Magic News

Brent Braun’s Business is His Passion

 

The Incredible Brent Braun

Brent Braun is not in it for the money, although he is surviving.  He is in it for the same reason you and I live for magic, he loves it. 

 

Mr. Braun is featured in today?s Courier-Journal for not only that love of magic but also his work as a small business owner. 

 

The reporter notes, ?Brent Braun can tear a playing card to pieces, set it on fire and then have it reappear whole, but that’s nothing compared with his most challenging trick: keeping his small business together.?

 

Mr. Braun had a great plan at the start.  He worked with former partner, Jason Newman (presumably the ?J? in ?J and B?), to develop a detailed business plan.  He learned the best laid plans of-times go astray.  He has been through many changes since those first plans were drawn.  He bought out his partner, fought the corporate world and has twice moved the location of his shop. 

 

His mission and shop sounds fantastic.  He is a professional magician and wants to make his living exclusively from teaching, selling, performing and inventing magic.  He has a store at the River Falls Mall with magic upfront and a 30-seat theater in the back for magicians to show their stuff. 

 

A combination of losing his prime mall space and the pull-out of the mall?s popular neighbor, Wal-Mart, has killed traffic past his store.  “Sometimes I won’t have a customer come in until 3 o’clock,” Braun said. “Sitting here being lethargic for four hours is hard.”

 

 

He has decided not to sit still.  He heard there was an opening at a Louisville location and jumped to take it. 

 

He hopes to bring the same type of delight and wonder he experienced to others.  He was a sales representative in a job that left him flat.  He was in the midst of a divorce.  He found a magic store and saw the magic it offered.  It was, he said, ?a bright light in a dark time. For a few hours, all my problems were solved.”

 

…

 

The Incredible Brent Braun

Brent Braun is not in it for the money, although he is surviving.  He is in it for the same reason you and I live for magic, he loves it. 

 

Mr. Braun is featured in today?s Courier-Journal for not only that love of magic but also his work as a small business owner. 

 

The reporter notes, ?Brent Braun can tear a playing card to pieces, set it on fire and then have it reappear whole, but that’s nothing compared with his most challenging trick: keeping his small business together.?

 

Mr. Braun had a great plan at the start.  He worked with former partner, Jason Newman (presumably the ?J? in ?J and B?), to develop a detailed business plan.  He learned the best laid plans of-times go astray.  He has been through many changes since those first plans were drawn.  He bought out his partner, fought the corporate world and has twice moved the location of his shop. 

 

His mission and shop sounds fantastic.  He is a professional magician and wants to make his living exclusively from teaching, selling, performing and inventing magic.  He has a store at the River Falls Mall with magic upfront and a 30-seat theater in the back for magicians to show their stuff. 

 

A combination of losing his prime mall space and the pull-out of the mall?s popular neighbor, Wal-Mart, has killed traffic past his store.  “Sometimes I won’t have a customer come in until 3 o’clock,” Braun said. “Sitting here being lethargic for four hours is hard.”

 

 

He has decided not to sit still.  He heard there was an opening at a Louisville location and jumped to take it. 

 

He hopes to bring the same type of delight and wonder he experienced to others.  He was a sales representative in a job that left him flat.  He was in the midst of a divorce.  He found a magic store and saw the magic it offered.  It was, he said, ?a bright light in a dark time. For a few hours, all my problems were solved.”

 

He learned at the bright spot, the Greater Louisville Magic Emporium, took on a job demonstrating and selling there, and when the shop closed he began his own store from his own savings and help from his former boss at the Magic Emporium. 

 

The article in the Courier-Journal credits Mr. Braun for his determination and quotes local magicians who support his brick and mortar existence.  The reporter notes that many of the local magicians express their support by purchasing from Mr. Braun rather than internet shops; even though it would be cheaper to buy from the virtual businesses. 

 

Mr. Braun has much to offer the magic fraternity.  He has invented many effects marketed through Murphy?s Magic.  He developed the incredible Torched and Restored.  This effect has been described as one of the most magical (not to mention easiest) Torn and Restored Cards available.

A spectator freely selects and signs a playing card.

 

Their card is then clearly torn into four pieces and the magician removes a torch-style lighter from his pocket. The magician then “welds” the four pieces back together and instantly, visually and completely restores the card.   You can see a video of the effect by visiting Murphy?s Magical Supplies here.

 

The image of Mr. Braun?s shop, with its 30-seat theater in the back, is so wonderful.  What a great facility.  There were certainly folks who must have told Mr. Braun that it was folly to take up sales or inventory space with a theater.  But it is unlikely those same business-savvy folks would have started a brick and mortar magic shop nowadays anyhow. 

 

Congratulations Mr. Braun.  We wish you the best of luck and if we are ever near Louisville ? for instance, like in Florida or Arkansas ? we will stop by. 

 

Watch the video of Torched and Restored here.

 

Read the full article here.

Check out a wonderfully executed website from Mr. Braun here.

Read about his new magic Torched and Restored here, and This That and the Other here.

 

 

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