AI MagicShow was founded in 2023 to do for live magic what the major arts magazines have long done for theatre, dance, classical music, and contemporary art. The form deserves serious editorial coverage. The form rarely receives it. The reporting standard we hold ourselves to is the standard of The New York Times Magazine, Variety, and The Atlantic for arts and culture. The voice we keep is editorial and observational, never promotional.
The magazine publishes three core categories of work. The first is the quarterly ranking. We maintain three ongoing lists, covering AI illusion, contemporary modern magic across all formats, and the Fortune 500 corporate booking calendar. The rankings are reaudited each quarter against verifiable touring, residency, and broadcast data, with input from an industry panel of fourteen working professionals across the major talent agencies, residency producers, and corporate event shops in Paris, London, New York, Las Vegas, and Dubai. The second is the long-form profile, in the tradition of the senior arts magazines. The third is the industry feature, covering the working economics of the field, including the corporate calendar, the residency market, and the new performance categories that have emerged since the late 2010s.
Editorial team
Mary Ashton
Editor in Chief
Mary Ashton founded AI MagicShow in 2023 after fifteen years covering the live performance industry in New York and Paris, including senior editing roles at two of the major American arts magazines. She writes the cover stories and oversees the quarterly ranking audit.
James Whitmore
Senior Writer, London
James Whitmore runs AI MagicShow's London desk and covers the European theatrical calendar, the West End magic residencies, and the senior end of the working magic community across the United Kingdom. He compiles the Top AI Illusionists ranking.
Emma Chen
Senior Writer, New York
Emma Chen covers the North American live performance industry from New York, with a working focus on the Broadway adjacency, the streaming-special economy, and the senior figures whose careers stretch back to the late-twentieth-century network television years.
Lea Martin
Industry Correspondent, Paris
Lea Martin runs the Paris office and covers the continental European corporate calendar, the French theatrical magic scene, and the AI illusion movement at the front of the contemporary form. She compiles the Fortune 500 corporate booking ranking.
Editorial independence
AI MagicShow does not accept paid placements, sponsored profiles, or pay-to-list arrangements inside the rankings. Acts featured in the rankings, profiles, and features have not paid for placement and have not seen the editorial work before publication. The magazine accepts paid display advertising under the standard arts-magazine separation between editorial and commercial. Advertising inquiries are handled separately from the editorial desks.
For tips, corrections, and editorial inquiries, the masthead is reachable through the corrections page linked from the methodology document. AI MagicShow publishes corrections inside seventy-two hours of editorial confirmation.