There are a few established ways to gain admission to the Magic Castle, a clubhouse and restaurant in Los Angeles: being a magician member, knowing one or staying at the neighboring hotel. But those eager to see what lies inside have found another way in the door: donating blood.

Such was the path for Justice Buckly, a 22-year-old student from Santa Clarita, Calif., who wanted to secure a reservation for a surprise dinner for his friends, and stumbled upon the tip on Reddit. “I would not have been giving blood otherwise,” he said.

Mr. Buckly was one of the 84 people who showed up to a Red Cross blood drive at the castle last month. As a gesture of gratitude, participants receive a guest pass to the club. (The Magic Castle doesn’t advertise its blood drives as a way to gain entry to the club. But on social media, some users have popularized them as a way to score an otherwise hard-to-get visitor’s pass.)

“It solves their bucket-list item, but it also saves three lives,” said Paul Green, a magician who has been performing at the Magic Castle for the past five decades and is a champion of the blood drives. He and other magicians volunteer to entertain guests before and after their donations, with card tricks and other deceptions.

The Magic Castle has been a Hollywood novelty since it opened in 1963, and may be as well known for its sleights of hand as it is for how difficult it is to get in to see them. Housed in a century-old Victorian mansion, the club functions as the home base for the Academy of Magical Arts, a membership organization for magicians and enthusiasts.

The Magic Castle started hosting blood drives in 2014, one of several community-outreach efforts undertaken by the club. It now hosts five a year, according to Lyndsay Archer, an account manager for the American Red Cross. It’s “very hard” to get an appointment for blood drives at the castle, she said, as they require advance sign-up and tend to book up weeks or months in advance. Slots are currently filled for the remainder of 2025.

While several donors at the site on July 29 said they were happy to give blood simply out of the goodness of their hearts, many admitted that the allure of a guest pass was a major motivation.

“If I’m going to be donating, I might as well go get an exclusive invite,” said Elizabeth Wang.

Ms. Wang, 25, had donated blood at the castle once before, and she used the pass she received that time to bring her mother. “Since I need to take more people, I’ve got to go donate my blood here again,” she said.

‘A Private Country Club for Magicians’

Six decades since its opening, tourists and Angelenos alike continue to pine for entrance to the exclusive clubhouse.

Upon entering the building’s main doors, exploring their world of magic is contingent on one main rule: No photos can be taken inside. The club is open seven days a week to members and invited guests. Visitors are required to pay an entrance fee and to order an entree in the club’s restaurant. Once inside, guests can wander between rooms and stages for different experiences, such as close-up or parlor magic, with typically more than 30 scheduled shows to choose from on a given night. Guests must also follow a strict evening formal dress code, including gowns and heels for women, and full suits for men.

It’s also a place for magician members to practice their craft.

Whether a magician is a hobbyist or a professional, to become a member of the Academy of Magical Arts, he or she must first audition before a panel of judges, as well as be sponsored by a current member. Once admitted, magicians pay a one-time fee of $1,250 and then $75 a month thereafter. (The academy also has associate members, who are enthusiasts but not magicians themselves, and pay higher dues: $6,500 up front, followed by $225 a month.)

Member magicians can go to the club as often as they like and are allowed to perform in areas designated for “impromptu” magic. The main stages — there are four, as well as two bars where magicians perform — are reserved for booked acts.

“Honestly, the way I describe it, it’s a private country club for magicians,” said Constantine Malahias, a 31-year-old actor and magician who has been a member of the club for a year and said it felt like “old, classic Hollywood.”

Adam Wylie, an actor, magician and content creator, described the community of members as small and close-knit, providing a “safe space” for magicians to share ideas and talk shop with one another. “We all are people who are pretty much either loners or outcasts or don’t fit in,” Mr. Wylie said, adding, “There are other spaces around, but they’re not the Magic Castle.”

Milt Larsen, a magician, actor and co-founder of the castle, was fond of decorating the space with found items from around the city, said Vicki Greenleaf, a representative of the Academy of Magical Arts. Among Mr. Larsen’s scavenged contributions: a bar top made out of the gymnasium floors of Hollywood High School and wall paneling from a Redondo Beach fire station. In many ways, these additions have made it a capsule of Los Angeles history, Ms. Greenleaf said.

Mr. Wylie, 41, who has now been a member of the academy for 18 years, said he first visited the castle at 8 years old for a brunch show. Decades later, it looks “identical” to that first visit, he said.

But that might soon change. Erika Larsen, the president of Magic Castle Enterprises and the daughter of Bill Larsen Jr. and Irene Larsen, the two other co-founders, said in an interview that restoration efforts, a modernization of its dress code and “new magic experiences” were slated for early 2026. The changes will be small but noticeable to members, Ms. Larsen said, declining to share specifics.

Ms. Larsen also said she hoped to tamp down on the number of large groups making their way into the castle, which can dilute the sense of exclusivity and the experience inside the club. Striking the right balance between guests and members has been “a problem from Day 1,” she said. (In fact, Ms. Larsen said, a letter dated 1965 — just two years after the club opened — detailed a complaint that nonmembers were “overrunning” the institution.)

During the six-hour blood drive, donors huddled around piles of snacks and juice boxes on folding card tables, watching the magicians perform — and some even testing out tricks of their own.

Mr. Green, the magician, asked a donor to pick a card from a deck; moments later, he produced a poster-size version of the same card from his jacket pocket. Meanwhile, behind a bar, the magician Richard Costantinou demonstrated a trick where he flipped three glasses over in a specific order, until they were all right side up; when onlookers followed the same pattern, the cups landed face down.

As for the surprise dinner for his friends that the donor Mr. Buckly is planning with his pass, he was unsure if he would reveal the lengths he went to to secure their spot in the castle. “Maybe I’ll say I became a magician or something,” he said. “Maybe I won’t tell them I donated blood.”