Meet Deanna Theis of Rainbow Vomit in Fair Park

Deanna, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My journey with Rainbow Vomit has an interesting backstory. Prior to Rainbow Vomit, I designed sexual wellness products for those with limited mobility. After temporarily losing the use of my arm, I invented a hands-free solution for women of all shapes, sizes and preferences. I was able to manufacture it and bring it market because a lot of people could benefit from it but faced major challenges in marketing it due to its complexity and its diverse applications. I’ve been working on this product and company since 2012, and I struggled to find the right marketing approach with limited resources. However, my plans changed course dramatically when a new opportunity arose.

Last spring I reached out to my friend Jason Mendez, who I knew from when I lived in Kansas, about potentially investing money to help with marketing. He had a unique proposal instead, as he wanted to create an Instagram museum similar to others that have been popping up across the country, and thought I would be a great candidate to lead this in Dallas, a city we both thought this would do well in.

I began to research this concept, gathering lots of inspiration that fed my creativity as Jason and I worked on a plan. Jason’s son Julien Mendez got involved with the project as we gathered momentum and found a great location in Fair Park that fit our needs perfectly. Soon after my boyfriend Rob Andrews helped come up with the name Rainbow Vomit after looking at some art concepts I was working on. The name really clicked with all of us as we continued to solidify the concept as the build-out on the space began in August 2018.

It was a lot of hard work, but more people got involved and a team of artists and creatives rallied around the project as we built a Dallas contingent to bring the vision to life. With Jason’s business experience and resources, my creative juices flowing, and Rob’s help pulling it all together, we hurtled our way over many obstacles and challenges before finally opening Rainbow Vomit on January 17, 2019.

Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Entrepreneurship is never a smooth road, especially when so many different variables are involved. There were many differences in vision as we all worked to figure out how to turn this space into something special that lived up to its potential. We definitely went over budget and were behind schedule, as we had to make our way through the creative process of bringing so many different mediums together. Tech issues popped up with the lights, glitter shipments were delayed, loans had to be taken out, and the exhibit even got flooded at one point. There were innumerable obstacles along the way.

The very hardest thing was staying one step ahead of the crew as I felt my way through the creative process while simultaneous being the project manager and often times the lead creator of a given piece. The pressure was intense, we pushed back our holiday opening to January, and the fact that we were paying rent at that point in time and funds were running out to get the exhibit open. Additionally, the weight I felt having put another business of time-sensitive nature on the back burner ate at me knowing that there are so many people who could benefit and that my window of opportunity to be their solution was limited.

Thankfully I had an amazing team of Vomiteers who pitched in an incredible amount of creativity and unique skills without which I could not have done this. I’m super proud of our team and what we created with Rainbow Vomit.

Please tell us about Rainbow Vomit.
Rainbow Vomit is an experiential art exhibit, a place where guests can immersive themselves in unique settings of different art styles all brought together to bring a comic book to life. Using different mediums and concepts, we created a place splattered with Instagramable visuals packed full of fun moments family and friends can enjoy together.

We are proud of the feelings coming to Rainbow Vomit inspires in people of all ages. It makes us so happy to see people get to feel like a kid again, laugh with their friends and loved ones, and to witness how guests treat one another in the space. The exhibit has taken on a life of its own in many ways, and we’re constantly observing reactions of our visitors to figure out what’s working and what we can do to make the experience better.

We are also super proud of our team of Vomiteers, who brought unique skill-sets and immense creativity to the project. We love when guests notice the attention to detail that was put into place, and the care and time that everyone put into the art is what makes the place so special. Rainbow Vomit tells a story through the art and allows guests to be a part of it. It’s the reason why we think we set ourselves apart from the others and have earned marks as the number one rated immersive art exhibit in Dallas.

If you had to go back in time and start over, would you have done anything differently?
It’s hard to say I would change anything because I’m very happy with where things are today, but if I could start over, I would definitely have listened more to my intuition and allowed for a little more time on my own to think things through. With everything moving at such a hectic pace, it was hard to find the time to slow down enough to think deeply about what Rainbow Vomit was trying to tell us.

Thankfully Jason was patient as we got behind schedule and went over budget, and Rob was there with me to help work through many of the decisions we faced. Overall the ride could have been made smoother if I had allowed myself more time to think and concentrate on building a robust plan for marketing rather than doing the bulk of the manual labor myself. 

In the end though it was all worth it, and we can’t wait for what’s next to come from all of this. We are already working on the next chapter of the story, and are making fun holiday plans for the exhibit too. We hope you can visit us at Rainbow Vomit and see what it’s all about.