BreyerFest is my favorite week of the year - and I do mean week, since I am down there Monday through Sunday - and it’s less than 60 days away. I’m starting to get excited.
I wanted to go to BreyerFest ever since I saw the first advertisement for it in the 1991 box catalog. In May of 2010, I quit a terrible job and bought my first BreyerFest ticket all in the same day. The former was an act of self-preservation; the latter was me saying, by God, I need some joy in my life, so I’m going to go do this thing I’ve always wanted to do. Later that day, I chatted with my parents about it, and when I said that I’d wanted to go to BreyerFest since I was a kid, I distinctly remember my mom saying, “You should have asked us. We’d have taken you.”
I was torn between kicking pre-teen/teen me for the missed opportunity, and awe that they would have even considered taking on the expense and the 8-hour drive each way for pre-teen/teen me to gallivant amongst plastic ponies for an entire weekend. I don’t think I ever would have asked for that much, but I’m glad to know all the same that they would have said yes. They have always been my biggest hobby champions and enablers.
BreyerFest 2010 was a magical experience. I’ll cover it in one of my “bonus” blog posts - perhaps later this month. Whilst wandering around the events at KHP that year, I learned that you could apply to volunteer for various jobs throughout the weekend - seminar attendant, the kids’ craft and activity tent, the diorama contest, the swap meet, and more - and that you got an exclusive model for doing so. In 2011, I applied as a workshop/seminar attendant, and was chosen. I have volunteered eleven more times since then - in 2013 for the diorama contest, and every year since 2016 (except 2020) as the results manager for the Children & Youth Shows. In 2025, I also stewarded BOO, Breyer’s fall online show. I have 12 volunteer models in my collection thus far.
This guy, #711430 Nottingham, the 2011 volunteer model, got his own post back in March as a sentimental favorite. You can go read more about him there, if you like. I don’t think I can say any better how much he means to me.
This is also #711433 Opry’s second appearance on the blog; I talked about her in my January Singles Bar post as my only Clydesdale Mare. She was the 2013 volunteer model.
This dude exploded every algorithm I was using to try to predict the volunteer mold. Blew them all to smithereens. He was used here as #711468 Caipirinha, a run of 163 models for volunteering at BreyerFest 2016. He was also used that year as a glossy prize model AND an auction model, which was absolutely unheard of. I still grumble about him every time someone asks me if I’m doing predictions.
I still remember the collective hobby head explosion that happened when this gal, #711271 Assam, was revealed as the volunteer model at BreyerFest 2017. The Weather Girl mold has been tremendously popular in the hobby since her first release in 2011. She’s pretty and typey and conformationally solid, and this particular release commands quite a price on the secondary market. She shows fairly well for me; her show name is Almira. She was the overall breed reserve champ in the BreyerFest division at BVG Live last year and got me a gigantic rosette.
Next month, I’ll go over my volunteer models from 2018-2022, and in July, I’ll finish up with 2023 and on. The timing of the July post should coincide with my receipt of my volunteer model for the Children & Youth Show. Since they started splitting into three colors, I have always received the third colorway, so I anticipate that’s what I’ll get this year as well. We’ve seen sooty buckskin and palomino so far. They said it’ll be another dilute; I’m hoping for a nice dark dun or a silver bay/silver black. I’m terrified it’ll be a double cream dilute (cremello or perlino), because those are my least favorite.
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