Hi! My name is Donnell Griffith, Associate Editor at eJuggle, and for the 2025 IJA Festival at the Old National Convention center in Evansville, Indiana, I decided to sit down and have a chat with the vendors surrounding main juggling area.
For those who may not know, every year, those who wish to vend at the IJA, that is, open a booth where they can sell their own products, can purchase a “vendor pass,” which gives them the opportunity (and a table) to set up and showcase whatever crazy products they think other jugglers may want to buy– anything from juggling props, homemade trinkets, or even some cool new swag. These vendors are often noted by their presence at the long tables that surround the main juggling space, making window shopping as easy as taking a break from that Scrambled-V pattern that seems to end up looking too much like a Scrambled -“A” by the 4th rotation.
(Disclaimer: I didn’t get to every booth. Honorable mention goes to the Atlanta Club table, who have enough numbers to warrant purchase of a table at every IJA they attend (that section deserves its own article), but I did try to get enough to write this article.)
Without further ado (and in no particular order), let’s…
MEET THE VENDORS!
Bonnie and Brad Wyman (left to right)
What are your names?
Brad and Bonnie Wyman
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
We are Pass The Props, and we are based out of Central Wisconsin. Specifically Necedah.
What are you selling?
We sell props. Bean bags, clubs, diabolos… a little bit of everything.
Why/how did you get into selling?
[Brad] Long story short, I was doing IT work for many years. I was pulling my hair working with these hard drives, and I really loved juggling.. So I decided to get into the business.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
We cater to the beginner and the intermediate. We have a little bit of everything to sell. Come by if you’re looking to start out with something new!
Jacob (left) and Zak McAllister (Right)
What are your names?
I’m Jacob.
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Cathedral Juggling, based out of Kansas City, Missouri.
What are you selling?
Everything from balls, rings, clubs, diabolo, hoops. I make a pretty wide variety of Kyiv style balls, bean bags, and rings; a variety of which are currently growing worldwide.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I needed some props for a show, and the show got cancelled… but I’d already made the props. So I took a box with me to IJA 2014, and people on the juggling floor tried some out, and asked to buy some from me. And so then I decided to take the business aspect more specifically.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
My displays are big. I think it’s fun to have displays that are really visual. Not only do they go up and out, but I have a display with a video showing jugglers utilizing the props. I think it makes the table a little more interactive.
Also, Zak McAllister adds, “I’m always here, and I’m happy to help out.”
Cassaundra Smyth
What is your name?
Cassaundra Smyth
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
MadTech Manipulations, and we’re from Oakland, California.
What are you selling?
I sell props and prop swag.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I’ve been making art since I was a kid. I used to sell at art shows, and as I got more into juggling, I noticed more that people were selling things that they made that were still in the realm of juggling, so I started getting more and more into making my own things and selling them.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
I think people should check out my jewelry!
Aly Smith Art
Aly Smith (right) and Friend
What is your name?
Aly Smith
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Aly Smith Art, and we’re based in Evansville Indiana (We’re locals!)
What are you selling?
We sell handmade glow in the dark jewelry. We do a lot of music festivals where we try to give people more eco-friendly options.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I went to college and got a degree in studio art with an emphasis in woodworking. I wanted to use my degree, so I tried to learn how I could make money doing my art, and I learned that I could do that at a juggling festival.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
My favorite things here are the handmade wooden pendants inlaid with different types of stems!
Vertax Playground
Alyssa Chan (left) and Peng-An Ang (right)
What are your names?
Alyssa Chan and Peng-An Ang
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
The name is Vertax Playground and we’re based in Austin, Texas.
What are you selling?
We mostly sell diabolos, but for IJA, we’re also selling fidget rings.
Why/how did you get into selling?
In the US, there’s not a super big market to buy diabolos from, and we wanted to give people options outside of Sundia. So we sell [diabolos] from Sundia, Taibolo and Diabolo Design.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
I like to highlight that we have a lot of different diabolo options and we have a lot of custom equipment that people get to play around with and find what fits them best.
Rebecca Rehm AKA The Girl-In-Orange
What is your name?
I’m Rebecca Rehm.
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Drawketship, and we’re based in Minneapolis.
What are you selling?
Various pieces of juggling art made by me! The dresses are new this year, and we have an avatar creator that people can try.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I was in the juggling community for a while, and I lost my job a little bit after the pandemic. I always wanted to make a coloring book, and so I made one that year, called Hup!: A Coloring Book For Jugglers, and that was the first thing I sold.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
I’d like people to come by and play with the avatar maker, and get put into my juggler book!
What is your name?
Keenan Lampe
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
The name of the store is 20 Ton Studios, and I’m based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
What are you selling?
Harudamas: A prop I developed based on the kendama. It is basically a mega sized prop designed for the stage.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I was coming to juggling festivals, and I started developing this new prop, and I wanted to bring it into the juggling world and see what other people could do with it.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
I have a bunch of demo versions for people to try out, have fun, and see what they can do/come up with!
What is your name?
Nick Hanson
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Handles, and we’re from Huntsville, Alabama
What are you selling?
Handcrafted Jewelry.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I sell merchandise for my travels. If I can travel to a number of festivals and sell my merchandise, I’ve made up for my trip.
I once saw another juggler carve wooden clubs, and decided that had to be me.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
I like to make the table a comfortable space for me to sit at, so I have things from my home to make it so.
What are your names?
Bennett Santora (left) and Jonathan Mazer
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Flyjuggling, and we’re based mostly online, but we’re from New York City.
What are you selling?
Juggling balls, bags, and Jewelry
Why/how did you get into selling?
[Bennett] I like having a table.
[Jonathan] Really a lot of towns don’t have an in-person juggling store, and in-person places are a good place to try things. And juggling conventions are a good place for people to really get to try props before they buy them. And so we thought it would be helpful to add to the selection of IJA as one of the many amenities of the festival.
And yes, having a table is nice.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
We try to pick props both that we like and will appeal to the juggling community, and to be a high-quality example of the thing that we are selling.
We hope that the highlight of the table (besides its charismatic proprietors) is the quality of the props.
What are your names?
Neil (left) and Moe Redding
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Three Finger Juggling, and we’re based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
What are you selling?
We’re selling dangerous props, balls, chainsaws, and general weird stuff. Bear arms, cowbells, etc.
Why/how did you get into selling?
[Neil] I started Three Finger because I was a busker, and I could never find good dangerous stuff, so one day I decided to make some of my own, and my wife said that they were really good, and so we started to sell them. We’ve expanded, and things have been going very well since then.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
Everything is custom and hand-made. We take a lot of pride in what we hand manage, and that it’s not mass produced. It’s made by me and my wife, and we put a lot of love into our props.
What is your name?
Reg Bacon
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Variety Arts Press, and I am in Newburyport, Massachusetts
What are you selling?
I’m selling my books! The first two instructional books on my performance specialties were published in the 1980s, a time of rapidly expanding interest in juggling. The most recent books — and two revised and expanded reprints — are products of the present decade. I’m selling specialty props as well: mouthpiece balancing and head-balancing pedestals. Prop designs are the designs I’ve used for my own props in my 35-year career doing combination stunts on unicycle and rolling globe.
Why/how did you get into selling?
The first books (Cigar-box Manipulation Technique and Manipulative Miscellanea) amplified material presented in seminars, courses, and IJA workshops (1970s-2000s). The still-percolating interest in the books has been gratifying — leading to decades-worth of new juggling friends around the globe. At least one more instructional book (on combination stunt performance on various circus apparatus) is on the way.
I had more books planned, but me and my wife were so busy traveling and performing that we didn’t have time. Now that I’ve been retired 17 years, I’m trying to pick up where I left off. To serve the juggling community with more history related anthologies and juggling instructional books to come.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
Like all the instructional books, the material within the covers consolidates the blood, sweat, and tears poured into the art/craft of juggling performance for decades — and presents the knowledge and insights derived. In my view it is the responsibility of veteran practitioners in any creative pursuit to share accumulated insights to the newest wave of artists. There is a quiet satisfaction in that sharing; the kind of satisfaction that can’t be measured in dollars.
What is your name?
Martin Kalwill
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Flow Juggle, in Brooklyn, New York
What are you selling?
Juggling props. We specialize in Flow, LED and Fire Props. But really, we’re selling fun. Props for people to have fun and make other people have fun as well.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I’ve been a performer all my life. I debuted in one of the biggest theaters in Buenos Aires, Teatro San Martin at the age of 13 as a finalist in the Coca-Cola art and Science contest. After decades of performing, when I moved to New York, I felt that when I was juggling and dancing with my friends, I was expressing myself more than when I was doing auditions.
At that point, I started volunteering at the Floasis, and falling in love with fire performance. After spending a lot of time there, I decided to set up a shop. I see it as part of my transition into becoming a Variety arts performer (AKA a Juggler). New York is full of so many artists, dancers, singers, etc, I had to figure out what I could bring to the New York Scene. And if you wanna be there, you gotta make it.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
I think that we’re representing the idea of a physical store. Just like we’re holding spaces in the Floasis and in New York City, we’re also holding space here.
(No picture taken)
What is your name?
Jim Brennan
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
We’re here representing the Flatland Juggling Festival, from Lincoln Nebraska
What are you selling?
We’re selling some embroidery t-shirts for club passing and diabolo, some puzzles, and a self working magic trick.
Why/how did you get into selling?
We would always get a place for the tables at the club. Having a table allows us a place to settle. One time, I was trying some whistling diabolos, and there were a lot of people at IJA who were very interested in them (the only group of people who could be interested in something like this). After that, we started bringing more stuff to sell.
We learned that selling things starts conversations, and I hope that seeing things like puzzles and magic tricks at a vendor stand will make people feel more inclined to bring them up.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
We have Twizzlers: Free Twizzlers for anybody who comes by!
Scott Cain (left), David Cain
What are your names?
David and Scott Cain
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Museum of Juggling History, based in Middletown Ohio
What are you selling?
Our books. Between the two of us, we’ve written 17 Juggling history books. Because we have so many props that have been found, donated or brought, and we have so many, we actually have some here to sell. An 80-90 year old club for 20 bucks.
Why/how did you get into selling?
[David]: We’re all about keeping the history of the art form going. Writing books and trying to keep the community informed. It started with the books, and we’ve started to expand into things as well,
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
Our two new books, 200 Historical Jugglers Every Juggler Should Know, and History’s Greatest Women Jugglers.
Festival Hoopsmith
What is your name?
My name is Alex, which is my regular name. My vending apparatus is the Festival Hoopsmith.
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
My vending apparatus is the Festival Hoopsmith, and I’m based in Bloomington, Indiana.
What are you selling?
I sell hula hoops, which I make for the most part. I also make glow in the dark, which I may use glow in the dark tubing. I’m creative with the hoops I make. Most things I sell are poly-pro hoops because most people want hoops that are lightweight and easy to spin.
Why/how did you get into selling?
I learned from some people at a festival called the Spin Convention. It was sometimes called spin sanity. I learned DIY and repair hoops and I also learned from Hoopology, which everyone learns from.
I like to think of Hoopology as the cult leader and us hoopmakers as its disciples.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
I’ve been able to give people good knowledge of the hoopmaking industry. I’ve been around the industry, and I feel that my duty, more than just making money, is to inform people of how to get the best hoop possible whether I can provide it or if somebody in their local area can do so as well.
Thom Wall (left), Maya (center) and Jonathan Perry
What is your name?
Thom Wall
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
We’re called Modern Vaudeville Press. Technically it’s based in Philadelphia, but we distribute globally.
What are you selling?
Books. We’re a small publishing house that specializes in rigorous circus nonfiction.
Why/how did you get into selling?
When I was on tour with Cirque Du Soleil, I wrote a book on my spare time. I was talking with a bunch of university presses about getting it published and eventually decided that it would easier setting up my own company. They didn’t know how to sell a book about juggling history, even if they were interested, and wanted me to do all of the marketing side of it. So, I learned more about the marketing side of things, and learned that it would be better to make my own company, even if we only had one book. After six months, I started receiving over a dozen other circus writers who wanted to publish with us. We now have 38 published works, and we have more projects underway.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
We just produced our first coffee table circus book about the Circus 2024 season called “Behind the Big Top” by Ryan Stanley.
What is your name?
Katrina Zahradka
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Toss-Up Textiles, based in Minneapolis, Minnesota
What are you selling?
My main niche is cloth machine washable juggling balls and juggling accessories
Why/how did you get into selling?
I’m a professional costumer and a professional juggler, so hand sewn juggling balls were just an eventually.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
The balls are great for learning to juggle and outdoor juggling because they are both machine washable and rodent safe.
Superjuggler Props
What is your name?
Scott Sorensen
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
Superjuggler props, based in Redding, California
What are you selling?
We have foam juggling clubs called ‘Foamies.” Also, “foamie rings” and pro-trainer juggling balls.
Why/how did you get into selling?
In 2016, I wanted to remake the foam club. I asked some other jugglers who’d been around a long time, “Do you remember the old combat club? What if I remade it into something new?”
It had to be two different parts, because it had to have balance like a normal juggling club. It was challenging, but after a while of R&D, I was able to develop the formula.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
Everything is made or designed by me and my experience as a juggler for 40 years. It’s very personal.
What is your name?
Erol Efendioglu
What’s the name of your store/brand, and where are you based in?
flowtoys, and we’re based in the San Francisco Bay area
What are you selling?
We sell LED flow arts props, LED juggling clubs, balls, staffs, juggling staffs. Anything that falls under the flow arts umbrella, we make an LED for.
Why/how did you get into selling?
The owners, about 20 years ago, in 2005, noticed a bunch of their friends wanted LED props, and there wasn’t a good place for it. One of the owners who was an engineer, decided to make some and it grew and grew until it became a business of its own. We are celebrating 20 years.
What’s one thing in particular you’d like to highlight about your table?
Everyone who works at flowtoys is part of the flow arts community, and we do what we do because we want to see the community grow. We’re here at IJA, even if we don’t sell much, because we want to be of service to the juggling community, and that’s just part of our ethos.
Pictures and text by Donnell Griffith
(If you are a vendor in this article and would like to add your website/store information, please contact the eJuggle team at ejuggle@juggle.org)
