By FRANK SWERTLOW

Staff Reporter

To make it in show business, the saying goes, you need two things: a gimmick and a little hocus-pocus.

Santa Monica-based Magicopolis has both. It’s the only nightclub in the area devoted to magic that is accessible to the public.

“We’re not a bar or a restaurant,” said Steve Spills, a 44-year-old magician, who launched the magic club three months ago. “It’s nice wholesome family entertainment. There is no place like this around.”

Magicopolis’ closest competitor is the fabled Magic Castle in Hollywood, which is closed to all but members and their guests.

“I saw a need for this type of entertainment,” said Spills, who hopes the club will help give magicians a much-needed image overhaul. “If the top of the entertainment world is filled with actors and rock stars, the perception of magicians is down around jugglers and ventriloquists.”

Spills hopes to use Magicopolis to boost the careers of young magicians much in the way that the Comedy Store and Improv launched young comics.

It’s about time, local magicians say.

“Magicians have been getting stereotyped,” said Woody Pittman, a 38-year-old veteran magician. “It’s like they are the people who show up at kid’s parties. It’s really an art, and this club gives you a beautiful stage to perform on.”

To help recapture some of the sizzle and glamour magicians once enjoyed, Spills spent nearly $1 million renovating an old video store on Fourth Street. He divided his club into two separate arenas the 150-seat Abracadabra Theater for large acts and the 40-seat Hocus Pocus Room for the more intimate, sleight-of-hand trickery.

Teller, one half of the popular magic-comedy duo Penn and Teller, performed opening night at Magicopolis in September and was delighted with the new club.

“Steve Spills has done a great thing in creating a magic nightclub where you are not surrounded by slobbering drunks,” Teller said. “It’s a place where you can see the funniest, most astonishing magicians in the world without clods heckling and belching whisky in your ear.”

Ticket prices range from $15 for matinees and $20 for evening performances. The club sells an average of 400 tickets a week, a number Spills anticipated would climb to 1,000 during the warmer months.

“We are breaking even operationally,” Spills said. “But we still have debt. We operate on a very tight budget.” He declined to discuss specific revenues.

Spills is no newcomer to the world of magic and illusion. He has produced magic and special effects for theatrical productions at Universal Studios in Hollywood, Harrah’s Tahoe and at the Cannes Film Festival. He’s also developed magic acts for such TV shows as CBS’ special “The World’s Greatest Magicians” and the FX cable network’s “Penn and Teller’s Sin City Spectacular.”

Spills’ club experience began in the late ’70s, when he was a co-owner of the Jolly Jester, a magic and comedy club in Aspen. It took him four years to finance Magicopolis, mostly with the help of local businessmen, lawyers and doctors “no celebrities,” Spills said.

The entrepreneur acknowledged that starting a magic club is risky.

“It’s like making a movie,” Spills said. “But like the movie business, the risk-to-reward is high if you win.”

One way of minimizing the risk was to locate the club in Santa Monica, not far from the popular Third Street Promenade, which caters to teens and young adults, especially on weekends.

“We have 29 hotels in the area,” Spills said. “This is a very accessible area for tourists.”

In fact, Spill’s timing could be right on the money, said Dave Davis, an analyst with the Century City investment bank Houlihan, Lokey, Howard & Zukin.

“Magic is making a kind of a resurgence, with the popularity of Penn and Teller, the success of the Houdini movie on TNT, and Cirque du Soleil,” he said. “It’s not a bad time to launch a club like this one.”

Tara Keenan, an executive at New World Television, tossed a recent business party at the club after seeing a show there. She was drawn to the intimacy of the place, which puts the magicians within a few feet of their audiences, as opposed to a Vegas-style facility filled with lasers and waiters hawking drinks.

“It’s totally magic,” Keenan said. “It’s different. It’s not a bar or a pickup joint. You get a big bang for your buck.”