I've noticed there is a really strong hatred towards Ellusionist by a lot of people here. I've ordered a couple things from them in the past and thought there were ok. I'm curious to know why they have such a bad reputation.

Ya know, mndude, me too. Ellusionist has always given me perfect customer service, and have provided me with exclusives like the Red Gaff Deck and Ghost and Ghost Gaff Decks. Brad Christianson gave me personal instruction by email, which helped immensely, on and on.

Early-on there were haters, but there are in any startup biz like that. Why the hatin' now? And such a good company?

Doug

Ellusionist early on positioned them selves as the go to place for the "street magician". along with Penguin.
Gave the David/Chris haters something else to crap about.

I'm sure many support them, but will die before admitting it. I myself do not see the BFD.
If we're gabbing, I want to know what the current sentiment is for:
Magic Makers
and who are these magicians that say they can only learn from DVDs/YouTube while fostering their disdain for books?!

Ellusionist has always been good to me and their freebies pay a good chunk of your order if you sell them on the big auction site or right here. Always received high quality well made products too and they're cards are some of the very best on the market IMO. I think people's disdain has to they're "we'll turn you into a street magicican overnight!" attitude. The only real problem I see is that they're effects get put on YouTube almost instantaneously, but I almost always perform exclusively for an older crowd who wouldn't look stuff up on Google or YouTube...at least nobody has yet.

I'd have to agree, with you, Adam. In the very beginning, it wasn't a web page you ordered stuff from. It waa David Blaine; that's it. David's first show was obviously aimed at a new, young audience that never new that this "street magic" thing has been performed by thousands of people, and for thousands of years. "Taking magic off of the stage, and out into the streets." Sorry, Dave, you weren't the first. Then, you order their DVD. Why? So you can levitate 14 inches off the ground, like David Blaine, why else? And the DVD you get? Shows you how to do card tricks. In order to do the really cool stuff, you need to order more DVD's. Sooner or later, you learn the awful truth. What David and the producers wanted to accomplish with the program, was to show you how the trick looks to the viewer, based on the psychology that the human mind always exagerate things. We remember things being bigger and more fantastic than they really were. When David levitated 14 inches over the sidewalk near the end of the show, that was actually his idea to do that, purely to increase interest in the DVD. Similarly, picking up a discarded, bent coke can up off the ground and straightening it, isn't actually what you are taught how to do, but that is what he does in his show. Again, the idea was to show what it "looks like" you are doing, to your potential viewer. I have been a customer 0f Ellusionist in the past. But they really do seem to think they are they only place on the Internet where you can buy magic. The thing I like about Penguin is that, most of the time, I can watch a demo of the trick. Their demo's are not going to insult my intelligence. They just demo the trick in a way that allows me to intelligently make a buying decision. But that's just me. Click

One of the main reasons people tend to forget was their tendency early on to not give proper credit for moves they were teaching, as well as selling a few things as a brand new method that were actually older than dirt.

That being said, they were the first magic company I ever dealt with, and I've never had any problems with their service. And from what I can see now, they are much better at crediting and originality, and have helped some young magicians market their effects and get credit for them, when otherwise those young creators would be left behind.

Ellusionist is better than Magic Makers I guess. There are a lot more people who hate Magic Makers, and I hear so many different reasons. I only have one effect from them, the Rainbow Deck with Rudy T Hunter as the tutor.

I think you can say, Ellusionist was 'The Man'.... they had a 'corporate' feel to them. People are more in the gritty stuff now, Ellusionist just came off way too polished.

The biggest issue I have with them is their policy review and allegedly not allowing negative reviews of products to be posted. Do an honest, but negative, review of any product. See if it gets posted.

Also, they've been known to put out trailers from time to time that weren't exactly accurate in terms of how something would actually work.

I think ellusionists main other company that is similar to them is theory11 because of the specialty decks,cardistry, and downloads they both have I guess it's just personal preference and I think a lot of people don't like the mysterious style ellusionist has.

We'll I am in the UK and while in the past I might have wanted to purchase a DVD from them

The Shipping Charges are why to high !!

Unless they redress this issue in the future I can't seeing them getting much support

I have nothing against them. I've never used them. I DO however hate that goth/emo look that they and T11 use. Looks like you take yourself WAAAAY too seriously.

Edited demos. Screened customer reviews. Hype (like the Life Changing flicker cards of "Change"). There are my three reasons.

I like them and have never had any issues. One of the recent items I purchased was their floating deck. Not a trick, but like the impossible bottle, set it up and put it on your desk and it looks amazing.