There were 5 jurors.  Each one was paid $300.  The slides were viewed by catagory, that is, all the ceramics at once, then the woodworkers, etc.  Each juror had three choices:, yes, maybe, and no.  There were 800 applicants for 300 spaces.

There were two rounds.  After the first round, 300 were eliminated. The second round was for the remaining 500 artists and craftspeople. After the 300 lucky artists were picked, another 15 percent were added to a waiting list.

He said that it was pretty obvious in the first round who was professional and who wasn't, by their slides.  He said that the whole process took about 5 seconds per artist.

5 SECONDS!  That is all the time it takes to look at 5 slides projected on a wall, each one about 30" by 40".  look, look, look, look, look, press button.  Just like that. 

If a juror had a question, the artists explanation of the process was read.  In general, there weren't a lot of questions.  During the first round, artists and craftspeople are allowed to attend, and during the second they weren't.

I had heard that each artist gets about 15 seconds, but I always believed that we got at least a minute.  Can you believe it is only 5 seconds?

Cherry Creek sent me a nice rejection this year, saying they had 2400 applications and only 200 or so booths.  They invited me to apply again next year.

Since around 80 people are invited back each year, that leaves 2400 applicants for about 120 spaces.  But do they tell the 2400 applicants that the chances are 1 in 20 of getting into the show? No, they just collect the $96,000 each year (applications are $40 each) and email the nice thank you notice. $40 for 5 seconds? Whats wrong with this picture? Besides the fact that $40 is too much of an application fee?

Well, the lucky artists in the show report big incomes (except for painters), because the show is artificially small.  Only 200 booths in a market as big as Denver?  The show could easily have 400 artists.  Columbus has over 500 artists, and they all do well.  So the reports of large income, which makes the show number 1 in the country, causes 2300 artists and craftspeople to be robbed of $40 each year.

Time to pass this show up, until they lower the applicaiton fee or increase the number of artists.

I know, maybe there just aren't that many good artists in Colorado...

Stop applying to this show, folks, it isn't real.

Bill Wilson