Landon Harvey
- Jul 21, 2022
- 2 min read

The Vent Haven Ventriloquist ConVENTion!

We had our annual Vent Haven Ventriloquist Convention recently in Erlanger, Kentucky. Wow! What an amazing time. I flew in earlier that month for Vent Fest, a two day event with a show line up of solely ventriloquists who entertained those who came to see the shows at The Tivoli Theater in Spencer, Indiana.

The shows went well and I even had the honor of opening the gala show for Tony Award Winner, and fellow Texas Vent, Jay Johnson.

One morning, most of us vents (short for ventriloquists) went to breakfast and did this video of ordering through ventriloquism. It's so goofy and fun. It'll always be dear to my heart as it was so neat spending time with this group.

From there, I hung out with fellow vent and MEGA talented artist, Jeff Goltz. He showed me his shop, we talked techniques and worked on a giant lion puppet that would quickly become the talk of conVENTion! I had built two dealers' tables worth of puppets, but the lion was a collab that Jeff did the smiling mech, eyes, and paws for-to which I pattern, stitched, and fabricated everything else that made the beast! What fun it was to parade that puppet around the Holiday Inn... and EVERYONE wanted their photo with him...I mean everyone!

For the photos you see below, from left to right:

Furthest left photo is us after the ConVENTion group photo-just some of the next generation of the convention: Landon Harvey with Jackie, Jeff Goltz and Tony Bronchitis, and Peter Michaels Jr. with Krelmin.

The middle photo is me with The Lion Goltz and I created, and myself, hanging out with my TikTok pal, Nikolas Bushi. Nikolas and I have been building up our TikTok profiles for some time and have been using it as a tool to practice and get funnier. It was wonderful meeting up with Nikolas and seeing him perform in Senior Vent!

The third photo is of Jeff Dunham with his new Peanut Dummy that is now on his merch line. He talked about sculpting it, the back and forth trial and errors, and getting it just right and affordable to his audience. It was neat to see his creative process and how far he goes with the detail and appreciation of the figure.