What is BreyerFest, you ask?
BreyerFest is an annual convention hosted by Breyer Animal Creations. It’s three fun-filled days for horse lovers and model horse collectors that features live horse shows, raffles, sales, and artistic seminars.
Feiwel and Friends editor, Susan Bishansky, and I traveled to Kentucky to prepare for the five-year publishing program between Feiwel and Friends and Breyer Animal Creations and to get a better sense of their very loyal customer base.
The publishing program is based on the Breyer brand.
Beginning this fall we kick off our Breyer horse-related titles for children with the Wind Dancers series. The Wind Dancers book series is based on a Breyer line of beautiful fantasy horses that can fly. The books are perfect for girls ages seven to ten.
First impressions?
Honestly, I did not know what to expect to see at the festival.
The BreyerFest Global Gallop showcased breeds of horses from around the world. There was EQUINE entertainment and Breyer-inspired crafts and activities. We saw the inspiration of the newest Breyer portrait models including, DZ Weedo, Bluegrass Bandit, Fox Valley Oliver, and Pimlico RCA.
We shopped at the Trade Fair, saw hundreds of vintage horse models, witnessed the Swap Meet and saw the beautiful pieces of art at Artisans’ Gallery. For the kids, there were horse-themed activities at the craft and activity center.
If there ever was a place to capture the attention of young girl horse enthusiasts, it's at BreyerFest. It was like Horse Heaven for the tween set.
Susan and I were not the only F&F people attending. We were very lucky to escort Tara Larsen Chang, one of the artists who illustrated the Wind Dancers book series, to BreyerFest to sign Wind Dancer posters and excerpt booklets for the fans. She signed over 750 pieces and created a beautiful Wind Dancers painting that was auctioned for charity at the Saturday night BreyerFest dinner.
The first day was a hot and steamy 95 degrees but that didn't stop the hoards of people coming through the gate in a gentle Southern manner to see real horses, compete in horse model competitions, buy model horses and create model horses. It was horses 24/7.
Here's my
1. Witnessing the huge crowd of Breyer horse model enthusiasts—over 8,000 people!
2. BreyerFest model horse fans have no specific age range. People keep coming back year after year and generations of families make this an annual event.
3. The model horse competitions are fascinating—people create elaborate dioramas, re-paint and re-position their treasured model horses and then they are judged on accuracy of horse placement, breeds, and scene setting. (The judging also takes into account many intricacies about horses that would take me years to understand, but that made it all the more fascinating to watch—kind of like a science fair judging for accuracy but with horse models.)
4. The BreyerFest 2008 Celebration Horse—Alborozo was given to all three-day ticket holders. The real Alborozo performed with his owner and trainer Ari Cohen of the Kilimanjaro Ranch in CA.
5. If you boil the horse models they become pliable to re-position and sometimes re-paint. Then the owners place them in competitions judged by volunteers who do this every year.
6. BreyerFest is held in one of the world's most renowned horse parks—The Kentucky Horse Park in Lexington. There you will find hundreds of beautiful horses from around the world. It’s a great place to take the family and see how amazing these creatures really are up close.
7. My personal favorite breed there was the English Shire. Most horses there were about 1,000 pounds. The massive English Shire was a whopping 2,000 pounds. It is bred as a work horse to pull ploughs and farm machinery. They kind of look like Clydesdales. Gorgeous!
8. At the Holiday Inn, the official hotel of BreyerFest, model horse fans take over the building and open their hotel room doors to all to come in and buy/trade/sell model horses until the wee hours of the morning. The hotel walls are covered by posters beckoning model horse buyers to come to their rooms and make a purchase.
At the Embassy Suites, another local hotel for BreyerFest fans, amazing horse model dioramas were created in the hotel room windows to be rated by passers-by.
9. The famous race horse, Mon-O-War is buried at the Kentucky Horse Park. He was also the first horse to be embalmed! Most horses are not buried whole as their graves would be huge. Usually, when horses pass on to the great beyond, owners only bury the three H’s—the head, heart and hooves, as they represent the heart and soul of the horse.
10. The Kentucky Horse Park will be home to the World Equestrian Games in 2010. BreyerFest fans will be stoked!
To sum up the experience—BreyerFest was very cool and I think I want a pony. :-)
—Elizabeth Fithian
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