Discourse in Magic Making Magic and the Playing Card Revolution with Alex Pandrea
He is Blue Crown Magic, he is Alex Pandrea. He first got into magic when he was five years old. A clown came to his birthday party and did tricks like disappearing silk or sponge balls. But his interest continued into young adulthood. He grew up in New York City and it was through the local magic shops in Queens like Tannens that he discovered more magic. He created some new effects as a teenager.
That love of creation continued as he progressed to performing for and hanging out with other magicians. His love of David Blaine was all encompassing – to the point that he brought his own version of the fire wall to school. That trick got him suspended and a ton of detention. When he got to college he married at 19 and that forced him to grow-up very quickly. That led to him creating his own material and doing his own shows. Alex believes that a magic career, like life, goes through stages.
Alex started Blue Crown in 2011 when he was still in college. He had literally one desk job in his life and he quickly decided he wanted to avoid a 9 to 5 at all costs. Alex began to teach himself the skills he was going to need – from web design to photography. He began producing his own videos after painstakingly teaching himself Final Cut Pro. Alex thinks that he got in at exactly the right time. When he started producing his own playing cards there were only a handful of companies doing the same thing. His first deck design sold out in less than 20 minutes and that took Blue Crown to the next level.
Alex has also built a sizable audience on YouTube. All of his content is available for free. He does that as a way to create a close relationship with his audience. He believes the community will be much more willing to support new products from Blue Crown. The most successful entrepreneurs are those who are not trying to monetize everything all the time. Alex has applied that philosophy to Blue Crown.
Alex divorced when he was just 27 years old. He packed up his entire life into his career and decided to deliver a few lectures. He had always wanted to get out of NYC and the lecture series started with five dates. Over the last three years that number ballooned to 112 different cities. This has been the third phase of his career. Putting meaning into people’s lives by teaching them magic has been incredibly fulfilling for him.
The internet is often a very unfriendly place. From comment sections to Reddit there is an incredible amount of trash-talking. But Alex feels that it can be a place to create community as well. Having a positive group that helps each other to grow is his goal. Every revolution has it’s good and bad parts. Alex is trying to steer this magical revolution towards more openness and inclusiveness.
Who should we have on next?
What do you want to tell our audience?
Take it slower. A lot of people rush through learning, performing and life itself. Take a step back and think about things more clearly.
What was your favourite part of the episode?
Jonah liked learning about Alex’s experience learning how to create online content.
Tyler enjoyed hearing about the process of getting good at creating good content.
Alex wanted to emphasize the importance of never giving up and never letting up on that momentum.
Plugs
https://www.instagram.com/a.pandrea/?hl=en
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