Vanishing Inc. 2024 Year in Review
By Andi and Josh - Sunday, December 29, 2024
We absolutely love this opportunity, at the very end of the year, to write our community an open, honest letter summarizing what happened and giving you a glimpse into our future plans. This year has been our most consequential year ever, for reasons good and bad. And when we've seen many of you over the course of this year, we are inundated with the same questions about our warehouse fire. So, we (Andi and Josh) will start by answering those now.
What caused the fire?
For those who don't follow our company carefully, in early June we were awakened to the news that our beloved warehouse had burned to the ground overnight. Almost nothing was salvageable. Tens of thousands of books burned. Collectibles burned. All of our backlog of tricks--including several tricks that hadn't even yet been released--all burned.
The most important thing, of course, is that it happened overnight and nobody was hurt.
I heard your business has been hurt very badly, and that you had to lay off staff.
Not true. In fact, we're extremely proud of this: we have kept on every single one of our 48 team members. Not a single person was furloughed or let go, nobody's pay was delayed, and none of our bills have gone unpaid. We were fortunate to have plans in place for events like this, and we kept rolling all the way through the fire. That's not to say it was easy, but we are thankful that we made it through.
How is the recovery going?
We're proud to say our business has now fully recovered, and we're operating at the same levels as pre-fire.
All things considered, it's going great. What we're most proud of is this fact:
The warehouse fire was put out on the morning of June 6th. We were in a temporary location shipping packages on the afternoon of the same day. We didn't miss a single day before regrouping, and getting back to the business of shipping your orders. In the four weeks after the fire, we shipped orders to customers in 51 countries. That's a credit to our incredible team on the ground in Sacramento.
We'd also like to shout out Murphy's Magic, who allowed us to ship on their premises until we could find a temporary location. We're still in this temporary location until our warehouse can be fully rebuilt.
How long until you're be back in your original warehouse?
We aren't exactly sure, but we're hoping that at this time next year when we are writing this letter, we can tell you that we're ready to move back in. The ceiling on the unit entirely collapsed, and we weren't even allowed on site until recently. So it's a slow process.
Did you have insurance?
We had adequate insurance, although a friend (and customer) within the insurance industry fielded our earliest, stress-filled questions. And he said calmly, "First things first. The insurance is never enough." And we've found that to be true. The fire will impact our business, of course, but we carried insurance and that has assisted with our rebuild tremendously.
Are you tired of hearing about the fire?
Sort of. We're touched beyond words by the outpouring of support we received from you in our community. In the first week we received so, so, so many calls and emails offering support and help in every conceivable form. We had several people offer to fly out and help sweep up ashes. We're grateful to be in an industry that embraces and supports our efforts, and we were empowered and invigorated by this unexpected challenge.
But the fire and its fallout (insurance, logistics, paperwork, more paperwork, so much more paperwork) has become tiresome. What's amazing, to us, is that the fire has not overshadowed some amazing achievements.
Well, then let's talk about that. If the fire is the lowpoint of the year, what's the high point?
Our Retreats and conventions are always our favorite times of the year because we get to see so many of you, and spend time with you.
Our international Retreat this year was in Egypt, and it was absolutely remarkable. Many said it was their favorite Retreat ever. Our highlight in Egypt was, of course, the Nile Cruise, where we saw lectures from John Guastaferro, Shawn Farquhar, Ben Seidman, and Michael Ammar on a Nile cruise boat. Our domestic Retreat was in Washington, DC, and again, we heard many people say that they felt it was our strongest stateside Retreat ever. Our favorite moment? Watching Dani DaOrtiz do his show for us inside The US Capitol (tied with Michael Vincent's Cups & Balls workshop in the presence of a former CIA director and a US Congressman).
Where are you going next for your Retreats?
We are going to Japan, which sold out within minutes of announcing it in Egypt. Alumni always get first access, and a huge swath of attendees signed up on the spot for Japan. We have not yet announced where the international Retreat will go in 2026. But it is fully planned...
We announced Mexico City as our next domestic Retreat (we know, we know, Mexico isn't domestic but, come on, it's so amazing that we had to break our own rules). Mexico City has just five slots left at the time of this writing. If you're interested in coming, email us at magic@vanishingincmagic.com (or reply to this email!) to inquire about details.
What was your best-selling product of 2024?
As usual, our Black Friday sale was the largest driver of sales for the year. We had five terrific releases, and all of them went exceedingly well.
Our best-selling product of the year this year is our own Joshua Jay's The Particle System. His long-awaited book (we first mentioned it all the way back in our 2020 annual letter...and it has been delayed ever since) really resonated with our audience. We are down to the last handful of units of the first printing and have commissioned a second printing.
Allan Ackerman's All In, a two-book set, was another best-seller, emphasizing the appetite for great magic in books. Angelo Carbone's any-thought-of-card-rise, "Notion of Motion," was the best selling trick of the year, and Giancarlo Scalia's "Nuova Magia," Haim Goldberg's "Cryptext 2.5," and John Guastaferro's Nth Degree round out our list of top-selling original products.
How are your physical stores going?
Glad you asked! The answer to that is...a mixed bag.
The stores have proven more difficult to rejuvenate than we expected. We took over the stores in the wake of the Covid-19 shutdowns, and so the touristic areas they're located in (Disneyland and Pier 39) had substantially reduced traffic. We introduced an entirely new, exciting product line, but things haven't quite gone as smoothly as we hoped. In particular, staffing has been difficult. We love our store teams, and they work incredibly hard, but it has been tough to find quality demonstrators to fill the hours required. If you know anyone in California who would like the opportunity to demonstrate magic, please reach out.
One more exciting update: we've been trying to renovate the Disney store for two years, but we've been held back in the approvals process (our store is actually a designated Disney landmark because it's been there so long). But, just recently,we finally received the approvals, and our store has now completed its renovation. By the time you read this, you'll be able to visit a very stylized Disneyland magic shop, offering much truer and more modern glimpse of our vision for the stores.
You guys made all your books available as ebooks this year. Are you satisfied with how that's going?
Yes. But we can do better. Our sales on ebooks started strong, and remarkably, the numbers have remained steady throughout the year.
Now, we're never satisfied with "steady." We'd love to see more magicians adopt the medium, and here's some encouraging news on that front. We've identified a buying trend that when a customer buys an ebook, they are far more likely to return and buy more. So, when people adopt the technology, they fully embrace it. When our new app finally launches, we think more people will hop on board.
What is your biggest obstacle at the moment?
The tech on our website is becoming outdated. Andi built our website fifteen years ago. We've continued to develop it every day since, but this was the year that we really started to feel its age. With the sudden growth of AI and modern web standards, we find that our website's back end doesn't allow us to develop new features as quickly as we'd like. This year we're planning a major overhaul that will improve the look and functionality of our site, as well as speeding up the development of new features.
Any other big news to share?
One last thing. This year, we acquired the publishing rights to the books by Canada's Magicana, founded by David Ben. We're enormously proud of that acquisition, and we can now fold in some important titles that range from sleight-of-hand books to reprints of classic texts to books on magic history. Our first reprint from that acquisition, The Magic of Johnny Thompson, has just been released and we're thrilled to bring it to a new audience.
You guys also operate ShareMagic, a non-profit organization. What's the update on that?
We had a tremendous year.
We sponsored magic camps in Uganda and Ukraine, where magic was performed, taught, and given away to young people in at-risk areas.
We also acquired unseen footage of a Doug Henning show that we intend to make available for free on our website.
We sponsored a featurette documentary of traditional magicians in India, which has been filmed and will soon be with editors for eventual worldwide distribution for free. We're excited to share the stories of these remarkable performers with you.
In Washington DC, we had the privilege of seeing a talented group of young magicians perform for our group, and at the end of their performance, we were able to surprise them with free attendance at Magifest alongside a guardian.
Our two youth convention programs continue to thrive. In London, at The Session, we have over 30 young scholars who attend for free, and at Magifest, that number is now over 60.
The future of magic is in great hands thanks to all of the unselfish support from magicians like you. Every time you check out, you'll see an option to donate a dollar or more to this cause. If you're a past, present, or future contributor to ShareMagic, we want to thank you for your continued generosity!
What's coming up next for Vanishing Inc?
We have a tremendous lineup of new magic.
We have secured the rights to reprint the fabled Marlo's Magazines. They currently sell for thousands of dollars on the second-hand market and are in desperate need of a layout facelift. We've done that and more. Separately, our own Andi Gladwin is busy writing a companion volume on Marlo--part best-of, part biography, part study guide, and it will be what we feel is the definitive work on one of magic's most elusive figures.
Carisa Hendrix (otherwise known as Lucy Darling) has a terrific handling of the Linking Finger Rings--with not one but two revolutionary method advancements. That's coming soon.
Erid Mead is finishing up the highly anticipated two-volume Tim Conover book project. As soon as he's done, we're going to snap into action to get those books ready for market.
Despite some delays, we're confident that Michael Feldman's deck switch device will come out in the second half of this year. It is, in our estimation, the single greatest deck switch ever devised.
What's new with the team?
Let's start with two major milestones for two of our longest-tenured team members. Kyle Littleton moved across the country to start working for us in 2016. He's been with us ever since, and now heads up our customer service team. Kyle and Amy were married this year, and we wish them our best. Mark Woodsford has been with us, basically, since we started. And we were pleased to be in England to attend his wedding to Melissa. It was a truly lovely day.
We added new staff members in our US Warehouse, and in our stores, and several team members have celebrated milestones with our company--for their hard work, we're eternally grateful.
And you two?
Joshua Jay's year started out terribly. At Magifest, he came down with shingles and was unable to attend any of the convention he spent the year co-planning. But from there, things turned upward.
Joshua performed his show, Look Closer, to a sold-out crowd at New York's prestigious Carnegie Hall. He did month-long runs of the show in New York City and Chicago. He also fell into an unexpected niche: sporting events. "I was asked to create a magic trick for a first pitch at a Chicago Cubs game in front of 32,000 people. So I did. I was incredibly nervous, but it ended up being one of the great thrills of my life. And then the offers just kept coming." Joshua did an encore performance of his first-pitch trick at a Cleveland Guardians Game, and then performed the halftime show for the season opener for the Milwaukee Bucks, an NBA basketball team. Josua performed a card location that incorporated the mascot and a buzzer-beater finish in front of a sold-out crowd of 18,000 people.
This year also marked the release of Joshua's long-awaited book on memorized deck magic, The Particle System. If you haven't yet, be sure to join the facebook group, where Joshua shares ideas and feedback on the material all the time.
Andi Gladwin returned to The Rhapsody Theater in Chicago for another sellout run of his close-up show, Shuffled. In this show, Andi improvises based on the decks of cards that audience members bring with them, and he's looking forward to returning for another run in 2025. Andi spent the year writing a number of new books for release in the coming year, and has been working full-time on a secret mainstream project that you'll hear about soon. He also filmed over half a dozen new segments for the next season of Masters of Illusion and continued to perform frequently around the world, including a ten-day special run at The Magic Castle.
Any last words, gentlemen?
Every year we struggle to find the words to thank our team, and to thank you. We're lucky to be surrounded by a team of people aligned with our mission to strive to be the best magic shop on Earth.
We're grateful to have such a supportive community, and we'd like to wish you and your families the warmest holiday wishes. We can't wait for what next year holds.
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