DiscountMagic.co.uk first reared its head all the way back in 2003 when Neil came back to magic after a few years break and found that everything was expensive. Hence he looked around and decided that if nobody else was going to do it then he would and hence Discount Magic was born with the tag line “Making Magic Affordable” and the guiding principal of “don’t be greedy”.
Who or what is Neil?
For a little context, Neil’s interest in magic started right back around 1980. It was a great time for magic on TV with the “Paul Daniels Magic Show” in its 2nd series and programs like CrackerJack, Why Dont You and Blue Peter often featuring magic acts. On top of this, nearly every single children’s party had a performer (hence Neil’s continued love of Run Rabbit Run and Everyone Wins).
This love of magic carried on through school and family performances along with talent shows etc until his early teens when other more important things came along. However, having left performing behind he still loved to watch magic and through the next few years with the appearance of shows like Stuff The White Rabbit and Secret Cabaret he found a wider range of performers and performing styles.
Neil went off to university following an engineering path specialising in electronics and computer systems in which at that time a lot of presentational tricks were used in order to provide the sort of user output that was to be desired. Strangely he also at this time turned his love of outward-bound activities into a business and here the magic and performance re-surfaced. Using the presentational style and bar-bet type tricks and routines with the groups of students (mostly older students and university groups) helped to pull groups together and made ideas stick.
Due to changes in the world, Neil then went back to Engineering where he discovered that the company he was working for would pay for him to do extra study, and so began the process of broadening his horizons with courses that he thought might help like Psychology, Philosophy, Law, and strangely Archeology (its all storytelling). This time also brought him to Blackpool and into contact with the local theatrical students from Blackpool College and through this he ended up at his first Blackpool Magic Convention purely by accident one Saturday, and that was it, the love was re-ignited and performing was back.
But there was a problem, a pack of Bicycle cards £6 each (in 1999), Stripper & Svengali £20, Gaff Coins £40. It soon added up and didn’t quite seem right, so after an evening of research he found a manufacturer, got a price list and decided that it was time to make things fairer.
A website is born.
DiscountMagic.co.uk was registered on 16/11/2003, with a box of stock having just been delivered and a computer science graduate behind the wheel it all went live.
The website started with 20 items, mostly basic tracks and some decks of Bicycles (£1.99 a pack) that had been tracked down, it quickly gained some traction and the product lines started to expand. Discount Magic looked like it was going to work so we started to advertise in Abra Magazine and this is when trouble started. It turned out that when some of the established dealers who were selling Bikes for £6 saw what we were doing they were unhappy and so after several of them complained and made threats to Abra, our advertising was dropped. This just told us that we were doing the right thing. People liked the idea of magic being affordable, and also our pricing strategy of “Don’t Be Greedy” was correct.
As we couldn’t advertise in Abra we decided to look elsewhere and soon found the fledgling radio show “Radio Magic” presented by the excellent Jay Fortune, a few conversations later we were working with them to help get a good modern weekly radio show for magicians out and help to promote what we were doing. But again this led to more complaints from some of the established dealers.
Accusations started about us just being “Bedroom Boys”, rumours went around that Neil was some 9-year-old kid, and some dealers claimed that we were just selling knock offs. All of which were wrong and designed to keep us out, so we doubled down again and in an effort to show that we weren’t bedroom boys, 9 years old, or selling rip offs we tried to attend as many conventions as possible around the UK.
The Convention years
We started small with a 6″ table and West Lanc Day of Magic, Billinge. At the time a popular one-day convention which was organised by the now sadly defunct Ace Magic Circle (of which we were proud members). We had Bicycle Decks, Goshman Sponge Balls, Sharpies, Vernet Thumb Tips and Silks along with a few Royal Magic products. It went OK, we didn’t know what we were doing.
We went from here to add conventions such as Bristol Day of Magic, Magic Circle Dealers Day, Exonian and Portsmouth Jumbo Day in the next 12 months. We then applied to the Blackpool Magic Convention (and hence Derek Lever) as our local convention to which we got the reply “No you are not a valid dealer”. Now as you might have guessed when we hit an obstacle we generally find a way around, through or over it, and as we discovered that the following year was FISM Stockholm we decided to show our worthiness by going to the biggest convention in the world as a dealer, and so we did.
At FISM we had a range of products from Bicycle, a new company called Ellusionist, Magic Makers, Royal Magic, and Illusioncraft and for the first time, we did something that we had wanted to do for a while and we had our own items manufactured (nothing special just some wands etc). The first day we took enough to cover lunch, the 2nd day word went around and by the end of the week we had made it a great convention and made a lot of new friends.
So we returned home and applied to Blackpool again to be told “no you aren’t big enough and don’t have any experience”. So off we went again around the UK convention scene and tried again, with the same result and this time the added line “You will never get into Blackpool”. Now we knew where we stood we couldn’t lose and so we arranged to rent the church hall opposite the winter gardens for the same weekend as the following year’s Blackpool Convention and decided to run our own mini-convention opposite with a few others we knew who had been told the same. Strangely when word got back to Derek Lever, apart from the explosion heard across the Fylde Coast we received a letter inviting us to be a dealer at the 2008 Blackpool Convention as long as we cancelled our own event, and the rest is history.
In 2012 we decided to do FISM again (hence the photo)
What, Why & How
As you can see it has been a rocky road over the last 20+ years. Many of those who threatened and accused early on have now ceased trading. We continue with our pricing strategy of “Don’t Be Greedy”, we stick to “Making Magic Affordable”. We keep prices low by working directly with manufacturers, we buy in volume and work hard on every aspect of cost from reducing our shipping costs to reducing the price of the paper we print our receipts on, that way we can make our prices as good as possible and this allows you to get the items you want and us to make a living.
We always only offer for sale what we have ready to go in stock in the UK (allowing for mistakes).
We work directly with Bicycle, Vernet, Goshman, Difatta, Royal, Funtime, Ellusionist, Tora, and many more. We have also purchased some businesses over time including the Gaff Card part of The Card Collection and several publications.
We manufacture many basic items ourselves like waxes, threads, silks, sponges, rope and other utility items along with our own releases.
In 2008 in the midst of the global economic crisis, we introduced our £1 range of basic supplies to keep magic affordable again. When the world fell apart again in 2020 we added the option to pay for nearly all items over a period of time, interest-free to enable performers to get back up and running again.
We don’t rip off marketed effects, that’s not fair to the originator.
We try and always be honest with our customers to the point that we will tell people not to buy it if we think it is wrong or will just go into a drawer and never be used.
That is how we are now at the stage where we are a major supplier to both professional and amateur magicians alike. We are also a major manufacturer and wholesaler to many other UK and international dealers, along with providing specialist help to productions of all sizes be they stage or screen.
The Team
Discount Magic has grown over the years, it started with Neil with support from Wendy in the first few months. When the conventions came along Neil was joined by his parents Jean & Wes who have rapidly become firm favourites with many convention goers as always ready for a friendly chat or catch up. Unfortunately, on the 4th of July 2024, Jean lost her battle with cancer and will be sadly missed by all of us and many of you.
Sarah joined in on events as things grew and has now published her own book on maths magic which she lectures around the UK.
In 2018 we realised that keeping around 7000 product lines in stock ready to go was no longer possible in the space we had and so the move to the new building occurred. This was a mammoth task but one which helped us serve you all better, following this move Richard Germaine came on board, a complete novice in magic but keen to learn and he has kept many of you supplied over the last few years. Then in early 2000 we added Lesley, Rick Green, and Matt Rooker. Lesley again a complete novice on arrival has learned a lot about the magic world in the last few years, more than she may have expected to. Matt Rooker and longer standing customer and well respected closeup and strolling magician unfortunately moved on as his increasing bookings for his performances meant more travel. Rick Green the international Cruise Magician joined us early in 2000 and is still with us today giving advice as well as helping to develop new items, his years of expertise on the stage are invaluable.
From our simple start, we have grown to the point that we support performers worldwide. We try and still offer the in-person service that we developed during the time running around the conventions and as such we are always available by phone and email (not 24/7) to provide guidance and advice. For those in the area (Blackpool), we welcome visitors by appointment to come and have a chat and a brew.
If there is ever anything that you need just let us know and we will do our best to source it for you (at an affordable price of course), just ask and we will see what we can do for you.