GOAL ANALYSIS

Welcome to the next piece of the record of my process. Let’s make a show!

We left off by setting a few goals (a lot of them, actually). After thinking about them overnight (and having them mulling around over the last several days), the ones that stick out are:

  1. Creative: Design a magic show that feels theatrical and immersive by focusing not only on the material but on the experience.
  2. Financial: Ensure that the show becomes sustainable by developing a model to bring in $500 (net) per week.
  3. Business: Be thoughtful and intentional about the full process – not just making the show but the promotion, documentation, and leveraging of assets into each other.

What will immediately become apparent about this whole process is that it relies on making decisions thoughtfully in a way that intentionally moves towards a single vision. For the Goals portion of the plan, that doesn’t stop simply by setting a few independent goals. It’s worth a bit of time working through the implications of those goals. Let’s infer what their impact will be on the show:

  1. Creating a theatrical and immersive-feeling show immediately has resource demands. It can often mean more expenses for props, set pieces, lighting, music or soundscapes and designers to carry those elements out. Carrying out It’s not the case 100% of the time, but fleshing out the experience (from ticket sales to pre-show to follow up) for an audience means more elements to think about and often higher costs. This ties directly into Goal number 2:
  2. A sustainable career in the arts requires finding those (rare) recurring income streams from sources that can remain relatively stable. While $500 per week is by no means a salary, my experience has shown me that – in my area – it’s definitely an achievable number and it will help me understand how many hours per week I can commit to the project over time to make it viable. The big challenge is that quickly reaching a profit in a theatrical endeavor is a challenge. I could easily slap together 10 tricks that I already do and call it “Evan’s Wicked Awesome Magic Show” to save on design costs, but that doesn’t serve my artistic goals. Knowing that I want to create a world and a setting and an exciting viewing experience for my audience means that I need to commit resources to the overall design. That means I need to be incredible careful with the type of theme and show I create to make sure it doesn’t require a heavy lift in terms of reworking a space. Crafting a show to fit into a cohesive preexisting space will cut down on overhead and make the show profitable faster without sacrificing the artistic integrity.
  3. Capturing the process means simultaneously creating social media content for promotion. It means thinking multiple steps ahead to get ahead of unexpected expenses. It means ending up with videos, a press kit, and a clear process to recreate the show so it becomes a resource I can continue to use into the future.

I haven’t forsaken my other goals, but I prioritized these ones because they’re currently the most important for me to explore. Plus, several of the others (focusing on primarily original material, developing my team, etc.) feel like they’ll happen somewhat naturally under the umbrella of these other goals.

Additional goals can pop up as the process arises! Everything is flexible, but having clear starting points gives me a matrix against which to judge if my actions are in line with where I want to get. So spending $2,000 on a lighting system might seem super fun for me personally, but if it doesn’t contribute to making the show sustainable, it’s probably not a good goal. Creating a show focused on props or themes that are consumable will mean that week-to-week overhead is going to be higher and will make the financial plan harder to carry out.

I’ll say again: Everything is flexible. We just need to start this whole process with places to begin. Those could be primarily creative if this isn’t your full time job. Maybe your goal is to design a competition act for a local magic contest. Your goals could be entirely focused on developing your material and your style, and creating a unique competition experience for a magician audience. And with a separate job funding it, the financials may be of minimal concern!

RANDOM IDEAS

  • This might be the same as the last post, but with the “HEIST” theme in mind, a warehouse, sketchy area, and non-theatrical feeling performance space might be a great fit for these goals.
  • In terms of “Frames” (more on that later), A heist movie could work. Also, a Salon came to mind and has that interactive feel I foresee this show moving towards.