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This may be the first year for the Kansas Doll Show but it has proven to be wildly popular.
So I decided to have a chat with Founder Jenny Raymond.
She was so kind and did not seem to mind taking some time out of her extremely busy day to talk about the upcoming event.
I what made her want to do her own show.
“I decided to put on my own doll show because my husband and I are unable to attend the shows that are currently going on due to busy work and kid schedules. We thought, what the heck, let’s just try to put on our own. And we are so happy we did because the response from the vendors and collectors has been incredible. We look forward to meeting each and every one of them.”
With all the challenges that can come from putting on an event like this I wondered if there was anything that she felt was harder than everything else.
“The hardest challenge of putting on a show is just the planning of it. This is our first attempt to put on a show, or any event, and just getting presented with multiple little things has been probably the biggest challenge.”
I was curious how Jenny became to be where she is now, hosting her own hugely successful doll show.
” I have been into sculpting and art since I was in high school. I am more into OOAK dolls more than reborns, but I do have a few that I have been working on. I have a passion to create something beautiful out of nothing and call it my own.”
” What got me into it? Well, even at a young age I have always been artistic. Seeing that I can create my own vision is what makes me love the dolly world.“
Now even though putting on a show would have undoubtedly been very stressful, they are things that Jenny is really looking forward to.
“ For this year’s show, I am most looking forward to having it be fun and successful for all the vendors that are attending. I have butterflies because of the unknown but both my husband and I have worked very hard in trying to make this as fun as possible for everyone.”
Call me curious but I wanted to know how long a show like this had been in the planning. How many months of headaches and planning, meetings after meetings were needed before she was at a stage were she could say, lets sell tickets.
” This show has taken a while to plan. We originally thought about trying to put it on in 2022 but with a busy schedule, we decided to wait. Then one day my husband and I were talking about it and we just decided to see, for fun, how much it would cost to rent the ballroom. Then that snowballed into deciding to put on the first ever Kansas Doll Show.“
Now that the date is approaching fast just what is she most nervous about?
” Anything I am nervous about? Yes, almost everything! I want this to be fun and successful for all that attend. I hope that the staff at the hotel is ready, as well as my staff and that this year’s show goes smooth. I am sure that there will be a few hiccups and things we are unprepared for, but this is our first one and we can only learn from mistakes and make next year’s better.”
For anyone that is not able to go this year I wanted to see if this would be annual and what can we expect in future.