This is a blog

This is a Blog.

I’ve avoided the blog craze for a long time. I read them, I pull recipes and ideas from them…but write one myself? Nope. I never really felt like I had much to contribute to others and the things that would make good fodder aren’t appropriate for the public arena so – why bother?

Well, I have listened to enough podcasts over the last few years to know that just because <<I>> don’t see the value doesn’t mean someone else wont. So I will ignore my own judgements and give this a try.

On to introductions…My name is Ally and I am the owner of Dogwood Entertainment. I started this business, with the unrelenting support of my husband Noah, 6 years ago after spending 5 years designing, building and executing events for other people. Since then, we’ve grown and expanded into a full service design and production team serving multiple industries.

When we began, our business revolved heavily around Halloween and related events. We build displays for events all across the US and that was fun. But as the field became flooded, we had to get creative to keep the work coming. So we expanded to new seasons and came up with fresh ideas. Sometimes these go great – like our spring time walkthrough at a farm in Connecticut. Sometimes, they don’t – like when a freak tornado sent our props flying all around town. But that’s the scary (and sometimes awesome) thing about live events. You never know.

Before I started this business I had a challenging but educational few years working with another event producer. I learned a couple hard lessons that I try to hold on to. I learned how self-serving many people are. I learned that age does not always translate to maturity and even a 50 year old will bully someone if given the chance. I learned that people lie and I learned that I should trust my instincts. I also learned that anxiety can make your life hell – and I’m fortunate that it took me 33 years to get that lesson.

I’m grateful to have eliminated most of that toxicity from my work life. Today, I am grateful to have my husband as my partner and while the days are long and the work is hard, we have such a good time working together. Our kids are always hanging around the shop, creating their own designs and they love to hit the road with us for deliveries (assuming the hotel has a pool of course!)

There are days I want to give up and walk away, but they pass. Most of the time, I love what I do and am proud of what we’ve built, and not many people are lucky enough to say that.

So there we are – one blog post down, many to go. Thanks for reading.