Steve and Dan at the Vent Haven ConVENTion
Back in 2006, Dan Willinger and Steve Hurst met at the Vent Haven ConVENTion through their mutual friend, legendary figure builder, Ray Guyll.
Dan and Steve hit it off immediately. At the time, Dan was collecting ventriloquist figures and knew Ray from having him do some repair and restoration work on figures. Steve met Ray in 1996 and had been mentored by Ray in figure building.
Dan’s background had been in antique collecting. Then he started collecting ventriloquist figures. His favorites were Frank Marshall figures. Though he never was a ventriloquist, he always loved the art.
Steve is a ventriloquist and builds ventriloquist figures as a hobby. One of his “day jobs” is in technology, mainly website development.
After Dan and Steve met, they started talking about putting together a website for ventriloquists where they could share ventriloquial information to everyone. As a result, Ventriloquist Central was born.