This is my latest book that shows how magicians can add several thousand dollars a year to their incomes by offering costume characters. The only book on the subject and has been getting rave reviews which can be read on the website. If you are looking for a new avenue to make money with your shows, then you owe it to yourself to check this out.

http://www.lybrary.com/the-magicians-gui......576.html

I have noticed that all phis testimonials on all of his e-books are all from the same two guys. Any real reviews from anyone other than these two guys. I will refrain from my thoughts until I hear from others.

Some reviews can be read here:

http://www.themagiccafe.com/forums/viewt......m=218&15

Joe L.

I don't know about his book, but when I used to do costumed characters I did really well with it. Hey, I should've written a book! Just kidding. FYI, I have a really nice Spiderman (non-licensed) costume I'd sell if anyone is interested.

Yes, I have read that thread and those reviews and am still asking, thanks. Many of those were based on the promotional hype and free copies given away. That's not what I was referring to. I would like to hear form those that actually paid for it or that are in that aspect of the entertainment industry, not magician's thinking of adding this for extra $$$.

I have been asked to do a magic show as a pirate next weekend. I have had plenty of notice and have booked to hire a costume for $50, and will play the part including adapting my tricks and games to the pirate theme.
So far this is a one off, but If this works well, I would consider buying an outfit and making it a permanent option. Does Devin's ebook relate to my situation, or is it more for the large oversize full-body costumes you see at public events for hours? (I am not interested in that market!)
Thanks

From what I've read they are the full costumed licensed characters (Barney, Disney, Batman, etc.). I think doing a character-themed magic show would be different than working as a costume character or mascot-type of costume

I haven't read it, but I believe it is primarily about oversize mascot-type costumes. I don't know if things like your pirate-costume situation are covered at all.

Joe L.

Good, I don't think this would work for me otherwise, since I doubt the kids want to see fat spiderman.

The problem with this, and magicians really need to know this stuff, is that many of these costumed characters are copyrighted. Just because you buy an authorized costume doesn't mean you are then granted complete rights to rent these famous characters out to parties and profit from someone else's property. Come on, how could magicians be so stupid to even think like this.

That same holds true if you try to be sneaky about it and call a famous character by another name. This doesn't fly in the eyes of big company lawyers.

Ask Phil Morris about this and time he was sued. He learned the hard way and advised others NOT TO GO THIS ROUTE.

Disney and others are constantly looking for folks who try to circumvent the law. Don't be an idiot!

Gerry

I read Devin's promo and the part he's talking about - getting around the whole copyright thing - is the same thing that Philip Morris tried to do many, many years ago.

Instead of calling a character Mickey Mouse we'll call it Mikey Mouse.

Lawyers don't buy that stuff. Lawyers say that if your costumed figure looks "similar" to a copyrighted figure to the point that the average person would think it could be that figure, then that is copyright infringement and they will come after you.

I like Devin Knight and many of his products, but he's completely out of his league on this topic.

Gerry

These were my thoughts too Gerry. In the celebrity world, which the most popular costume characters are, there is a legal term "name & likeness" that the owners and estates of the owners use to protect not only their (in this case, the character) name, but also the image or similarity of their "likeness".

What I believe is addressed in this e-book is how to avoid using the name as Gerry pointed out - instead of saying Barney, you market and promote your Barney costume character as "Purple Dinosaur". While even this is poor advice, it does not in any way protect you against trademark, copyright or licensing infringement. But to take it a step further, even using the generic name and not referring to it by the licensed name, you still have the "likeness" issue. Even though you're using a generic name, it does not really protect you in any legal way from the fact that you are using their "likeness" to publicly promote and/or profit from this recognizability of this celebrity or character.

I have experienced this first hand by representing several celebrities that were closely affiliated with such recognizable characters and likenesses. To take it a step farther I was in the process of buying a famous celebrity automobile, that fell under the same situation. Trust me, I learned this from the inside out, the hard way.

In reality, there is an annual expo in Las Vegas every Summer that is nothing but thousands of these characters and their image and likeness that are available for licensing. There are many different types of licensing available from production licensing to personal appearance licensing. This is the absolutely the only 100% legal way to use, represent and offer costume characters to the public, for profit or otherwise.

This was my only reasoning for asking about this e-book. When I hear reviews saying "it's the most complete resource on costume characters I've ever seem", or "the definitive information regarding costume characters" (paraphrasing) it was quite misleading and obviously uneducated and misinformed opinions.

From what I am understanding, is the author is passing this off as "how-to" information. Purchaser's are buying this series of resources as expert or authoritive information that they can use or apply. This is now the second of these releases that I would have concerns with the information being offered, as it is received under this perception. Instead of positioning himself and his information as an "expert" on these topics, he should be using the premise of "this is how I've done it or did it in my experience", not positing the information and the authority when such subjective and misleading information is being offered.

Gerry said" "I like Devin Knight and many of his products, but he's completely out of his league on this topic", is also my thoughts here as although all of the other threads have been deleted, this is now the second questionable release (that I'm aware of, there could be more) that is being offered under this premise.

I think this is why many have questioned if Devin actually does and uses the material, methods and techniques himself that he offers in these resources, because some of them have that aura of "iffy-ness" to them in some ways.

The costume and mascot industry is big business, just be careful on the information you accept as "the complete works" or "definitive resource" on the topic.

I clicked on the link Devin provided in the original post and looked at the cover picture of the book.

All the costume figures have large head costumes that obstructs vision and they all require wearing gloves.

I would find it impossible to perform while wearing the costume and the gloves would prevent me from performing most of my tricks, the costume will restrict my moving around and removing the gloves while performing in my opinion would make the costume look lame

Wearing a costume would be much like a prison sentence to me. I have seen costume characters attacked, and taunted by gangs of young boys, and I have seen costume characters pass out from the heat. Costumes all smell like a combination of foam rubber, and BO. Perhaps I'm looking at this from the perspective of a lazy old man, but there just is not enough money in carrying all that extra luggage to interest me.

The Philly Phanatic is about thirty years old, his costume weighs about thirty pounds, he wears a vest packed with ice under his costume, and makes six a figures salary.

I didn't get the impression it was so much performing your magic as a character, as much as getting into costume characters as an additional source of revenue from your business.

The only costume character I have ever dressed as was Santa Clause, and I would have to be very hungry to ever do it again.

It appears those are college mascots on the cover of his ebook, which are very different than costumed characters.

Three thoughts here:

1. My wife would divorce me if I ever tried to put on a costume and go to birthdays

2. What does a magic show have to do with wearing a giant, smelly, hot costume? The title of the book is "The Magician's Guide to Making Money with Costume Characters."

3. I'm with Al, I'd have to be very very very hungry before I even THOUGHT about this.

Talk about the jack of all trades.

I used to own a costume rental shop and rented out non-licensed versions of several popular characters. I also had a booking agency and sent people out in the costumes as well as did them myself. Many, many costume shops do the same thing. In terms of what is ethical, you decide. I was more concerned about making kids and parents happy. It's clearly not legal, even if you call it something different. You could get sued, so it's a risk, but I never met anyone who did. I never had any trouble. I used to advertise "popular costumed characters" but never put in print or online what they were. When people contacted me I was clear that these were not official licensed versions and explained that the costumes were a little different than the real deal. At the biggest costume convention there were 1 or 2 companies that had a bunch of knockoff costumes on display, while others had a picture book available and kept it low key. In fact, that's how I bought the Spidey costume that I'm selling now - I had to meet them in their hotel room - it was like a drug deal!

In terms of performing in the big mascot costumes, it's really no fun and I wouldn't do that anymore - it's a young man's game. You don't do magic in them, it's just a seperate thing to offer people. You get really hot and sweaty, so it's a real problem to combine that with magic shows on the same day. You can dance around with the kids, do sing-alongs, do a parade with the kids around the house, stuff like that. If you are doing stuff like Spiderman or a pirate, then you can do a lot more. As Spidey I arm wrestled the kids and let them beat me, did Spidey balloon swords and sword fought with the kids, did a few magic tricks, stuff like that.

BTW I have a nice quality generic pirate costume for sale in the clown/juggling section.

Dan,

As you said, "it's not legal," so why would anyone suggest that this is a great way for magicians to made extra cash?

I can't speak for others, but I'm not so sure I'd enjoy getting a cease and desist letter from Disney or Marvel lawyers.

And do you know how I would handle this if you were doing this in my market? I'd report you to the authorities so it forced you to become ethical and comply with intellectual property rights.

Hey, I don't mind competition, but it's got to be legal in my book.

Gerry

If anyone says it's not ethical, I would say they can and should make up their own mind about the issue. However, none of those companies licence those characters or costumes for the type of use we are discussing, therefore you could say they are not loosing money. I think they don't want all kinds of people doing the characters because many of them will do a bad job, or even cause trouble, while in the costume and so the company and the characters might get a bad reputation. So I don't blame them for not allowing it. I haven't done those characters in a long time, but when I did, the kids had fun, the parents were happy, and those companies still made money by licensing all the decorations, plates, toys, etc. And maybe those kids ended up liking the characters even more, and then buying more toys and stuff later on. I don't really recommend anyone do it because of potential legal problems, but you can make good money, I sure did.