Internationally recognized, Mark Wade, kidshow ventriloquist and convention executive director talks about developing the program for the Ventriloquist ConVENTion.
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Continue to part 6 of my interview with ventriloquist Mark Wade!
Video Transcript:
Mark, when you uh start to put
conventions together, can you talk a
little bit about the process? What do
you what do you do first? How do you
design a convention?
Well, the the last year we we had a
little easier way to go with it. We we
put out a um um a review for people to
kind of give us an idea of what they
wanted to see. A survey was the word I
was looking for. A survey and we had an
idea of what they wanted. Uh some people
wanted more intermediate classes, some
wanted more advanced. And so we kind of
try to balance it out between advanced
and intermediate and beginner. So I try
to get a little bit of all those. I
always try to keep somewhere on the
schedule a beginner’s ventriloquism class because I
have people that always say I don’t know
anything about it much. I love it. I
want to come and be a part of it. But is
that going to be for me? And with this
beginner class, I know I can get them at
least on the right road to where they
want want to do that. Um, I also try to
get balance out some of the ventriloquist talent and
and don’t I have some key people I use,
but I use him in different spots every
year. I don’t use the same lecture every
year necessarily or if I do do repeat
him, he does a different lecture or she
does from the year before. I try to have
women on every one of the shows because
I think it’s important for the girls,
young girls coming up to see and have
role models of Lady Ventriloquists. I
think that’s very important and and
they’re a lot harder to find because
there’s not as many of them. Uh but
there there’s going to be and in fact
this year at the senior open mic, the
majority of the people on there are
women.
Excellent.
Which is one of the first things that’s
ever happened in the history of the
thing. We’ve kind of groomed them to got
them to the point that we got more
coming on now. Um and I I try to get try
different things uh that for different
interest group. One year we might
emphasize more on on marketing ventriloquist acts and
putting and putting things together that
way with packages and marketing
materials. Next year we might focus more
on be on like vent specialies, distant
voice, baby cry, things that can help
you that way. One year we added some
things about MCing in there so you can
MC a show and also uh do your vent spot.
So, we’re trying to balance that out
with different topics. And that’s why
sometimes we’ll have a theme like this
year, of course, it’s all about Maher Studios
honoring them. Uh, a couple
years ago, we honored Jimmy Nelson,
but some years we have like uh, you
know, raising the bar or stepping up,
you know, stepping it up on with
ventriloquism. So, we have kind of a
generic kind of theme, but all the
things we do kind of go along in that
same pattern, if you know what I mean.
So, it’s a balancing act actually.
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