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The Professional Magic Dealers Association
Press release
The Professional Magic Dealers Association (PMDA as reported in
MagicWeek recently) has been established in the UK as a body which seeks to
represent professional dealers from around the country in order to give them a
united voice.
Limited initially to around 25 members, the PMDA consists of dealers who make
the bulk of their income from magic and who are perceived as having a reputable
and ethical business. Unlike America where there has been a dealers association
for some time, the UK has never had such a group even though on several
occasions over the years there are some who have felt that creating one would be
a positive move.
The PMDA will represent its dealer members when speaking to convention
organisers in order to ensure that the conditions for trading are fair and
appropriate, it will give customers a benchmark by which to judge the traders
who they may wish to deal with and it will give the means for dealers to discuss
and resolve issues which arise amongst themselves.
The need for a unified voice for dealers has probably been around for a very
long time, but as trading conditions become ever more cut throat (the number of
different businesses which now sell magic is huge compared to even 10 years ago)
many of the more established traders felt that it was time for some clear
standards to be adopted.
Selling conditions at conventions have also prompted this action to be taken.
Despite the fact that the dealers constitute an important element of all the
major magic events around the country, the numbers of dealers invited to attend
and the cost and conditions of trading often leave a lot to be desired.
The problem in the past has been that the dealer hall is made up of a lot of
individual businesses who all have their own sets of priorities, and if things
are not quite right with the trading arrangements, nobody has the authority to
take issue with the organisers. Now if a convention committee is approached with
some suggestions from an organisation which represents a good proportion of the
best known dealers, it is far more likely that these suggestions will be
considered.
While it is probably true to say that most dealers love to have a moan, matters
have become much more serious in the last few years as more and more traders go
after the finite amount of business that is available. The UK is a relatively
small magic marketplace and with the internet now being so powerful as a selling
medium, it is all the more important that convention committees understand that
unless they listen to the concerns of the dealers, they are likely to find large
numbers of the more prominent traders no longer willing to attend. What is the
point in spending several days standing in an empty dealer hall losing money
when you can trade successfully and profitably through mail orders generated by
the web?
Conventions have to compete with the web now, and to do that they have to
provide something which people see as relevant, interesting and worth attending.
There is no better way to buy magic than to be able to see it demonstrated
first, but with online video demos becoming ever more pervasive, even that may
not be enough of a carrot. The PMDA will seek to preserve what is best both for
its members and its customers - let’s hope people take notice.
There are currently 26 members of the Association.
January 2006.