Spotlight: How expensive is it to fit yourself out as a magician?
Wow. Either these are very close friends (or it’s your spouse or partner...) asking you these more advanced questions, or they are pretty presumptuous!
Magic props and staging can be modest or grand, of course. But it has always seemed to me much more capital-intensive (that is, expensive) than other performance arts, especially for the new or amateur enthusiast. Consider your own experience. If you had sung in a choir, you merely needed to bring your voice and perhaps some sheet music (OK, and maybe one of those little round pitch pipes that I see today online for $30). If you played an instrument, that guitar or flute (or piano, or organ...) could have been pretty expensive. But you only need one to start; up to you whether to perform with, or just collect, multiple fancy ones later. I recall once, as a teenager, packing up all my props for an hour after my turn on a variety stage show, while another guy with a comedy plastic kazoo act (really, it was pretty funny) put it in his pocket and called it quits for the night.