Our first stage event

Earlier this year, we went to the Festival of Oddities in Charlotte, MI. Since this event had a theme of being unique, weird, and unusual, I wanted to break the stigma of reptiles being scary. By doing this, I made myself appear approachable by looking sort of like a character. I have observed many times how your appearance effects your presentation. Dressing tough and scary can sometimes make you look intimidating and off putting. Plus, it can also give reptiles a negative look and we don’t want that. This then makes the audience act tough as well by saying things that could potentially harm the reptile reputation even more.

I noticed yesterday, that dressing up makes kids really comfortable to be around you. At least with my experience. During other events, I would wear casual clothes like jeans and a t-shirt. But kids were not nearly as interested as the one’s from yesterday’s event. This made me so happy though to figure out how to get kids interested and excited to learn about reptiles. By looking approachable, kids realized that he was not scary. I think there was only one kid out of MANY that was too shy to touch his tail. Such an accomplishment, I think. OH! And over half the kids told me how pretty Winston and I were.  It was so cute.

It is such a great feeling to get these kids and even many adults loving and respecting animals. I hope you all enjoy the video. It was so great to be a part of this with The Artist’s Umbrella. As always, our good friend, Brandon was extremely helpful. We love having him on stage with us! And Winston really seems to like him too.

This event was in Charlotte, MI at the Courthouse Museum for the Festival of Oddities. There were some great vendors, performers, charities, and adoptions going on. So much fun and met so many great people.