cards since they were small.
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-=Ralph=- Regular user New York 111 Posts |
I think ellusionist is great and the prices are on par with just about every online store that I have come across. There shipping is second to none and the service is killer. The only thing that I would like to see from them is a more unmoderated forum. I'm not saying that there shouldnt be moderators but you can't even express your opinion about a subject if it even remotely goes against the grain. I prefer to hash out differences in opinion with someone rather then have the thread closed for a silly reason. I guess that's why I love this place!! You can still be a gentleman and express your opinion without getting shut down.
~R~ |
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gaddy Inner circle Agent of Chaos 3526 Posts |
If you dislike the price of magic tricks from dealers, might I remind you that sleight of hand is still free, other than the price of your precious time.
*due to the editorial policies here, words on this site attributed to me cannot necessarily be held to be my own.*
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CasualSoul Special user Edmonton, Canada 542 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-07-11 17:33, Dannydoyle wrote: I totally agree. Personally, I like Ellusionist as I think you get a lot out of them beyond just the tricks they are selling. But I'm a little biased in that I think almost all magic is entirely under priced. I like how an effect like Icarus has a significant price barrier to entry and I think more magic should be marketed like this.
"Open their mind by performing the impossible"
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the levitator Special user Spellbound Productions 546 Posts |
My wallet disagrees with CasualSoul, but I personanlly agree with the price issue. I would think that a magic creator could make similiar money on an effect if it were more expensive. They would just have fewer customers. If you sold an effect for $10 that 100 magicians bought, you would make the same money selling it to 10 magicians at $100. I guess I'm kind of relating it to how I've been able to increase my rates over the years. I charge much more for a show than I did when I was starting, and right now I'm performing less often ( mostly due to the fact that I'm completely changing my image and show, just look at my website compared to my avatar! ). It reminds me of the adage of "working smarter, not harder". If a magician could make the same money selling an effect for more to fewer magicians, why are some effects so inexpensive? I honestly don't know the answer to that question because there are probably as many answers as there are magical creators. I believe that many creators of magic see the opportunity to share an effect with the magic community as a way of giving back to it. Maybe some creators want the satisfaction of having as many performers as possible performing their effects.
Maybe the bottom line is that it's very hard to put a price on something so subjective as a magical effect. I've spent $20 on effects/books/DVD's that I would have spent $200 to own. I've also spent $200 on items that I wouldn't have spent $20 on had I known I couldn't implement them into my show like I had originally thought. The double-edged sword of marketed effects is that for people like me, who don't excel at creating effects have the opportunity to purchase effects to customize and put in our show, yet there's no guarantee when we purchase them that they will work for us. I purchase effects that I think will work with the character I'm creating, but I never know if that effect will make its way into my show until I actually purchase it and play around with to try and personalize it. While I admit that pricing magical items higher would definitely make them a little more exclusive and perhaps close the lid just a little on overexposure, I am grateful that many of the effects I've been able to purchase and implement into my show were at a price I could afford. I've had great experiences with Ellusionist, especially recently. I have been consolidating all of my magic downloads into a single folder on my main computer (they were previously on 3 different computers). I emailed them on how to do this and they have been quick to reply and very helpful with the process. |
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CasualSoul Special user Edmonton, Canada 542 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-07-25 16:05, the levitator wrote: This is a very valid business point that I think a lot more magic entrepreneurs should take to heart. The only mitigating factor is that you sometimes have to manufacture in fairly large minimum runs, and the magic creator is motivated to keeping his initial prices low to ensure he sells sufficient volume to justify the run. However, once a new product has been proven, and sales volume has gained momentum, it is almost foolhardy to not increase prices. In my past life I was a venture capitalist, and it was a regular occurring challenge trying to drive this piece of business logic home to some of our portfolio companies. Although it's important to reward the early adopters of a new product, it is also important to try to find the ideal pricing threshold balance, or "sweet spot" as we call it, as this is where the entrepreneur and his investors make sufficient profit to reward themselves while still having enough left over for re-investment. Most entrepreneurs make the mistake of forming their pricing models around their costs instead of the perceivable value of their offering.
"Open their mind by performing the impossible"
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Irishghost Inner circle www.gaffguy.com 1228 Posts |
I go there for the specialty decks. I try to refrain from buying other products from them that require shipping. $25.00 to ship to Canada(ouch). I have downloaded a lot of stuff from E as well. And lets face it, Ellusionist puts a lot of money back into product development and creating new gaff decks and dvd's.
I get to gaff some cool stuff for some cool people
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ryoma4148 New user 92 Posts |
Ellusionist aren't very high priced on 3rd party items that's true!
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ToasterofDoom Special user 671 Posts |
Ellusionist's price is merely a tax on those too lazy to find the originals.
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frenchmagi Loyal user 264 Posts |
Absolutely.
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juggling1 Regular user Las Vegas 196 Posts |
Why care if they are making money? That's capitalism. I could charge $50 to perform a show but why do it when I know people are willing to pay more, which in return allows me to purchase exspensive effects so I can give back to my customers.
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ChristopherM Special user UK 844 Posts |
As a magic dealership they have proven to be very successful. The fact that they are one of the most talked about companies on these boards - particularly amongst those finding their feet in magic - goes to show their promotional power and reputation for service. If you feel their prices are too high, simply look elsewhere to see if you can find it cheaper.
Cheers Chris |
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Red Shadow Inner circle 1788 Posts |
What I don't understand is why Brad takes other peoples tricks and makes the DVD up featuring himself. He's a good magician, we all know that. But why hasn't the tricks creators been seen in their own DVD? Why didn't they make it themselves, and ellusionist simply sell it?
Brad has to be in every DVD that he sells, whether its his trick or not! I don't understand why they don't even get to feature in their own DVDs! I'm also fed up with the one trick on a DVD lark. A full DVD on lifting a shoe, or a full DVD on licking a playing card. We are use to DVDs featuring several tricks on one disc. Why can't he do the same? There are tons of original card tricks that he can put onto the end of the disc. Or even go through some of the old tricks and show them to the new generation. If nothing else, he could include trailers for other DVDs, with performances on them. At least with trailers would promotes other products! ku7uk |
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John Gerard Loyal user Guam 283 Posts |
Producers used to be the ones in the background, but more and more there are instances of producers taking a more visible role. You can argue both sides of the issue, but in the end it is simply a business decision. Wendy's founder, Dave Thomas, was very visible in the media aspects of the company. Was it a bad move? I have no opinion.
To address the original concern of this thread. I have felt that the company has an interesting pricing on shipping. It's consistently the highest among the magic dealers I deal with. Yes, it hurts the pocket, but I have found that Ellusionist ships the quickest of any of the magic dealers. I live on a tiny island way out in the middle of the pacific, and my orders have always arrived within 7 days when the norm for others tends to be 10-18 days. I believe Ellusionist is really fostering an image of "magic instruction on demand." At times I chuckle at the "DVD AND Download" bundles. Magic is like a drug to many of us, and I guess some of us need it quicker than others. =P~ |
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Tempesta Elite user USA 404 Posts |
Quote:
On 2006-09-11 05:02, ku7uk3 wrote: Some creators don't want to be on a DVD, even if it's their own. That's their decision, and if Brad teaches an effect created by someone, then that is between no one else but them. The one effect per DVD is a good idea in my opinion. It's more appealing to those looking for a singular effect that accomplishes a specific goal. Our newest DVD WarpONE by David Ren Jenkins is a one effect DVD produced by AOI Magic. I'm buying it for sure as the one thing I always hated about Card Warp was the extra card. Dream come true for my magic, and I'm glad I can buy it for $20 and accomplish this specific goal of mine without extra, filler material I probably won't use. It's a business, and this strategy is good, for business purposes. And we do include trailers on our DVDs. ||Sean Beard || //Team E
//Sean Beard
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MagiClyde Special user Columbus, Ohio 871 Posts |
A lot of creators of illusions et al are not always the best performers. Many prefer to remain in the background and let others put on a show.
As for Ellusionist, I just bought some of their playing cards and a couple of DVDs. One combo was the "Army of 52" DVD and a gaff deck. This package set me back $50, but was well worth it in my opinion. I know Justin Miller and am always amazed at his card handling ability. He has almost made me believe that real magic is possible. So I don't mind sending some money his way. I also know Carroll Baker and buy his DVDs for the same reason. I really don't think their prices are out of line. $35 is the norm for DVDs at my local shop and his invisible thread reel is $40!!! I have found the exact same thing for about $15 (with s&h) on Ebay. Justin's DVD only cost me $25 from Ellusionist. The gaff deck is a specialty run to compliment their different specialty "regular" decks that they sell. Limited and special runs do cost extra, precisely because they are for a niche market. As to s&h, my package only cost about $6 to ship from California to Ohio. I could afford to wait and saw no reason to rush it. If I had wanted it shipped priority mail, I know that the post office has a flat rate box that costs $8, regardless of weight. So $12-15 is not totally out of line. Can't help with Canada. Shipping overseas (yes, overseas to Canada!!) is not cheap, having sent packages up there myself.
Magic! The quicker picker-upper!
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Tufrmone New user 2 Posts |
I purchased most of the core Ellusionist videos (Crash 1 and 2, Ninja 1 and 2, Street Magic, Inside Magic, Army of 52, the Tiger, Ghost and Invisible Decks and so on. I've got a pretty good collection of other magic DVD's, Videos and effects from every where else, so I'm probably in a pretty good position to judge.
I've found the Ellusionist DVD's are the best magic instruction for beginning magicians that I'm aware of. For example, Ellusionist's, Kard Klub Crash 2 Ambitious Card Routine is easier to understand and assimilate than Daryl's Ambitious Card DVD. Daryl's DVD's are excellent, as are Ammars and Oz Perlman, but they are not as effective in getting across the essential concepts, and fundamental techniques as Christian is. All in all, Brad Christian is an excellent teacher for Card Magic. This credit thing that a number of people are harping on,, is overblown. People really need to concentrate on the techniques and the explanatory method of a magic instruction DVD and move away from the religious iconophy of long dead magicians. Houdini didn't get hung up on who invented what, he learned what he could and performed it. There are very very few effects credited to the invention of one magician that weren't actually invented by another at an earlier time. That's just the nature of magic. That's not to say that there aren't some genuine teaching mistakes on some of the Ellusionist DVDs. One example is Dai Vernon's Triumph in Ninja 2. Christian explains how you put the deck back in order but he never actually explains how to get the spectators picked card to reverse itself. Doesn't really matter because if you are advanced enough to learn the routine, you're pretty going to figure out how to reverse the picked card. All in all I think that that the core Ellusionist DVD's are the way to go in learning beginning magic. After I'd gone through Ellusionist, I'd move on to Daryl, Ammar and so on, but I'd sure start with Ellusionist. Tufrmone Quote:
On 2006-09-16 23:12, clynim wrote: |
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Siclone New user 60 Posts |
Listen, I may like Ellusionist but I won't discredit the other excellect DVD's such as Ammar and Daryl.
I will say this, the quality and ENJOYMENT of the Ellusionist DVD's far outweigh any of the others. Brad's teaching style is amazing and you can really tell they work hard to make their DVDs the best on the market. He also doesn't just say "here is a trick, here is a technique." For anyone who owns Ellusionist videos you can see how Brad stresses presentation and how truly important it is. And lastly, I purchased the Army of 52 DVD and was truly happy with every penny I spent. Justin Miller is fantastic and you have Brad himself BEHIND the camera, it just shows you how much he cares. The tricks I've done with the gaffs (such as the moving pips) was well worth the price of the DVD. In the end you have to ask yourself: "Has this DVD given me more than I had spent" and with every Ellusionist DVD I've purchased, the answer was yes. |
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sman Regular user 109 Posts |
I have purchased several DVD's and other products from Ellusionist and been very satisfied with them. I agree that Brad is a very good instructor who stresses presentation and technique. He always says slow down and do it right. Those are very important tips and they come from the mouths of other magicians I know. Ellusionist does offer value beyond what is expected from their product in my opinion.
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