Magicians and mentalists run small performance businesses with assistants, sound and light operators, stage hands and booking staff. This is how to run show crews, secrecy, travel and uneven bookings without a large team or a large budget.
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Share your requirementsA magic or mentalism business is usually built around one performer or a small troupe. Around them are assistants who appear on stage, stage hands who handle props and illusions, a sound and light operator, a driver for the prop van, a booking manager who handles enquiries from weddings, corporate events, schools and festivals, and sometimes an apprentice. Bookings cluster in wedding months, school terms, festivals and year-end functions, with quiet gaps between. Show methods are secret, so staff sign up to keep quiet, and an assistant who leaves can carry a performer's methods to a rival. Props are fragile and costly. Travel is frequent and late, and pay is often per show. Most staff are young, part time and attracted by the stage. For the wider sector, read HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in magicians and mentalists. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
An assistant or stage hand learns methods in rehearsal, and a falling out can end with those methods used elsewhere.
Staff earn well in wedding months and little in gaps, and the best ones drift to steadier work.
A bent frame or a jammed box fails live on stage, and blame falls on whoever packed it last.
Shows end late, vans drive through the night, and tired crews make errors the next morning.
Stage illusions involve boxes, blades, fire or height, and a slip causes real injury.
A host cuts the slot or moves the venue, and the crew is left waiting without pay or clear instruction.
Young learners want stage time soon, and the performer cannot give it without risking the show.
The manager promises a stage size, power or time that the venue does not have.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Employee Administration; Compensation, Payroll and Benefits; Health, Safety and Wellbeing. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
The pieces a magicians and mentalists business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
A plain written promise to keep methods private, explained in person, with what happens if broken.
A plain written promise to keep methods private, explained in person, with what happens if broken. Record it in documentation.
Fixed rates by role, travel allowance, late-night rate and payment date, shared before the season starts.
Fixed rates by role, travel allowance, late-night rate and payment date, shared before the season starts. See compensation benchmarking.
A numbered prop list, a pack check and a pre-show test, signed by the stage hand and the lead.
A numbered prop list, a pack check and a pre-show test, signed by the stage hand and the lead.
Limits on night driving, a second driver for long routes and a rest rule before early shows.
Limits on night driving, a second driver for long routes and a rest rule before early shows. Use attendance and shift rules.
A rehearsal log and a safety check for illusions involving height, fire or sharp objects.
A rehearsal log and a safety check for illusions involving height, fire or sharp objects. See health, safety and wellbeing.
Stages from helper to understudy to featured slot, with a time frame and a skill check at each.
Stages from helper to understudy to featured slot, with a time frame and a skill check at each. Use learning and development.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Written confidentiality and engagement terms for show staff.
Per-show pay set against comparable performers.
Rehearsal and prop safety for risky illusions.
A stage path for apprentices and assistants.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
Why associates and managers leave consulting, accounting, legal and advisory firms, and how to ask about progression, workload and partners at exit.
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Payroll says one joining date, the personal file says another and the manager remembers a third. How to establish a single trustworthy employee record and keep it that way.
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Simple variable pay structures for product and engineering teams: four options, why individual metrics backfire, a build plan and a one page outline to adapt.
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A shift, weekly and monthly safety routine for rubber plants that names who checks platen guards, mill trip bars, autoclave doors, burst-test cages and slings, and who acts on near misses.
7 min readRead articleMore on the GullyHR blog.
Use a clear written confidentiality note, explain it face to face and limit who sees what. Legal enforceability should be confirmed with a qualified professional.
Consider a small retainer or guaranteed minimum for key staff, and a clear per-show rate for others. Tell them in advance what to expect.
Use a numbered list, test before every show and log faults. A prop that failed once should be repaired, not hoped about.
Limit night driving, add a second driver and allow rest before early shows. Tired crews cause accidents.
Be honest about stage time, show a path with steps and give feedback on practice. Over-promising loses them faster than slow progress.
We would meet the performer, list roles and pay arrangements, and draft a confidentiality note, pay card and prop list. We do not do legal advice or payroll filings, and scope is written down after we talk.
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