I recently published a video I did of Earl "Presto" Johnson, I had in my private collection since 1980. Earl Died a short time ago, and other than a lecture, and a small clip of his act, no-one had the whole act on tape.
I used to tape Jeff McBride at our magic club, and Jeff was pleased to have the earliest taping of his Water Bowl act.
I have taped my act since the 80's and treasure all of the shows.
What I would do, is ask the videographer
to make sure you get a copy for yourself.
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All videos are a learning experience.

We gave up trying to prevent people from videoing our act. In the longrun it made us work harder to prevent any mishaps on stage there by making our act better. As Ian suggested we have asked for a copy and within a few days we have gotten one. It's a win win situation. They get what they want and you get a copy to review.

Since you have so much listed, I see no problem with others listings things about you. I see it as getting more publicity.

If you invented a trick and was going to perform it at a magician lecture, I can understand the non-video taping there.


As long as you keep up with terrific entertainment, that is what they will watch it for, not the secrets.

I look as one of the goals for a professional magician is to be able to accept being taped.

I look as one of the goals of the professional magician is to control as many aspects of my performance as possible. One of those aspects is trying to make sure that my LIVE performance remains special and eliminate unnecessary distractions...of which videotaping is one.

There is a special UV light that is not visible by naked eye. It renders video camreas completely useless by adding so much brightness to the images that most likely nothing can be decetly filmed. I don't know much about it, but that can be an idea into adding such lightning to your stage.

I'm with Jonathan on this one. Having done stand up comedy for nearly a decade before getting into magic, one of the most obnoxious things to encounter is someone videotaping your act without permission. There were nights where I was trying out new material, or I had re-worked something, or maybe I was just having an off night - and if the show didn't go well or a particular bit didn't get a good reaction, the only spectators who witnessed it were the audience. Someone videotaping the act meant that it had the potential to be seen by God-knows how many people on the Internet.

I completely understand Christopher's point of view here. When my material is online, I want complete control over how it's shot, edited and displayed. As Christopher points out, this is an even more sensitive issue in magic because some of what we do requires certain angles for it to work, and he has no control over that when someone in the audience decides to start filming his performance. If he flashes it's not because he's a bad magician - it's because he's unable to control an element of the performance environment.

We are well within our rights to not wish to be filmed onstage. As I not-so-subtly would say in my stand up routine to the person filming me, "Does this look like your bedroom at home? Do I look like your wife? No? Then turn the camera off " Got a laugh every time, and also got the hint across that I didn't want my act ending up on Youtube for the world to comment on without my control over how it was presented.

I've had this happen at Birthday Parties too - everything from 6 yr old, sweet 16s, and 60 yr old surprise parties. I never feel awkward asking them to stop taping if I am at a public event. It is difficult however to ask them not to video tape during their son or daughter's birthday. After all, they paid for a magician and they want to remember the fun. I usually let it slide for b-day parties, but NEVER at a public event.

TwistedAce, The time to address the possibility of videotaping is when the client books the show. Explain that it won't be permitted during the formal show. If you are so motivated you can offer something like this "But after the show I'lll spend a few minutes with the birthday child /party and this way they have a 'video keepsake' of the experience."

Wow! Lot's of different sides to this coin...many different oppinion's being offered. Very cool!

Twist...I honestly don't care about the birthday party shows. Private events I'm not over concerned over. Mainly becuase the rooms I'm in for private events I have 99.9% control over. We're talking living rooms or family rooms, etc. where the audience is seated directly in front of me and that's usually where the camera is placed as well.

I'm talking about my stage act when I'm at my restaurant. Sadly, there is seating directly to the right and left of the stage which means that people are getting really odd angles. Playing that stage is a Master Class in Audience Management, Angle Management, and EVERYTHING Management. It's made me a much stronger performer then I EVER was before.

However, I still don't want my stage act video taped by anyone other than myself. Andrew hit the nail on the head and is spot on as he stated above. This past weekend, my wife had a mis-carriage...yet, I still had to go and perform. Do you think that I wanted those shows video taped? Heck no! My brain certainly wasn't into my shows...I was just there sadly goin' thru the motions. I know that I wasn't putting up the same energy level that I usually do...it wasn't fun for me this weekend and I'm sure my audience could tell that there was something wrong...especially my regular customers.

Had someone video taped those shows, and stuck them on You Tube, people would have seen a side of me that isn't a true representation of who I am or what my show is.

I guess there is no sure fire way to combat the issue...

Very sorry to hear that Christopher! I know how those things go - I've had to perform at times when I was dealing with other issues in my personal life, but "the show must go on," and while we do our best to give the superb performance that we always do, we are only human, and sometimes it shows through. Kudos to you for going out and performing during a difficult time. I hope everything works out and you and your wife are okay!

Andrew