I don't know how the general perception of magic suffers. I do know that when I go to a new venue, there is often an assumption that magicians are for children. But after I perform, it is usually the teens and adults who approach me.

And they keep asking me back to perform again.

It seems like there is always someone who hates magic because -- in spite of my best attempts -- they don't like being fooled and insist on treating it as a puzzle. But in general, it's not that people have a negative opinion of performance magic; it's that they don't have an opinion at all. Very few people under 30 with whom I speak can name a single magician, or recognize any of the names I might mention.

It’s rather simple to say, but rather difficult to achieve.

Before you can change the public’s perception of magic you have to change the magic fraternity’s opinion of magic. Far too many only think of fooling people, or getting away with it. They errantly think “better magic” is about better methods. They say things like, “Doing better cups and balls or card tricks won’t change a thing.”

So close and yet so far away. They need to be shown that improving is not typically about the method and they should stop thinking that is what this discussion is about. What it is about is the art of presentation. Real acting. Real storytelling. And maybe, just maybe, being affected themselves by what they do, instead of reacting like it’s a common event.

They need to be shown the error of their ways of thinking “Only a magician will remember names of the details from a magic show.” Do only actors remember details about plays? Do only musicians remember details about concerts? No! The problem is not the audience. It is the performer.

George is spot on when he writes: “I think this is because the magicians focus on the magic and not on themselves as entertainers or personalities.”

There is a host of reasons for this. The show lacks personality. The audience has been given no reason to care about the performer. The magician is only concerned with being deceptive. After proving one can deceive an audience, there is very little depth in that simple and now mundane detail. And yet that is what the majority of magic performances are.

I’ll give one little insight: crediting your sources when it’s meaningful to you. The majority of magicians become apoplectic about such things. They feel it dilutes their power, their authority on stage. They foolishly need to take credit for every “trick” they pull on stage. When one genuinely shares the real world of magicians, going to conventions, teaching each other magic, trying to out do each other, one draws their audience in. One gives them a little reason to understand and care about the performer. It humanizes the performance. It gives them a way to connect with the performer.

Sadly, most magicians think their pathetic set up of “magician in trouble” somehow does similar. Sadly, most don’t have the acting chops to pull it off. It becomes another obvious, trite attempt at deception.

I can act like a professional carpenter all I want but if the only tool I have is a Dollar Store multi-tool then I'm not getting too many repeat jobs.
A painter who only uses those paint by numbers books isn't getting any shows.

Presentation is a tool. Methods are tools which should be chosen to best fit the Presentation. I have a different style than Giobbi but I'd be hard pressed to see his "tool-kit" teaching style as hurting the art- BECAUSE he teaches theory and Presentation concurrently with the techniques. Giobbi has probably done about as much to improve the art as anyone else.

I'm all for acting. I've done acting and stand up. But at some point if you want to do magic you have yo do magic- and if you want to elevate the art it had better be decent magic.

Here's hopefully the most controversial thing I'll say today: A problem with magic compared to other arts is that people are more polite to someone doing the twenty-one card trick than they are to an adult's Crayola drawing. That gets someone with mediocre skills thinking "hey, maybe I'm pretty good at this magic stuff!"
I'm not knocking the twenty-one card trick, just that if you stay in you'll want to go beyond it.

OF COURSE, I think you should practice your presentation as well as methods, but I think you need to do both.
Whether it's voice lessons, or making your breaks invisible, nothing that improves your magic should be overlooked or denigrated. It's all connected and it all matters.

Pretending that when you force people to watch you after a dinner party makes you somehow a professional magician seems to be that Dollar Store tool you speak of.

Yeah, that one way to approach it. I see so many magicians, including yourself sometimes and also imgic up in Tricky business recently, making reference to names of tricks, and more so to other performers - Giobbi, Lance, Haydon, Cody Fisher, John Archer, Vernon, and so many others and their approaches and their tricks. It has become like magic's version of a cover band.

I have yet to see more than a very few approach a show from their show or performance point of view, not from a tricks or other's personal approach point of view. Create the "show" first, and then work on filling in with any necessary the magic material and tools to make that show come to life and to meet the criteria of what you need. It is not and should never be about the tricks. It should be about the creation, direction, and outcome of the show. Sure personality is part of it, but that too is just the executional vehicle.

It is this whole monkey see, monkey do thing magicians have and do that creates the problems, Also the same for books and courses. They are ALL based on the author's, one person, "how I did it" point of reference. That is great for them and perhaps nice that they shared it, but rarely does it work the same for anyone else. If you break it down, it simply can't, not possible. Too many things would have to perfectly align for it to even begin to work for the reader - the personality, performance market, geographical market, persona or character, tone, style, and so much more. Rarely, if ever, do these things align enough to make them work for you as they do the author.

Same for creations. Create your own tricks and material. In comedy of you take others material or often even premise, you are considerd a "hack" and often blackballed. In magic it seems to actually be encouraged, which leads to little or no originality at all.

Then there is the way too much me-based thinking and magicians thinking. As a performer, you should be striving to move beyond this as quickly as possible, Studying others is great to gain additional insight and your stimulate your own ideas, but not to want to take what they've done as your own. To many magicians, trying to adapt others material to their own style is what they feel IS BEING original and creative. Its not. Its simply changing something just enough to not plagiarizing someone else's material.

This is also the result of so many watching youtube videos of others. It often does more harm than good in creating your own content, style, and material, not to mention your overall show, marketing, and approach. There is so much more to it than just thinking about presentation, methods, and approach.

Danny brings up a good point. How do you gauge a person's interest in magic or expectations if they don't want to be there at all?
I've been to dinners where one spouse has dragged the other along and no form of entertainment will work.
Many people at a corporate party see anxious to leave as soon as possible, but are "forced" to stay for whatever entertainment is offered.

I haven't gone to either for decades, so it might be different today. What does "force people"mean today?

I was in a restaurant where a strolling gent asked if we would like to see some magic tricks. We said "no" but he performed anyway.
So, we were forced to endure his interruption.

If you are asked to perform after a nice dinner, you have a right to refuse, but might feel forced to. Just speculating.

If either the performer or spectator is "forced," how does that impact the personal skill that Mindpro talk about?

As to the OP, does "Mr general public" they ever perceive magic as being forced on them? Forced to think, maybe

Sounds like a job for assertiveness skills. I'm pretty good at calling out people who aren't respecting me or my boundaries.

I've brought this up before, but here goes again...

Years ago, at Donna's birthday party one of the guests was a friend of ours, a local part-time professional magician. We were sitting at one of the tables, when "what do you do" came up, and shortly he asked if he could borrow my car keys. He went and got out a deck of cards and came back to the table. You didn't have to be a Dunninger to realize what one guest (let's call him John) was thinking: "Oh, great, a gay guy doing card tricks. Can I leave now?" Long story short, our friend said he was a guest and didn't want to perform, so the other guests would do the magic, and proceeded to do the Ambitious Card as if other people at the table were doing the trick. I was watching "John," and two minutes later he was laughing and going "No way" along with everyone else.

What I saw there was that our friend blew expectations -- good, bad, or indifferent -- out of the water with his personality. His personality. The AC was well done, but it was his personality that grabbed them.

BTW, my niece then hired him to do a show at her twins' birthday party.