Magic News

The Business of Magic

girl-with-popThe
Detroit News has an absolutely fascinating look at the business side of
magic and the life of those who would forego the corporate world to pursue
their dream.

Bruce Pandoff of St.
Clair Shores, Michigan
is a magician at heart but he knows he needs to make hay whilst the sun
shines. 

Summers in Michigan
are greatly anticipated, excitedly enjoyed, and far too short. 

During the summer months, Mr. Pandoff works festivals and
fairs providing inflatable bounce-walks, climbing walls, and even an inflatable
sinking Titanic. 

Mr. Pandoff's Fun-O-Rama Amusement Rentals provides fun
equipment and facilitates games and carnival food. 

He purchases the equipment from China, often, and works almost
constantly to keep his investment in good repair and attractive. 

It wasn't always this way, though. 

He now owns "about two dozen dunk tanks, moonwalks and
the like, plus cotton candy makers and similar nutritional bonanzas."

He works in the off-season performing magic and
hypnotism.  But two years ago he bought a
business made for fun in the short summer season.

One of the pieces included in the inflatable inventory is
The Titanic Adventure Slide.  The ride
"features the back end of the ship, sticking up from the ground at an
angle as though the bow had already disappeared. It's 38 feet long and 25 feet
tall. Kids clamber up a staircase, then slide down into the fun-filled pretend North Atlantic."

Mr. Pandoff is the first to admit he was unsure that "1,500
dead people do not exactly connote childhood whimsy. If the same thought has
struck his customers, though, no one has brought it up. It came with the
business," he says. "You figure that piece cost $25,000. I can't
afford another piece."

The moving, lifting, dumping, inflating, monitoring,
deflating, lifting, storing and moving is hard work.  But he is not willing to go back to the way
things were.

Pandoff says he holds to a guiding
philosophy, born of being a frustrated employee plodding toward goals he kept
forgetting he had. It goes like this:

"You can work hard for
somebody else, and all you get is a little paycheck. If you work hard for
yourself, you can make better money or you can make nothing."

In short, your own nothing is
better than a little bit of someone else's something. That's why he tried to
make a go of it as a hypnotist and magician, and why he ultimately bought a
business that included an air-filled dinosaur with a playground in its stomach.

When the last of the long summer days comes, usually by
mid-September, the demand for all things bouncy and inflatable drops off
dramatically. 

Mr. Pandoff returns to his job of hypnotist. "We do a
lot of bachelorette parties," he says. "A lot of these gals, believe
it or not, don't want a stripper. They call me to do a hypnosis show and I just
tell them they had strippers."

girl-with-popThe
Detroit News has an absolutely fascinating look at the business side of
magic and the life of those who would forego the corporate world to pursue
their dream.

Bruce Pandoff of St.
Clair Shores, Michigan
is a magician at heart but he knows he needs to make hay whilst the sun
shines. 

Summers in Michigan
are greatly anticipated, excitedly enjoyed, and far too short. 

During the summer months, Mr. Pandoff works festivals and
fairs providing inflatable bounce-walks, climbing walls, and even an inflatable
sinking Titanic. 

Mr. Pandoff's Fun-O-Rama Amusement Rentals provides fun
equipment and facilitates games and carnival food. 

He purchases the equipment from China, often, and works almost
constantly to keep his investment in good repair and attractive. 

It wasn't always this way, though. 

He now owns "about two dozen dunk tanks, moonwalks and
the like, plus cotton candy makers and similar nutritional bonanzas."

He works in the off-season performing magic and
hypnotism.  But two years ago he bought a
business made for fun in the short summer season.

One of the pieces included in the inflatable inventory is
The Titanic Adventure Slide.  The ride
"features the back end of the ship, sticking up from the ground at an
angle as though the bow had already disappeared. It's 38 feet long and 25 feet
tall. Kids clamber up a staircase, then slide down into the fun-filled pretend North Atlantic."

Mr. Pandoff is the first to admit he was unsure that "1,500
dead people do not exactly connote childhood whimsy. If the same thought has
struck his customers, though, no one has brought it up. It came with the
business," he says. "You figure that piece cost $25,000. I can't
afford another piece."

The moving, lifting, dumping, inflating, monitoring,
deflating, lifting, storing and moving is hard work.  But he is not willing to go back to the way
things were.

Pandoff says he holds to a guiding
philosophy, born of being a frustrated employee plodding toward goals he kept
forgetting he had. It goes like this:

"You can work hard for
somebody else, and all you get is a little paycheck. If you work hard for
yourself, you can make better money or you can make nothing."

In short, your own nothing is
better than a little bit of someone else's something. That's why he tried to
make a go of it as a hypnotist and magician, and why he ultimately bought a
business that included an air-filled dinosaur with a playground in its stomach.

When the last of the long summer days comes, usually by
mid-September, the demand for all things bouncy and inflatable drops off
dramatically. 

Mr. Pandoff returns to his job of hypnotist. "We do a
lot of bachelorette parties," he says. "A lot of these gals, believe
it or not, don't want a stripper. They call me to do a hypnosis show and I just
tell them they had strippers."

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