CO Cat Fest Denver 2023

CoolKay interviews Dana Dain the producer of Denver's Colorado Cat Fest coming up soon. Its at the National Western Complex. This festival is everything cat... you can adopt one..... you can see all types of cat. There is a cat bounce house and cat face painting AND a whole bunch of booths that sell basically cat stuff.... there is also a lot of cat entertainment ,

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Okay, So we have cat Tesscoming up. It is on Sunday,
November twelfth, Noal Western Complex,Expo Hall, the big square brown building,
Yeah, rectangular brown building. Yeah. Hey, Dana, I'm looking.
I'm looking at your layout. Youmust how many vendors do you have?

(00:21):
We have filled like one hundred andfifty booths. We've got like one
hundred and thirty exhibitors. So ithas doubled in size. It debuted last
year, it debuted last November,and then we did our second one in
Colorado Springs over the summer and itjust keeps growing and so it's doubled in

(00:43):
size. Now people are catching onthat it's you know, they got to
be there. If they've got anycat merch, they got to be there.
So because we really bring out thecrowds, that's a lot of vendors.
So these people mostly fell around.They're all selling cat stuff. It's
all cat stuff. There's no there'sno filler, there's no filler. I

(01:06):
think we've got like two sponsor booths, two little tables that are sponsors.
But everybody else, you know,they're selling cat treats or they're selling you
know, cat ears for people orthey're selling you know, cat t shirts,
cat art, they're selling collars,cat collars. Oh, I just

(01:26):
sold the booths today. I lovethis company. Her company is called collar
Cam, and it's a little tinycamera that you can put on your cat's
collar so that you can see theworld through their eyes. I mean,
we've got and we've got awesome kittytowers. We've got oh tons and and

(01:51):
and uh fourteen fourteen exhibitors are doingon site adoptions. Fourteen adoption agencies.
Okay, all right, so that'sa lot Denver sho going on. Well,
this is just year two, that'swhat I'm saying. I mean,

(02:14):
it's just doubled since year one.Last year we had about half as many
exhibitors. Last year we had,uh this year, we have over twice
as many guest cats, celebrity cats. We have taken up a lot more
space in the National Western. We'vegot twice as many adoption agencies, over

(02:37):
twice as many exhibitors. I mean, it's just it's just twice as big.
Okay, So how come you howcome you're only running one day?
Why aren't you running two days?Well, okay, so there's it's,
you know, part of it isjust logistics. We couldn't get the facility
for Saturday because they've got something inthere. But the other thing cool,

(03:00):
kay, is that you know,these adoption agencies come in and we'll bring
in all these kittens and all thesecats, and they they find homes for
them. So for day two,I don't know that they'd have any you
know. I mean we the inthe two that we've run so far,

(03:23):
we have found forever homes for onehundred and twelve cats just with our first
two. So if we ran itfor two days, then a it stresses
out the cats, you know,because we've got a lot of live cats.
They're not just the adoption agencies,but the guests, the Tika Cat
Show and staff. What's the TikaCat Show? The Tika Cat Show,

(03:49):
Okay, Tika, t i cA the International Cat Association. It is
this fantastic global group. They celebrateand honor all cats, pure bread and
regular household pets. But they arealso the world's largest registry for pedigreed breeds.

(04:17):
So TIKA is doing a sanctioned catshow. There's five show rings,
there's sixty what we call benching tables. The cool thing about the benching tables
is that's where all the people sitwith their fancy cats while they're waiting to
show them. But the audience,our attendees can walk up and down those

(04:41):
aisles in the benching area. Theycan see all the cats. Now they
can't take them out and play withthem, but they can see all the
cats. And there's really cool cats. Cool ka. There's like there's like
toygers and you know, of courseMaine coons and sphinxes and Bengals and rag
dolls. But do you know whata toyger is? No, I have

(05:04):
no idea. Well you can maybeguess. It looks like a miniature tiger.
I mean, you're like orange withblack stripes. It doesn't look like
a tabby. It looks like afreaking miniature tiger, like you hit a
tiger with a shrink ray. They'reso cool, I know, I know,

(05:25):
they're so cool. So they're bringingin, you know, dozens and
dozens of cats and then and theydo all their judging and stuff back there.
And but TIKA also it brings outan education stage, so they have

(05:46):
the education stage. I mean,our main stage that we do is just
all fun stuff. It's costume contestit's you know, Nathan the Cat Lady,
our special guest of honor. It'sall these you know, like a
challenge panel for who has the mostannoying cat. That's a fun one.
But but the Tika education stage theyhave stuff like ask Gavett and how do

(06:12):
I show my household pets? Becausethey also let you show household pets at
their show. They have a categoryfor it, just like they have main
coons, say, have household pets. So that's what Tika is. That's
what Tika. Oh oh oh.And they also have a special area for
breed meet and greets, so likeif you've always wondered, you know,

(06:35):
how big is a main cooner?Do I really want one? Or or
you know, yeah, so youcan go meet the breed, you know,
meet somebody who's infinitely familiar with thebreed, maybe a breeder, and
you can pet the cats and learnall about them. Breed Meet and greet
and toygers are on there this yearwe've got the breed meet and greets are

(06:58):
toygers, British hair Sphinx, maincoon. Oh what's the other one,
oh Hustle pets, which is anybodyYeah so yeah, so okay, he
wonder float down a minute, flowdown. I'm looking at this map and
it's kind of overwhelming. So whenyou come in here, so I see

(07:21):
the entrance. So if I'm comingin here, what would you suggest I
do first? That depends. Sothe first thing you're gonna do is our
We have a major sponsor, ChampionPet Foods. The first thing is they're
going to give you cans of freewet cat food. So that's really cool.

(07:41):
They're right there in booths one.But see that DJ booth that's right
by that entrance. DJ rockstar Aaronwho is world famous and he is spinning
cat tunes all day, like what'snew pussy Cat? Or everybody wants to
be a Cat? Or you knowall of them. He's he's just got

(08:01):
all the cat songs. So theminute you walk in, you're gonna be
bombarded with cat with cat songs.You're gonna see live cats, You'll see
the Hello Kitty Bounce House off inthe distance. You know, you'll have
a straight visual shot to the mainstage. But the other thing is the
cat video Lounge is right in frontof you. And in the cat video

(08:26):
Lounge, we've got video screens setup all around showing cat videos of course,
right, funny cat videos from theInternet, and you can get a
drink, and the drinks and thelounge are things like Meogartas and Meumosa's or

(08:48):
is it a per garrita? Youknow, you get the idea. There's
all these beverages, adult beverages withcat themes, so that might be where
you want to start. And thenI mean, we've got the main stage
going all day long with all thefun stuff. Our adoption agency boots are

(09:09):
sprinkled all over the show floor,so you're not going to be able to
go more than a few steps downany aisle without hitting live cat. Not
hitting without seeing live cats. Soevery few steps is live cats. So
if you're allergic, either load upon benadril or stay home, you know,

(09:37):
because hey, they're everywhere. What'sthis meet and greets? What's that
the breed meet and greets. That'swhat I was talking about before in the
Tika area. That's where you cango learn about the different and pet the
different breeds like the toy GIRs andthe and the main coons and everything,
and they'll be out there and youcan pet them and learn about them.

(10:01):
Ay Dana yeah, are you handingout maps? Well, yes, there's
a map in the program, butthere's also we have we have QR codes
now it's twenty twenty three, soyeah, we work. Yeah, so

(10:22):
ours. We've had pretty good luckwith ours. We just introduced them earlier
this year and people like them.But we still print things too, you
know, for the old farts likeme. But yeah, so yes,
we definitely have maps. Hey,I have an old fray. I use
a lot of new technology. Alot of its screwed up too. I

(10:45):
know it's one of those things,but man, I sure wouldn't want to
try living without it at this point. Well, we're not going to.
I don't think that's a worry.Okay, as long as that just just
don't send an an e electromagnetic pulse. That's I'm almost more afraid of an
electromagnetic pulse than an atomic bomb,I tell you. Yeah. Okay,

(11:07):
So what's the what's the what's theEgyptian cat Temple? Oh, I'm so
glad you asked. So you can'treally do a cat fest without honoring that
part of cats, the mystical Egyptiansupernatural part. So in the Mystical Egyptian
Cat Temple. There's two main components. One is we have our tarot readers

(11:30):
and pet psychics. The tarot readersall have cat themed pterot decks. But
what people read and they're books.They're like booked all day long. They're
just doing readings constantly for people.But the but the other really great thing
is the memory Wall. We havethis big shiny gold Egyptian cat altar where

(11:52):
you can go up and there's abig gold wall and you can there are
post photos of your tape. Wehave tape, we have flare pins,
you know, or you can writemessages to your cats who have crossed over.
And it is so popular and Ican never look at it without crying

(12:13):
because people go up there and theywrite their names of their cats that have
crossed over. They send messages totheir cats. On the other side,
they post photos of their cats whohave passed and it's really powerful. It's
really powerful. So that's what that'sabout, Okay, all right, And
then on your main stage, onthe main stage at eleven o'clock, we've

(12:39):
got the World's Most Annoying Cat Challengepanel and that is where people in the
audience can get up and try totell a story of how annoying their cat
is, try to get up onthe stage and unseat somebody who's already up
there, and the audience votes onwhich story is the most amazing. So

(13:01):
we start with three right, andthen they long story short. Then by
the end of it we've heard allthese stories. We voted on which are
the most annoying, and then weget the most annoying cat and they get
a prize. Then at noon onthe main stage, we have our costume
contest and you can win cat cashthat's good at any booth, and we

(13:24):
have categories like for the funniest,we have the best I can't remember all
the categories, but there's a there'scategories for people, and there's a category
for cats for the best cat ina costume. And then we have the
Best in Show. And then atone o'clock is the Fantasy Felines Dance Troops.

(13:50):
They'll start actually right after the costumecontest, whenever that ends, and
they're just fantastic. They're all dressedlike cats, different cats for media.
They dance around onto all kind ofcat songs that everybody loves. Then at
two o'clock is Nathan the Cat Lady, our guest of honor. He's got

(14:11):
like a million followers on social media, and he's going to be talking about
himself how he got into it,his work with cats, and then doing
a Q and A. And thenour last main stage thing at three o'clock,
well no it's not our last.At three o'clock, we have Blue.
Now you can't if you want tofind Blue on social media, you

(14:33):
go to Henry the Colorado Dog.So, Henry the Colorado Dog, his
page got kind of taken over bythis cat who is like his best friend
Blue and Blue and the photos willjust melt your heart. I mean,
this cat and this dog are justsoul mates, really really cool, super

(14:58):
popular all across social media. Andthen at four point thirty, our last
main stage thing is the the awardfor the best in Show, the best
in Show at the Tika Cat Show, at the Tika Cat Show. So
you get to see like the airquotes best cat that was that was in

(15:20):
the whole Tika show. Okay,okay, all right, So if people
want to adopt the cat, howdo they do that through this? Okay?
They can't go up to any theycan go to any and all of
the adoption booths that are there,they can find the cat or the kitten
that they resonate with, that theyvibe with, and they can in almost

(15:46):
all cases, they can adopt themon site. They fill out the paperwork
on site and pay the adoption feeon site and can take them home.
One of our one of our adoptionagencies, the Cat Care Society. This
year they're bringing out giant pen enclosuresso that the people can actually go inside

(16:10):
and visit with the cats, likeinside the pen. So that's kind of
neat. Yeah, okay, okay, Well the only gripe I have here
is you should be two days insteadof one. Well, yeah, I've
heard that, but it's just I'mjust not sure it would work with the
cats. I mean, one daywe might figure it out. But until

(16:32):
the adoption agencies get a lot morecats, you know, I don't think
we'd have enough. I had tosay inventory, you know, for a
two day show, because at theend of one day, I mean they've
they've in most cases, they've adoptedout all their cats. That's how good

(16:52):
we are. You've got cat Yeswe do, Yes, we do.
That's free. That's included with admission. Everything's included with admission. Except like
the tarot readings and the vendor merchandiseand the food and drink, But everything
else is included with admission. Thebounce house, the Hello Kitty bounce House

(17:17):
is free. The face painting isfree. Creation station where you can go
make cat toys and do cat crafts, that's all free, and you can
make a souvenir to take home foryour cat. Yeah, all of it's
included. All right. So howmany years has this show been running in
Denver? This is our second year. We just debuted it last November.

(17:42):
Okay, and you run a ColoradoSprings could I have interview for there?
So you've only done one show inColorado Springs so for us, right,
yes, our very first cat Festwas November twenty two in Denver, and
then it was so good we didone in this spring. So now our
schedule for next year is we're doingJuly and Colorado Springs and November and Denver,

(18:07):
and that's that may be our setschedule for the foreseeable future. Okay.
Well, I've enjoyed talking to you, and it's certainly national. Listener
is easy to find, so I'msure you'll have a lot of people there.
Okay, well, thanks a lot. I really appreciate it, really
appreciate you hoping us get the wordout. Absolutely talk to you soon.

(18:32):
Data okay, cool, okay,thanks so much. Bye bye,