THE creators of hit US show Toddlers And Tiaras are bringing their beauty pageants to Sydney after controversy over a planned Melbourne event led to a huge increase in the number of families wanting to enter their children.

Organisers say interest in the event is so keen they are extending what was planned to be a one-off Australian pageant into a tour with pageants in Sydney, Brisbane and New Zealand late this year and early next year.

"We were going to close entries for the Melbourne pageant at the start of this month, but the interest has been so strong that we have decided to keep taking entries," organiser Kristin Kyle said.

The US company that runs the glitz and glamour pageants, Universal Royalty, this week announced plans for a national tour in a move that has critics planning rallies outside every state parliament in the country on Tuesday.

A Facebook page called Pull the Pin on Child Beauty Pageants has more than 1500 followers who say the US-style beauty pageants, which allow the use of fake teeth and eyelashes, exploit and sexualise children.

They are calling on governments to ban the events. But Sydney mum Cassandra Bain, who has been putting daughter Isabelle, who is almost three, in the pageants for the past six months, says they are just fun events for little girls who like to dress up.

Originally published as Tiny tot pageants on their way