10/27/2011: Thank you for helping make the 2011 MileHiCon Art Show a success.

At the end of the show, as I was writing checks to artists before they left, I screwed up. I started dating the checks “10/23/12” instead of “10/23/11”. I haven’t any idea why. I handed out 18 checks with wrong dates before someone noticed. We’ve told our bank to honor them [they did], but if you got one of them and can’t cash it, contact me at bruce.m.miller@gmail.com or 303-936-4092.

Sales were not good. We had ~61 artists displaying 1110 pieces in the art show. We sold $8428 in the Art Show proper and $1150 from the Print Shop. We had 82 panels and 21 tables. 24 pieces were NotForSale or withdrawn. Of 1091 pieces for sale, we sold only 294; or 27%. That’s one percent worse than last year, and again the worst since 1991.

We had some trouble loading into the hotel on Thursday. The Monday before the con, we were told we could load in at 2pm on Thursday. Wednesday evening we got an email saying we couldn’t. Thursday morning we were finally able to arrange using a different room and loading area. We ended up being a little later than planned, but at least got to unload the trailer, which we needed for robots.

This year’s convention had robots as a theme. We found six life-sized or larger robot sculptures by John Hanson that we displayed in the art show, but we needed to transport them to the hotel. After unloading the trailer on Thursday, we dispatched two people to pick the robots up from Longmont, over 50 miles away. They stayed in the trailer until Friday around noon, when we were sure we were done shifting tables and panels (they didn’t need either – we just didn’t want to run things into them). People seemed to think they were cool. We set them where people could take pictures, and many people did. Sunday we had to disassemble them and take them back.

In 2008, the hotel used the 2007 floor plan. In 2009, they used the right floor plan but rotated it 180°. This year they hadn’t set the room up at all when we arrived Friday morning to start setting up. The movable walls weren’t in place. Neither were the tables and chairs. After some chivvying of hotel people, we got them to set up. We finished setting up panels about the same time they finished setting up tables. Otherwise, setup went well. We had more hotel problems, too. When we closed on Friday night, they couldn’t manage to lock the back door to the art show room. I spent an hour being told “we’ll have that lock fixed in just a minute”, which they never did manage (not for lack of effort – they rebuilt the whole thing) before giving up and chaining it shut. (it’s a fire door – but if anyone broke down the door to get in, they could leave the same way.) The hotel also tried to apply a number of spurious charges to both guests and the convention. For instance, when Cheryl ate at the hotel restaurant and charged it to her room, they tried charging an additional $33 “service charge” to her room. And a week before the convention, they tried charging MileHiCon’s credit card over $10,000. They have no explanation. We surmise it may have been the total for some other group. On the bright side, the credit card company immediately called us and the charge did not go through.

We tried a couple more new things this year – using an accordion file instead of a notebook and we continued our origami bidsheet experiment. This time we had no spreadsheet problems, so we were able to evaluate them on their own. We’ve been using NCR paper (duplicating) bidsheets. They’re wonderful for recording sales, but most artists can’t print their own and therefore can’t enter them on a computer. The origami bidsheets were designed to be cut in two, with duplicate information on each half. At the show, they turn out to be time consuming and more error prone. It was a nice try, but we’ll have to come up with something else.

Just before the show, Cheryl got a pedometer. After calibrating it, she found that she walked 22 miles during the con. No wonder we get sore feet.

The weather was nice throughout the con. Monday after the show, as we return shipped the unsold mail-in art, the temperature was over 80°F. Tuesday evening it started snowing. I got around 6 inches of heavy, wet snow and a lot of broken trees. Many people in the area lost power; we were lucky and didn’t. Most of the snow is gone, but the trees are still broken.

10/30/2010: Thank you for helping make the 2010 MileHiCon Art Show a success.

It was an odd show. We had ~67 artists displaying 1041 pieces in the art show. Sales were generally poor, but we set a record for sales, with $14,750 in the Art Show proper and $2456 from the Print Shop (both records for us). We had 95 panels and 17 tables. 10 pieces were NotForSale or withdrawn. Of 1031 pieces for sale, we sold only 286, or only 28%, which is the worst since 1991.

How could we have both generally poor sales and record high sales at the same time? Sell one piece for $7000. Which is very good, and by far the largest single sale we’ve ever made - but it means the entire rest of the show only sold $7725, which is awful. I eagerly await a better economy.

We fixed up the trailer I bought last year. We counted out enough of everything and loaded it into the trailer several weeks in advance. About a week after that, we discovered that we had failed to list three artists in the spreadsheet from which we make panel assignments. We needed to add four panels to the show. We had to put them behind tables for 3D art - we try not to do that as it makes it harder to write bids. Then when we set up we didn’t have enough lights, because we’d only counted out enough for the original size, so I had to run home and get more.

We usually load into the hotel on Thursday evening so we don’t have to do it Friday morning. Even if our room isn’t available yet, we can usually find space somewhere at the hotel to store our stuff (it’s all on carts, so moving it is easy). This year, as last year, they had a major event running on Thursday evening. The only room we could use for storage was on the far side of the hotel from the freight elevator and one floor down from the art show. It wouldn’t save us much time to load on Thursday and would require more work overall, so we parked the trailer at the hotel on Thursday and loaded Friday morning instead.

Last year the hotel had used the previous year’s room layout. This time they used the correct layout, but rotated it 180°. So we had to reset 38 tables (18 for art, 7 for the literacy auction, 4 for the office, 3 for Print Shop, and two each for bag check and artist demos). Aside from that and having to fetch more lights, setup went smoothly. We had no artists reserve panels and not send art or show up; some of our wait-listed artists who didn’t get panels did put prints in the Print Shop. We expanded the Print Shop to fit everyone.

Last year we couldn’t get the credit card machine to work in our room and had to send people to registration to process credit cards. The hotel was blocking Wi-Fi in the function space, which was also blocking cell phones so our machine got no signal. We complained and they fixed it. We could use our credit card machine this year. Then registration’s machine died, they stole ours, and we had to send people to registration anyway. We stole it back on Sunday.

We have a new cash register. The old one was dying. If you hit the “credit” button the whole machine would lock up, and “void” was iffy. I found a pretty good one on Craigslist for only $50. It’s fancier than we need, but on the occasion of MileHiCon 42 with its Hitchhiker’s Guide theme, it was nice to display a scrolling message saying “Don’t Panic…..Buy More Art”.

We again ran MileHiCon’s Literacy Auction. The number of donations had been decreasing for several years – to about 50 items last year – so we decided to stop taking written bids and run everything at voice auction, 50 being a manageable number. So this year we got about 100 items. The literacy auction was painfully long. On the bright side, the amount we collected for the Girls, Inc. literacy program was also about double last year.

We had many Quick Sales this year. This is largely because an increasing number of artists have been using QS prices only slightly higher than the minimum, e.g., 15/18, 20/22, or 45/50). The idea, I think, being that since the auction has shrunk to only 8% of sales and two thirds of minimum bids received no increase, you might be better off with an extra $5 than hoping for a larger raise at auction. Of course, if the Quick Sales were higher, we might have had more pieces at the auction. We had 89 pieces sell for Quick Sale but the art auction was tiny.

We tried origami bidsheets this year. Normally we use NCR paper bidsheets. They’re wonderful for recording sales, but it means (most) artists can’t print their own and therefore can’t enter them on a computer. So we created bidsheets designed to be cut in two, with duplicate information on each half. You fold them like the back cover of Mad magazine so the duplicate information doesn’t show and confuse people. They were a little rough the first time – we had problems with the files disappearing from the website, and when I put a new version out, I damaged the printshop file so that it didn’t print labels for the first six. Still, I think we’ll refine it and try it again next year (it’s optional; nobody has to use it).

10/30/2009: Thank you for helping make the 2009 MileHiCon Art Show a success.

We had 64 artists displaying 1057 pieces in the art show.  We sold $8,787 in the Art Show (about $1000 less than last year) and $899 from the Print Shop (about $150 over last year). We had 23 tables, which is a record and only left room for 81 panels (and that was crowded – we really should have only had 77). By panel/table count, it was a small show, but by number of pieces it was a large one. This is because the average panel contained 8 pieces, while the average table had 19 (tables and panels have nearly the same surface area; table pieces were just smaller). 15 pieces were NotForSale or withdrawn. Of 1042 pieces for sale, we sold 311, or only 30%, which is pretty dismal. Only 18% of jewelry sold.

This year Cheryl took a vacation, and pre-show paperwork was handled by Mitzi Bartlett. Last year, our new panels didn’t fit in the logistics truck along with the con suite, registration, and AV equipment, so we had to rent a separate truck (though we fit coming back, after con suite and reg. used up much of their stock). This year, I bought a trailer. It’s not just for art show (it would never pay for itself if it was), but it means we can load the trailer days in advance. When it comes back, we don’t have to unload it. Unfortunately, we only got it a couple weeks before the con – enough time to replace the floor, re-fasten the roof and sides, and put tie-down bars along the walls, but not enough time to fix all the leaks in the ceiling (the roof was held down by pop rivets, most of which have broken, and all the seams are sprung). We’ll need to remove the existing coating from the roof before we can fix it, and there just wasn’t time. We used duct tape to stop the worst of the leaks, and threw a tarp over it until we get weather good enough to fix the top. The 18 inches of snow we got in the last couple days is not good weather for fixing the trailer. At least it waited until the convention was over. And half of it melted today.

We usually load into the hotel on Thursday evening, so we don’t have to do it Friday morning. Even if the room isn’t available until Friday, we can generally find space somewhere at the hotel to store our stuff (it’s all on carts, so moving it is easy). This year, though, they had a major function running on Thursday evening and didn’t want us to load in then. So we loaded Friday morning, instead. Loading in went fine, but we arrived to discover the hotel had used last year’s room layout (with fewer tables) instead of this year’s. They did the same to gaming, but got the dealers’ room right. We dragged tables to their proper positions and started setting up panels while waiting for the hotel to provide more tables. Annoying, but not a real problem.

We had one artist cancel due to flu, and one use less space than planned for the same reason, but were able to fill most of the space from the wait list (minus a leftover odd half-panel and half-table).

We again ran MileHiCon’s Literacy Auction. We had many fewer donations than last year, but they were perhaps of better average quality. We still didn’t raise as much money as we had hoped.

Quick Sales were good this year. We had 66 pieces sell that way, or 21% of all sales. The art show auction was pathetic, though. At only 17 pieces, it was less than half the size of last year’s. The bidding at the auction started off well, but abruptly died halfway through.

It snowed a bit on Sunday. The only problem this really caused was making the ramp slippery. Monday was nicer when we took all the mail-in art to UPS, FedEx, and the Post Office. Tuesday I remailed one box because it had been delivered to me instead of the artist (no cost but a nuisance), and I slept most of the rest of the day. Wednesday I started this letter and it started seriously snowing. We got about 18 inches by the end of Thursday, but most of it has melted by now (Saturday).

10/29/2008:  Thank you for helping make the 2008 MileHiCon Art Show a success. 

We had 64 artists displaying 928 pieces in the art show.  We sold $9,977 in the Art Show and $758 from the Print Shop.  Despite being a smaller show, sales were better than last year.  24 pieces were NotForSale or withdrawn.  Of 904 pieces for sale, we sold 351, or 39%.  We set up 81 panels and 19 tables.  This is about 15 fewer panels and six more tables than usual (one table takes up as much room as 2-3 panels).

Cheryl and I have just finished running the art show for Denvention3 (actually, I’m not finished with that yet, either – still have some unclaimed pieces and expenses, and a sale of surplus panels pending).  We had arranged for someone eIse to be in charge of MileHiCon’s show, but it fell through.  So we did a poor job on the advance work – the website didn’t get updated and we never sent out any invitations to the show.  We’d have been perfectly happy to have had a small show this year, but we still filled up.

Cheryl and I both got sick before the show.  We both started on antibiotics about three weeks before the show – her for strep, and me for staph.  We’ll call it good planning, as we both got well before the show.

Another side effect of running the Denvention3 art show is that we had new panels and lighting.  We had been planning to build them for MileHiCon even if Denver hadn’t had the Worldcon, and had been prototyping different types at MileHiCon for several years.  We used many of MileHiCon’s old panel parts to construct Denvention’s new panels.  The new panels are prettier, faster to set up, and better lit than the old ones.  There’s a picture of them at Denvention3 at http://tiny.cc/JskrF.  The lights are compact fluorescent flood lights, which is both good and bad.  The bad is that the light quality isn’t as good (the color temperature is fine, but the CRI is only around 82).  The good is that there’s a lot more light and less heat, while using less electricity – a real problem in this ballroom, where there are only two outlets (one on each end wall.  The air walls on the side have none, and there are none in the floor).

All the art show equipment is on carts.  Loading and unloading is fast.  The new panels have a permanent wooden frame around the pegboard.  It means that the panels take up a lot more room when stored; each pegboard is ¾ inch thick, instead of ¹/₈ inch.  We made more carts to carry them.  The extra carts meant we wouldn’t fit in the shared logistics truck on the way to the con and had to rent our own.  We used the shared truck on the way back, as there was more room after the program books and con suite supplies had been used up.

We again ran MileHiCon’s Literacy Auction.  It raised a lot less money than last year. The art show gained about as much.  It looks like they’re competing for member dollars.  The art auction had only 39 pieces, which is down from last year’s 47 (we’d like around 60).  Both the number of pieces sold and the average price improved over last year, but the bidding at the auction was tepid at best.  The literacy auction seemed to suffer from the same problem (you’d almost think people were worried about the economy).  However, the number of Quick Sales rose drastically.  The pieces people wanted, they really wanted.

We were unsure how Denvention3, 2½  months earlier, would affect MileHiCon.  It doesn’t seem to have made much difference.  We did set a new record for attendees. Badge numbers ran up to 1,092 (our previous high was 1012), so there were probably over 1,000 people on site.  The percentage of three-day memberships also increased.  But we don’t know how Denvention3 would be responsible for either change.

We didn’t have any major problems, though we came close.  Saturday afternoon we started smelling something like burning insulation, so we went through the show trying to pin down where it was coming from.  Unbeknownst to us, dealers in the Dealers’ Room were doing the same thing, as were AV techs in main programming.  It turned out that one of the hotel’s large kitchen ice machines had spectacularly burned out, and the ventilation system picked it up and piped it everywhere.  It was bad enough that they called the Fire Department in (fan comment: “Those are really good costumes”) and warned everyone about toxic fume symptoms, but not bad enough that they evacuated or shut any rooms down.

We had a few oddities.  We set some kind of record for name confusion.  The first type was artists who sign up under one name but then fill out their bidsheets with another.  It tempts me to assign artist numbers for each artist to use.  We coped.  We also had an odd cluster of panels in the back where we had two artists named Tiffany next to each other – Tiffany Toland and Tiffany Tinsley (in my defense, one signed up under a studio name).  Then the artist across the aisle from them cancelled and sold his three panels – one to an artist named Timony.

We had two massively tied awards.  We usually give an award for Best Packaging For Shipment, but this year too many artists did too well (a good thing, actually) and we found ourselves with a five way tie between Alan Beck, Sarah Clemens, Johnna Klukas, Theresa Mather, and Ralph Ryan.  Later, when we counted the votes for the People’s Choice award, we found that we had a 4-way tie.  This is either a good or bad thing – it means there are many strong pieces in the show, or none (I think the former).  We don’t mind a tie.  If only two pieces were tied we’d have given them both ribbons.  But we only order so many spare ribbons and four was more than we had.  We kept voting open an extra hour (and bullied more people into voting) so we could break the tie.  We monitored votes as they came in.  The very first vote changed the tie – now five pieces were tied.  After several votes that didn’t alter the situation, it became a six way tie.  One piece finally pulled two votes ahead by the time voting closed the second time.  In a display of vote splitting on a smaller scale, Jim Humble got more votes than any other artist, but they were split among six different pieces, no one of which had more than three votes.

We were entirely out of the room by 7:30pm on Sunday.  Monday morning the truck came to my house to unload, then we took all the mail-in art to UPS, FedEx, and the Post Office.  Only four artists shipped via UPS and all of them were prepaid.  It made for a very easy stop.

11/01/2007:  Thank you for helping with the 2007 MileHiCon Art Show.  We had 59 artists displaying 914 pieces in the art show.  We sold $8,860 in the Art Show and $886 from the Print Shop.  This is the lowest sales we’ve had since 1996.  17 pieces were NotForSale or withdrawn.  Of 897 pieces for sale, we sold 329, or 37%.  We set up 94 panels and 14 tables.

I’m sick, so this will be a rather perfunctory letter.  The art show took over MileHiCon’s Literacy Auction.  The good news is that we set a record for the amount raised. The bad news is that none of the former Literacy Auction people came with (extra work for us) and that the extra proceeds may have meant less money was left to buy art.

The art auction had 47 pieces, which is up from last year’s 40, although still fewer than we’d prefer (we’d like around 60).  The number of pieces sold also increased, but the average price dropped more than the number sold increased.  I myself was more restrained in my own buying than last year – which is probably good for me but not for sales.

MileHiCon finally managed over 1,000 attendees. While this was a record, it’s with an asterisk, at least as far as the art show is concerned.  We hosted the Avistrum Academy of Sorcery (like Harry Potter only without copyrighted names). They pulled about 45 kids. While they did push our membership up, they weren’t people likely to buy art.  The same could be said of the people attending MileHiCon for the Denvention3 staff meeting, most whom went on a facility tour on Sunday rather than buying art.  So I think the number of potential art buyers was largely unchanged from last year. 

We set some other minor records this year.  As usual, we had some artists release all or part of their panels/tables, which we filled from the wait list. For the first time ever, we exactly used up the entire wait list for both tables and panels, with no wait listers or empty spaces left.  We had more artists working in carved stone than ever before – three.  And a very minor record: two artists requested us to send via UPS to a PO box.

We bought another cart to hold all our panel legs and crossbraces. This means everything for the show is now on carts, and loading/unloading the truck is trivial.  We were entirely out of the room by 7:30pm on Sunday.  Monday morning the truck came to my house to unload, then we took all the mail-in art to UPS, FedEx, and the Post Office.

This was the second year we were at the Hyatt Tech Center.  We’ve signed a contract to be there for the next two years, as well.  The space generally works well for the art show, with two exceptions.  The ballroom section we’re in has poor lighting and only two electrical outlets (one at each end.  The sides are airwalls.  For a large fee, the hotel will provide more electrical drops).  Since we have a shortage of electricity, we’re starting to use fluorescent floodlights instead of incandescent bulbs in our own lighting.  The quality of the light isn’t as good (color is OK, but CRI isn’t great), but in exchange we can provide higher quantities and less glare.  The second problem is more personal; they don't allow parrots. Sandy and I can't get a room.

10/26/2006:  Thank you for helping to make the 2006 MileHiCon Art Show a success.  Your check should be in the envelope with this letter.  We had 61 artists displaying 973 pieces in the art show.  We sold $9,928 in the Art Show and $1,509 from the Print Shop.  36 pieces were NotForSale.  Of 937 pieces for sale, we sold 301, for a rather dismal 32%.  We set up 94 panels and 14 tables.

This was another small art show for MileHiCon, about the same size as last year.  Sales per panel were down last year, so we wanted to keep the show small again this year.  Sales per panel were even worse this year, but the Print Shop did considerably better.  We again put a clump of six tables in the front for 3D art, and left a space in the back for artist demos.

 We give an award for “Best Packaging for Shipment”.  This year it was hotly contested by Bridget Wilde and Theresa Mather. Each bundled their Print Shop pieces separately. Theresa's were labelled “Print Shop” - advantage Theresa - but were taped with the bubbles out, which makes it harder to remove the tape (and impossible to do without popping bubbles) - advantage Bridget.  So still tied.  The Post Office cast the deciding vote, putting a large gouge, about an inch deep, in the bottom of Bridget's box.  Since it was well packed, no art was damaged.  We awarded the prize to Bridget, as her packing was severely tested and survived.

The Wednesday before MileHiCon the high temperature for the day was over 60(F).  This was also true of the Friday MileHiCon started.  The Thursday in between we got eight inches of snow.  Since the ground was warm, that became two inches of heavy slush covered by two inches of snow.  This was not helpful for loading the truck.  Fortunately, the snow stopped around noon.  We did quite a lot of snow shoveling (there's over 200 feet of driveway to get to the workshop in back where all the art show supplies live), and the truck still had trouble making it up the tiny slope at the start of the driveway. 

I retired in mid-September, so my time during the six weeks before MHC was was largely dedicated to building experimental panel and lighting systems.  Setup was a bit more chaotic than usual, thanks to the experimental systems.  The first two rows of panels were old panels that went up as usual (except for one lighting experiment).  The third row and the wall panels were all experimental, and that was chaotic.  We had a lot of people helping this year - which is good - but only one of me, and I was the only one who knew how the experimental systems went together.  We had five different types of experimental panel systems - each with similar but different parts - and five experimental lighting systems.  So we had to rework some of the third row and wall panels to get everything put together correctly.  My apologies to those whose work we had to redo. We did learn from the experiments, though.

New panels:  We do not like the design with the slotted verticals that pegboard slides into - too awkward to construct.  We do like the designs with the keyhole slots in the verticals.  The newer, deeper keyholes all held up just fine; the older, shallow ones pulled out (as we expected).  We had two major types of panel to go with keyhole verticals: one with external frame and one with internal  The internal frame turns the panel into a rigid stressed-skin structure, so it's more rigid, but I don't think that matters much; the external frame is also sturdier than any unframed pegboard.  The internal frame is heavier but a tiny bit less bulky.  The internal frame takes more work to make and costs more, but allows artists on each side of the panel to use the same holes on each side without worrying about which holes the other artist used.  The external frame takes a little more floor space than the internal frame version - two panels in zig-zag occupy about six linear feet instead of 5'10” (as opposed to 5'8” for our old panels).  Either works well for both zig-zag and bays.

New lighting: Our old lights came in strings of two or three lights, and sat atop the overhead bracing (at 7').  The bracing produces shadows, though, so we tried two approaches to fixing that.  All the third row had 8' vertical legs.  The panels still attached with their tops at 7', but the cross-bracing was at 8', so we could hang lights under it, rather than over.  This worked well for the lights, but was a pain during construction. The extra foot of leg meant nobody could attach cross-braces without a chair or ladder.  We also tried some “light stanchions” on the old panels.  They attached to the 7' high cross-brace, stuck up another foot, and held the light about 3” inboard from the cross-brace to eliminate shadows from it.  Those worked better, so we'll go with 7' legs and stanchions. 

We had only two no-show artists.  Both were mail-in, both had one panel, and both notified us in advance so we could fill the panels from the wait list.  We enlarged the Print Shop to six panels and four tables, and it was packed.  Despite the confusion the experiments created during setup, we had plenty of help.  Panel and lighting setup ran until about 1pm (an hour later than we'd like), but we could start hanging the mail-in on the first two rows by noon, so we had no problem opening on time at 7pm.  We had excellent traffic Friday evening.  Alan Clarke was doing an art demo in the back of the art show.  People passing by could see it, and I think it helped draw people into the room.  We stayed busy until around 10:30, when we had to evacuate the room due to a fire alarm.  As the last of us were leaving, we were notified that it was a false alarm, but the damage was done.  Many people didn't return, traffic stayed sparse, and we shut down around 11:30 pm.

This was MileHiCon's first year at the Hyatt Tech Center.  We'd already run an art show there earlier this year for Opus, in the adjacent ballroom section.  This section has a more convenient shape, but awful  lighting and only two electrical outlets (one at each end.  The sides are airwalls.  For a large fee, the hotel will provide more electrical drops).  It's a decent hotel, and we had only two major problems there.  First, the hotel's parking garage is behind the hotel and hard to find and the parking policy for the weekend was unclear (I've done about five cons at this hotel, and this is always a problem).  Second, they don't allow parrots, so Sandy and I don't get a room, and I have to commute.

Sales were not good.  The auction only had 40 pieces; we're aiming for 70.  The Print Shop did pick up considerably, which made up for the decrease in sales from the Art Show proper, but it's worse than it appears, since I got carried away and bought too much art myself.  I spent at least $500 more than usual.  If I hadn't, sales would have been truly dismal.

Sunday, teardown went smoothly until the very end.  Nobody who won bids failed to come by and pick it up, which is quite unusual.  At the end, we had our usual problem of finishing packing the last cart (pack the box containing tape on the cart.  Discover that another box needs to be taped back together.  Unpack the box of tape (it's on the bottom, of course), fix the other box, repack the cart.  Discover a tool which didn't get put away, unpack the box of tools from the cart, etc.).  Sheila spent too long re-packing the cart, for which I apologize. Next year I hope to have modified the cart to have drawers and swing-out sections so that we can access all our stuff without removing boxes from the cart.  This will also make packing much easier.  Still, we had everything loaded on to the truck by 7:30pm.  Monday the truck came to my house to unload, then we took all the mail-in art to UPS, FedEx, and the Post Office.

10/26/2005: Thank you for helping to make the 2005 MileHiCon Art Show a success.  Your art was mailed back Monday, October 24.  If you have not received it, please let us know (phone 303-936-4092, or email bruce.m.miller@gmail.com ).  Your check should be in the envelope with this letter.

We had 70 artists displaying 995 pieces in the art show.  We sold $10,564 in the Art Show and $947 from the Print Shop.  23 pieces were NotForSale.  Of 972 pieces for sale, we sold 314, for a rather dismal 32.3%.  We set up 99 panels and 12 tables, but had five panels empty from no-shows.

We set an unpleasant record of seven artists who reserved space and then didnt send or bring art.  Only one notified us in advance.  Those seven artists had reserved 14 panels. We were able to fill nine of them from our wait list; unfortunately, one of our wait listers was one of the no-shows (she had reserved two panels, and was wait-listed for more); another wait lister was at the convention but we were unable to contact him until Sunday.  So we had five empty panels.

This was the smallest art show MileHiCon has had in many years. We had planned it to be small even before having five empty panels.  We had put a clump of six tables in the front for 3D art, and left a space in the back for artist demos.  That made the show smaller by about eleven panels and one table.  Losing another five panels to no-shows brought it down to 94 panels and 12 tables.  Wed been running about 106 panels and 13 tables recently.

This was our second (and last) year at this hotel.  We fled the obnoxious management at the Sheraton Lakewood to a two year contract with the Marriott Southeast.  Four months before the first of the two cons, the Marriott was was bought out by the same obnoxious management company and turned into another Sheraton Four Points.   Next year well be at the Hyatt Regency Tech Center .  The room we expect to have next year will be larger, more functional, and better lit.  Between the six doors and four stacks of air wall, this years room had little usable wall space.  This years room was also a pertect illustration of why recessed canister lights in the ceiling dont work for art shows  the light shines almost straight down with little dispersion.  Good for lighting the floor or tables, but vertical surfaces  such as paintings  are left in the dark.  If we didnt have our own lighting, it would have been hopeless.  Our lighting brought it up to nearly adequate.

The attendance at the convention was down a bit, from maybe 1000 to 940 people.  The size of the show was down, too, so we expected sales to be lower.  But sales dropped by 17%, which was more than I had expected.  Sales per panels  which shouldnt vary with show size  dropped from $113 to $100.  Were not sure why.  It could be the economy and high gas prices (which started falling right after the con).  It could be that the Dealers Room was in front of the Art Show this year, instead of behind it (since they seemed to do better this year than last).  It could be the mix of artists in the show, or putting tables in front instead of in the back.  Same artist sales dropped 10% compared to last year, so it might be some of each.  Or perhaps seeing empty panels put people off.

The art show did run quite smoothly, though, thanks to our great staff.  We had no major problems.  We did have some minor ones right at the start.  The hotel was hosting another large function Thursday night in the space we would use on Friday, but they had left one section of ballroom vacant, so we could store all our equipment Thursday evening.  When we arrived, around 6:30pm, the hotel Manager on Duty said we couldnt use it.  We had to contact the person wed made the arrangement with, who fortunately was still on site.  We unloaded all the art show equipment  panels, computer, office supplies, packing materials, etc., plus some equipment for the video room  and the logistics crew took off.  I checked into the hotel (I stayed Thursday night) and took a nap for an hour or so.  I returned to the function space again at 11pm, when the function before ours ended, to talk to the banquet staff about setup.  They had a floor plan, but we had heard they didnt have enough 6x30 tables, and I wanted to discuss what substitutions we could make.  It took me until after midnight to actually manage to talk to the banquet captain.  We substituted 9 6x18 tables for our clump of 6 6x30 tables in the front, used one 8x30 table along the far wall plus two 6x30 tables I had brought, and used paired 6x18 tables only on the near wall.  My goal was to concentrate all the wider tables along one wall, so wed only lose six inches of aisle space, rather than a foot in each direction.  Finally I redrew the floor plan and went to bed about 1:00am.

At 8:00am the next morning, the tables were mostly in the right places.  We had to shift the table clump about 18, and the paired 6x18 tables along the near wall werent paired.  It took little time to move the tables, and the hotel got around to bringing us more tables within a few hours.  We measured out where the rows of panels should go, and started setting them up.  Panels went up smoothly, we put up lights, and we were ready to start hanging.  We had fewer mail-in artists this year, so that was less work for us, too.  We opened on schedule at 7pm.

Being open is easy and routine.  The hard parts are setup and auction / art pick up / arist check-out / teardown.  They all ran well, too.  The auction only had 59 pieces  down from 67 last year  but they sold for $3,410 ($57.80 each), compared to last years $3,648 ($54.58 each).   Our auction was scheduled from 1-3pm on Sunday.  It ended about 20 minutes early.  By 5pm, the sold art was picked up, artists were checked out, the lighting was down, and we started taking panels down.  By 7:20pm we had packed all the mail-in art, packed up the office, loaded everything into trucks, and we went off for dinner. This is as early as weve ever finished, even though we had to wait half an hour for the truck to get to the loading dock.  Monday we returned all the mail-in art at UPS, Fed Ex, and the Post Office.

I didn't see much of the convention outside the art show. I'm told it went well, that people seemed to enjoy it, and that we have a much improved new Critter Crunch champion.

We had 64 artists displaying 1006 pieces in the art show.  We sold $13,042 in the Art Show and $753 from the Print Shop.  Eight pieces were NotForSale.  Of 998 pieces for sale, we sold 464, or 43.5%.  We set up and filled 102 panels and 13 tables.  

Useless alphabet facts: This year we had four artists whose last name started with Mc, which is about three more than weve ever had before.  That gave us a total of seven artists whose last name started with M, all of whom mailed in.  Not as many M artists as C or S (9 and 10 artists), but there were twelve artists whose first names start with M, more than any other letter.  And once again, artists from the latter half of the alphabet were more likely to mail than artists from the first half, though the trend is less pronounced than last year.  Last year, a clear majority of artists mailed in.  This year it was closer, 30 to 29, so which we had more of depends how you count agents  we had seven artists work brought in by agents. 

We were at a new hotel this year.  It was a Marriott when we signed the contract, but turned into a Sheraton by the time we got there.  The room we used was larger than the one we had at the old hotel but fits the same number of panels.   The room is three sections of a dividing ballroom.   Each section has two emergency exits.  When the airwall between the sections is folded up to make one large room, it doesnt disappear into a closet of some sort, but just piles up against the wall, creating a four foot wide column about three feet deep.  Between the six emergency exits (one of which we use as the entrance) and four stacks of air wall, there is little usable wall space.  What there is, is broken up into small segments, making this room less efficient than our previous one.  We also left some space in the back of the room for artist demos, which took out six panels, so we ended up at 102 panels instead of the 108 we had last year.   So compared to last year, we had (and sold) more pieces on fewer panels.

This was the same room we used for Opus in May.  At other hotels, we lit the room with 500W quartz halogen lights, reflecting their light off the ceiling.  At Opus we discovered that the ceiling of this room absorbs light rather than reflecting it.  Learning from Opus, we made all new lights for this show and they worked much better.   Theyre not pretty, but they were effective and cost only $3 per light.  Well tinker with the lights before the next show.

The art show space at the new hotel is less efficient and doesnt have the lovely windows and window ledges.  The old hotel had a nice theatre for the video room, which the new one doesnt.  And the new hotel is far more spread out than the old one, and the sleeping rooms are smaller.  But the new hotel has more function space, more sleeping rooms, and charges less for them.  Most important, it doesnt stop con members in the halls if theyre carrying cans of soda.  I think it will be a good move.  I believe its common for a change of hotels to cause around a 10% drop in convention membership.  In our case, we had a 15% rise in membership.  Either we had exceptionally good guests and publicity this year (I didnt notice the difference) or people had been avoiding the old hotel.  I know people who were, but find it hard to believe it was 15% of our membership.  Well see.  Fortuitously, the increase memberships was even larger than the increase in the number of pieces in the show - we may have had as many members as pieces of art in the show.  Last year we had about 850 members and 915 pieces of art; this year we had around 1,000 of each.

The new hotel has all its function space on the ground floor, along with the hotel front desk.  But that floor is called the fourth floor, which is a little confusing.  The hotel is on a hill and at the back of the hotel it really is the fourth floor, but everyone comes in the front, where its the ground floor.  The con suite is on the fifth floor.  Just take this (long) hallway and go up the flight of stairs on the left.  This hotel is also unique in my experience in never having long waits for an elevator.  You have to walk a long way to get to them, but once you reach them, you never have to wait long.  This hotel also allows pets, so for the first time in quite a few years I got a room rather than commuting. Its actually more trouble, since its only a 10 minute commute for me, but its more fun.  When I commute, it doesnt really feel like Im attending.   And room rates for the con included the breakfast buffet, so it was easy for me to eat a big breakfast each day, knowing that I wouldnt manage to eat lunch (dinner on Friday and Sunday was the pizza we ordered for our volunteers, and Saturday Cheryl ran over to a nearby McDonalds and brought food back.  So breakfast was important as my only healthy meal each day).  Cheryl and her husband and son stayed at the hotel, too  her husband had refused to stay at the old hotel.  So her son, Alex, also spent time at the art show.

For the first MileHiCon in several years, we had no printer problems.  And the program book listed our hours correctly.  We did have our share of minor problems.  When we the cash register was unpacked a week from the show, the instructions were missing.  It takes three weeks to get new instructions and the sales tax rate was higher this year than last, so we went through the show using a calculator instead of the cash register.  We lost one artists registration  but we coped.  And the convention ran out of checks (not money), so Ill be sending personal checks to some of the artists and the convention will reimburse me. 

The auction was 67 pieces.  We only have two hours so were aiming for 70 pieces.  67 is pretty close; the auction ended about five minutes early.  The audience was smaller than usual and it was a bit sluggish.  Last year we sold 65 pieces for $3,851; this year with 67 pieces we only got $3,648, so the average price at auction dropped five dollars.  The average sale price for all pieces also dropped, by two dollars, but we sold more pieces.  The average Quick Sale was higher by two dollars, thanks to one $600 sale.  Single bid sales were two dollars lower, but sales to two written bids were up by $10.

Four artists sold everything they sent: Maryanne Campbell, Mary Hanson-Roberts, Thesea Mather, and Alain Viesca.  They all mailed in.  On the other hand, four of the top five selling artists brought their work. Artists who bring work are likely to bring more than artists who mail - one local artist sold 50 of the 53 pieces he entered (yes, he was one of our top sellers). 

Above, I mentioned that we left room for artist demos in the art show.  They seemed quite popular.  With our increased function space, we also devoted an entire track to art programming.

10/29/2003: Thank you for helping to make the 2003 MileHiCon Art Show a success.

     We had 61 artists displaying 917 pieces in the art show.  We sold $12,937 in the Art Show and $839 from the Print Shop.  15 pieces were NotForSale.  Of 902 pieces for sale, we sold 402, or 45%.  We set up 113 panels and 13 tables, which was quite a full room. 
     Usually, nearly half our artists mail in.  This year it was a clear majority, 36 of 63.  I think this is due to the Yahoo email group, SciFiFantasyHorrorSpace_ArtShows (see  http://www.scififantasyhorror spaceartshows.org/ ), which turned out in force for this show.

     This years show sold out in a huge clump.  We determine who gets space based on the postmark of their registration.  As of Sept. 9^th, we had about 20 panels left.  Letters postmarked the 10^th requested over 30 panels.  In an attempt avoid having to break the tie, we added eight extra panels.  It made the room more crowded (particularly along the back of the room, where the aisle was 1=  feet narrower than I prefer), but it worked.  Tables sold out at the same time, but more neatly.  On the 9^th we had four left, all of which were requested in letters posted the 10^th.

   The show had no major problems, but the usual share of minor ones.  The hotel set the room up wrong (we expect to have to fine tune table placement, but this time only 5 of 16 tables were even near the right place.  Three more would have been close had they been the right size).  And the tables all had black tablecloths and skirts.  I suppose the hotel thought it looked artistic.  It also makes the room dark, so we had them all changed.
   The room we use has great light during the day because the South and East walls of the room are entirely window from 3 = feet up to the 14 ceiling.  But once the sun goes down, the built-in room lighting is pathetic (it got much worse when they remodeled three years ago).  So we put up lots of 500 watt of quartz halogen lights, which we reflect off the ceiling, plus a few incandescent or fluorescent spot fills.  It made the lighting adequate.   During artist checkout, I was using a hand calculator which runs off a built-in solar cell.  When we shut our lights off, it stopped working  the hotels built-in lighting wasnt enough to run it (our lighting without the hotels would run it just fine, I think, but it didnt occur to me to try it until I wrote this.  Maybe next year, if were back at the same hotel). [note  were not. Yay!]

   The hotel made their usual gestures of ill will.  This year they told the art show we couldnt have food in the function space  the food in question was wrapped candy we hand out as bribes for voting for Peoples Choice (we ignored them).  And they said nobody was allowed to have soft drinks in the convention area, or even in the halls by the sleeping rooms.  Which is odd, since the hotel sells soft drinks there from vending machines and the gift shop.  They claim its a health department issue.  Its really because the con wont buy food or drinks from them.  This hotel has nicely arranged function space, but has been obnoxious to the point where many fans now refuse to stay there or buy food from them, and some are boycotting MileHiCon entirely until we change hotels.  The Denver Marriott Southeast has recently remodeled and added some extra function space and seems to want con business (Tacticon and Opus have moved there).  So were looking at moving if the Marriott is available on our dates.  Even if the art show space there isnt quite as nice, I think it would be a good move. We will see.

   We had less jewelry and more photography than last year.  Last year we had eight artists doing jewelry (out of 60 in the show); this year we had only three.   Last year we had two artists displaying photographs; this year we had four.   I think its random fluctuations rather than a trend, though.
   We had a slightly smaller auction this year: 64 pieces, down from 74 last year (were aiming for 70, since we only have two hours, so both are pretty close).  And the number of Quick Sale pieces was less than last year (19% vs. 23%).  And we had more pieces sell for minimum bid and sold a smaller percentage of pieces in the show (45% vs. 46%).  But we sold 25% more than last year.   In last years post-show letter, I speculated that sales were down because we had less art for sale  last year we set seven panels aside for charity auction pieces (this years charity auction was mostly books, and not art  we displayed them elsewhere).  And this year sales increased along with the amount of art for sale.  We had 17% more panels of art for sale and 14% more pieces for sale.  That  plus slightly improved sales per panel ($106 vs. $100) accounts for the difference.

   Around 4pm, as artists were still checking out, I ran a total of Art Show sales on the computer.  It showed over $14,000, well above our previous high of $12,165, and there was much rejoicing.  But as one of the artists checked out, we discovered that his sales on the computer were $1,188 higher than on the control sheet  someone had accidentally entered a $12 sale as $1200.  So we only sold $12,937. Still a record for us, but a bit anticlimactic after thinking we had broken $14,000.
   Five artists sold everything they sent: Maryanne Campbell, Margaret D. Carspecken, Mary Hanson-Roberts, NeNe Thomas, and Victory.  Notice that theyre all female, and all mailed in.  On the other hand, of the top four selling artists, two are male, and two mailed in.  Also of dubious import, most artists from the latter half of the alphabet mailed in (87% of names starting with M-Z), while few from the first half did (33% of names starting with A-L).  The three artists who sold the most were all within $41 of each other in sales, another artist had $141 in Art Show sales and exactly $141 in Print Shop sales as well, and 41% of sales were for minimum bid.  So 41 is clearly a significant number for us, if I could just figure out why.  This is MileHiCons 35th year - maybe this art show was six years in the future?
   After the show, it took us a longer to finish than it did last year.  We didnt finish until 9:30pm.  This was partly the extra mail-in art, and partly that most of our staff seemed to succumb to exhaustion around 5:30 pm, after which work proceeded slowly.

   Postage seemed higher again this year.  The lone exception was FedEx ground, which I think we will henceforth substitute for UPS as a standard option.

   Sad news.  For the last several years, Hal Clement (or perhaps George Richard, the name he used as an astronomical artist) has been one of our art show judges at MileHiCon.  On Sunday, he told me he was doing fine, except for being 81 years old.  He died less than three days later, early Wednesday morning, in his home in Massachusetts.  We will miss him.

October 23, 2002 - Thank you for helping to make the 2002 MileHiCon Art Show a success.

 We had either 53 or 58 artists displaying 849 pieces of art. We sold $10,368 in the Art Show and $860 from the Print Shop. 55 pieces were NotForSale. Of 794 pieces for sale, we sold 365, or 46%. We set up 104 panels and 13 tables, which filled the room comfortably. We did not have a masquerade display, which made us less crowded than last year. Almost half our artists mailed in this year  25, compared to 28 bringing art in person.

    This years show was about the same size as last year in artists, panels and tables. One major difference is that last year, every artist who reserved space sent or brought work. This year, we had 5 artists cancel (or fail to show) on 10 panels. Only one artist (for one panel) did so in advance  the others let us know between Thursday evening (as we were loading supplies into the hotel) and half way through Saturday. We managed to fill 7 panels off our waiting list, but were left with 3 empty panels. All the no-shows were local (or at least bringing rather than mailing art). It does explain why I said either 53 or 58 artists above  53 actually displayed and 5 were no-shows. The two artists who gave reasons cited a death in the family, and car problems.
    To make matters worse, two artists each used a panel less than they had paid for (each sent a hanging diagram which used one less panel, or wed have just spread their work out a bit). We also set two panels aside for re-sale art, but only two people submitted any. One was an artist who used it to fill her own panels, and one had 3-D art  so the re-sale art panels remained empty as well. We ended up with 5 empty panels.
    Our second artist Guest of Honor, Michael Hague, brought only signed copies of out-of-print posters to be donated to the literacy auction  we set aside 5 panels to display them. We also held a charity auction for the family of Ron Walotsky. We set aside (and filled) two panels to display that work. What it all comes out to is that we had only 92 panels dedicated to normal art show, compared to our usual 104. This probably lowered sales. 

    And sales were lower. Despite a higher attendance than last year, sales dropped slightly  and sales last year were already less than the year before. Its possible that this is from having less art on display, as mentioned above. It could be from general economic conditions. It could be because we didnt have as good a selection of artists as in the past (though I thought we did). It could be something were doing wrong in running the show, or the stifling heat (more about that later). I really dont know at this point. I plan to go back and compare sales to previous years to see if anything suggests itself. On the plus side, sales per panel (for those panels actually containing any) did rise back to a more normal figure, and most of the usual artists who displayed seemed to do fairly well. I still had hoped for a better sales total, though. 

    We had 8 artists displaying at least some jewelry, which is more than usual. At least two of our usual artists entered jewelry for the first time that I recall. We had 9 artists requesting both panels and tables, also more than usual. Six of the panel/table artists were among the 8 displaying jewelry. The extra jewelry also explains why  despite the empty panels  we had as many pieces in the show as last year. In addition to more jewelry, we also had more people working on the show. They were wonderful and, at least for me, made up for the hotel problems. 

    MileHiCon did have problems with the hotel. Theyre under new management (which seems to happen about every other year). The new management seems to be a stickler for rules, at least when the rules are in their favor. I wont relate all the incidents, but a few that seem relevant are: 
    They adopted a No Pets policy. They have every right to do so, but they handled it badly. So Sandy and I went home each night. We live within 10 miles of the hotel, so it was actually easier than staying at the hotel with the birds (which is like traveling with two-year-olds), but not as fun. It didnt greatly affect the convention or art show, though. 
    Thursday evening, a week before the con, we discovered that the hotel was remodeling their bar and restaurant, and had turned one of the function rooms into a lounge until it was done. Aside from annoying fans who like to hang out in the bar, it meant they couldnt provide us with the space they had promised. They didnt bother telling us about it, either. We called about it on the next morning and they asked if we could do without the room. When we met with the hotel on Monday, the conversation went something like:
        Hotel person 1: Could you do without the room?
        Us: Yes, but we expect concessions.
        Hotel person 2: Oh, we were planning on moving the lounge out of there and into the remaining portion of the restaurant anyway.
Call me suspicious, but I think they planned to stay there if we let them get away with it for free.

    Normally, Cheryl and I will provide food for our volunteers on Friday and Sunday (not just altruism  it keeps them from going out for food and not coming back). We had previously ordered a 3 foot sandwich from Subway for Friday afternoon. Around 2pm Cheryl picked up the sandwich, and we all took a break while we ate it. As we were finishing, MileHiCons hotel liaison came in, saw the sandwich remnants, and went ballistic. I was eating one of the two last pieces of sandwich at the time. She started yelling at me, and I just kept eating. I was tempted to offer her the last piece and say Im eating as fast as I can. Care to help?, but I forebore. The thought made me grin, though, which pissed her off nearly as much. In addition to being generally unpleasant, it caused us not to order pizza on Sunday, as we usually would at around 6:30pm. Instead, we all went out to Dennys after we were done at 8:30 (Dennys is a long block away from the hotel).
    And the art show had no air conditioning for most of the con. It was about 900 on Friday morning when we arrived. Turning the heat off dropped it to 800 for a while, until we opened the sunshades and turned our lights on, when it warmed back up. The lobby right outside was pleasantly cool, but our room was awful. Throughout the weekend, we kept calling to have the temperature reduced, and they kept sending people over, all of whom checked the thermostat and informed us that the AC wasnt working properly  which we already knew. Saturday afternoon one of their maintenance people at least provided a fan to blow cool lobby air into the room, which helped a bit. Halfway through Sunday the AC suddenly started working again. We dont know why  no one from the hotel came by to claim credit  but at least it made teardown more pleasant. 
    All things considered, the hotel didnt make any friends. Well probably be back next year, though  of all the hotels in the area, its by far the best suited to our convention. We can only hope that by next year theyll have new management again. 

    Back to the art show  or at least the process of getting there. MileHiCon stores its property in 3 places between conventions. Most of the art show stuff was at my house, most con suite stuff at the Van Cleaves (Suzanne is in charge of con suite), and registration stuff, miscellaneous stuff, and some art show and con suite stuff was at Linda Nelsons house (she's the con chair).
The pegboard, lighting, and miscellaneous art show supplies were all at my house, but the dimensional lumber (1x2 and 2x2 used for frames) was all at Linda's. Before the con, Cheryl helped me clean out my garage sufficiently to store it at my house, so it's all in one place now. It means we took all of it from Lindas shed, instead of just what we needed for the show, so it would all end up with me. Now its all in one place and only I can lose it. Which could be dangerous, but at least well know where to look for it. 
    On Friday, setup went smoothly except for being too hot. Our staff this year was great. We were ready for artist check-in at least an hour early, but most of the artists bringing in work didnt show up until the last minute. Shortly before opening we blew one of the hotel's circuit breakers when we plugged an artists lights into the same circuit as ours, but we got it fixed in time for opening (the hotel's 20 amp circuits only handle 15 amps). We still had about 3 artists hanging work when we opened at 7:30pm, and a couple more artists arrived after that. We also had a cancellation at about 4pm, another around 9pm, and managed to fill 3 more panels from our wait list, which exhausted it. Weve never had so many panels cancelled before, and I don't know why we did this time, but that night and Saturday morning we did fill another two panels with art from local artists at the convention.
    After problems for the last two years, we finally got all the art show times listed in the program book and pocket program to agree with us and each other. Friday evening was busy but uneventful while we were open (except for the heat). We got all the carry-in art entered into the computer fairly early. We closed about 11:30pm - or tried to, only to discover that the hotel couldnt lock the door to the art show room. In prior years they wrapped a bicycle lock around the door handles, but that apparently vanished with the old management. We had to send someone out to a 24-hour K-Mart and buy our own lock. 

    Saturday we opened in a room that was still hot. Sandy and I brought the birds, who spent the whole day in the art show, and were quite well behaved even when I ignored them. Our staff continued to be amazing. I actually had the free time to be on a panel with Cheryl, go on an art show tour, and look at the art. The down side to this is that I got carried away buying art (my house is too small for my art). Halfway through the day a hotel engineer brought us a small box fan. Using it to blow cool lobby air into the room made the room merely uncomfortable. I think we had more traffic than usual in the show for a Saturday, but I also suspect that people spent less time in the show than usual on account of the heat and made up for it by making more trips. The heat could even have reduced our sales. We did hear people saying they left because it was too hot. 

    Sunday morning we were open from 8:30 to 10:30. It was busy. And hot - did I mention that the air conditioning didn't work? Our staff was once again amazing - they sprang into action setting up tables to put auction pieces on and more tables for sales to written bids, pulling auction pieces, and then pulling sales to written bids. We had all the auction pieces recorded by 11:15, and put a list of them outside the door. We got all the written bid sales recorded in both the notebook and the computer by 12:30. If the program in the room next door ended at 12:50 as planned, we would set up the auction and be ready to start at 1:00. While we waited for them to finish, we moved the mail-in art boxes to the panels of their artists, and started packing. 
    On Sunday, the 2 pound division of the Critter Crunch was scheduled from 10am - noon, following which Courtney Willis had a one hour program. We were supposed to get the room at 1pm. What actually happened is that deck of the Critter Crunch platform got left behind and nobody noticed until about 9:30am Sunday. Someone then had to drive the truck out to pick it up. And after starting late, they had a lot more contestants than they expected. The hour with Courtney Willis was cancelled so they could run late. At 1:00 they were still running. I asked how much longer they had to go, and was informed that they were just starting finals. That sounded promising. And we could survive waiting a little. The 20 pound division of the Critter Crunch follows the art auction, so if we ran late, we would only delay the people who caused it. 
    The morning Critter Crunch ran until 2:30 in the afternoon. 
    Our original schedule called for us to run art pick up during the auction, with artist check-out after. That's partly because we want to pay artists as they check out (which we can't do until auction is over if they have pieces in the auction) and partly because we record sales in the notebook while the auction is running, and also need it for artist checkout. We started letting buyers pick up their art at 1:00 as usual, but around 1:30 we started checking out artists as well, since it was becoming apparent that auction would be quite late. I was again impressed by our staff; despite having little to do, only one of our auction staff left during the hour and a half we waited for the auction room to empty. 
    We got the room at 2:30, and started the auction at 2:40. The auction proceeded well. We mixed the Walotsky charity pieces (of which we had 10, raising $252) in with the regular auction, announcing them as they came up. Since I like to have about 70 pieces to fill our two hour slot, 69 regular auction pieces was about perfect. We finished auction at 4:40  the scheduled two hours after we started, and resumed artist check out. As you might expect, artist check-out ran a bit late, since it resumed so late, but we finished paying attending artists by 5:45. The air conditioning apparently started working again sometime during the auction; the room was comfortable afterwards.
    Breakdown ran smoothly despite starting late, as most of the people who tear the panels down also participate in or watch the Critter Crunch. We were all packed and ready to leave by 8:30. If not for Critter Crunch running late, I think we'd have been done by 7:30, which would have been a record. Our staff was simply awesome this year.

    We had a lot of problems with mail this year.... the letter one artist sent us which accumulated 3 postmarks from 3 different states before being returned to them. We also had several artists not receive control sheets and bid sheets we sent. Three of them were from the same batch - the first one I sent, though the other 4 in the batch went through OK. We also had two not show up later.  Even UPS got into the act. We return ship all artwork the day after the convention. A couple days later, one box (Allison Stein's) arrived at Cheryl's house. They had shipped it to the return address.

    Speaking of boxes, we inherited a lot of them. Mary Hanson-Roberts, Bryan Jones, Theresa Mather, Nene, Ruth Thompson, and L.A. Williams sold everything they sent, so we ended up with their boxes. We lost one, though. We could not find the Garner's box to return their unsold work in. We sent their work in another box and paid for their postage. ... I'm running out of room here. This letter was up to 8 pages before trimming, even without mentioning the plastic pegboard, the weather, that Best of Show went to a monochrome piece or anything about the artwork itself, the demise of the giant tape, etc.). 

October 31, 2001 - Thank you for helping to make the 2001 MileHiCon Art Show a success. 

            We had 57 artists - exactly the same as last year - displaying 865 pieces of art.  We sold $10,871 in the Art Show and $998 from the Print Shop.  39 pieces were NotForSale.  Of 826 pieces for sale, we sold 376, or 46%.
            We set up 104 panels and 14 tables, which filled the room comfortably.  We also set up a 4 panel bay for a masquerade display, which crowded the Print Shop considerably.

            It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: Sales.  Almost all our sales statistics improved over last year.  We had more buyers.  Sales were more evenly distributed among buyers and artists.  We had more Quick Sales, more auction pieces, and fewer sales for minimum bid.  Everything was better except total sales, which were down.  This may have been an effect of Sept. 11  convention membership was down by at least 100 people (out of our usual 800), despite normal pre-registration.  You could see the difference at the Masquerade, which is normally standing room only but this year had seats remaining.  Convention attendance was down about 12.5% from last year.  Art Show sales were down 10.6%.
            The show this year was about the same size as last year in artists, panels and tables, but contained more  pieces  last year had fewer than usual.  We missed several artists who usually display at MileHiCon (e.g., Ruth Thompson,. Robert Daniels Jr., Ellisa Mitchell, A. B. Word).  Three artists cancelled their space in advance, which was perplexing because one of them had not reserved any.  No artists with space reserved failed to send or bring work  unlike last year.  We had 4 artists displaying jewelry, which is more than usual.  Horrific art sales seemed a little stronger than usual.  Media related sales were down, except for humorous pieces.

            It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: Times.  Everything ran on schedule this year.  But what schedule?
            This year, the Program Book listed us as being open from 9am  11am.  In the Art Show, we didnt notice the Program Book was wrong until we opened on Sunday.  The pocket program said 10:30, which is also what wed been telling people in the Art Show.  So we had to decide whether to close at 10:30 or 11:00.  Staying open later would upset people who thought their bids were final at 10:30, but at least wed have a chance to notify them of the change.  On that count wed rather stay open the extra half hour.  But if we did, wed have to delay the auction or not pay artists as they checked out.
            We discarded not paying artists at check-out.  And the auction was too large for us to make up the time if we started late, and the Critter Crunch (which is probably the most popular event at MileHiCon) uses the auction room as soon as we finish.  We couldnt find the Critter Crunch people to negotiate a delay (Mad Scientists sleep late), so we decided to close at 10:30.  We posted signs saying Art Show Closes at 10:30  (not 11:00 as the Program Book says) in and in front of the Art Show, in the hotel lobby, by the elevators and at the Con Suite, but a lot of people didnt see them in time.  It was bad, but it seemed the least bad of our options.  We apologize, and promise to watch the Program Book more closely next year.

            We allowed some resale art in the show.  We set aside one panel for resale art.  This is controversial.  Some artists feel it takes money away from them (by competing for sales) and encourages counterfeiting.  On the other hand, we dont allow anything to be resold which is available in the show, and require a provenance for the art.  And we think establishing a resale market would increase prices for new art.  For several years weve planned to do a few panels of resale art if we didnt fill the show.  But we always fill the show  so this year we actually set a panel aside ahead of time.  But one panel doesnt exactly establish a market.  We sold $82 of used art.

            The room for the Art Show  still has great windows and dismal lighting.  Rumor is that the hotel deliberately cut down on the amount of light when they remodeled, to save money on electricity. The light was OK after adding 6,000 watts of quartz halogen lights.  And the doors to the room still dont lock.  The room has three doors.  The hotel uses a bicycle chain to close the main door, and tells us the other two dont lock.  The one that leads to their storage area we wired shut, and we used our home-made door lock for the door between function rooms.

            Checkout was smooth.  We paid most of the attending artists as they checked out.  We were out of the room at 8:40pm.  After my last delivery to our secure storage room, it was 8:44.  The hotels hot tub is supposed to close at 9:00pm.  I rushed to my room and down to the hot tub, where I joined several other fans.  They didnt close the hot tub until 10:30, Im told, so I didnt need to have hurried.  And Sandy says I should credit her for inspiring us to go to the hot tub, so I am.
            Monday we had breakfast, checked out of our hotel room, loaded the truck, unloaded the Art Show stuff at my house, checked the paper Control Sheets against the computer records, calculated insurance amounts, and returned the mail-in art to UPS, USPS, and Fed Ex.  Tuesday I slept.

October 26, 2000 - Thank you for helping to make the 2000 MileHiCon Art Show a success. 

            We sold $12,165 in the Art Show and $1,186 from the Print Shop.  There were 57 artists displaying 778 pieces of art in the Art Show.  11 pieces were NotForSale, a few less than usual.  Of 767 pieces for sale, we sold 312, or 41%.
            We set up 104 panels and 13 tables, which fills the room comfortably.

            We had typical fall weather for the convention.  This is unusual  last year was clear and sunny, with highs from 70-80 degrees.  In 1997 we had the great blizzard where we received over two feet of snow.

             Thursday evening we moved all the Art Show supplies into the hotel.  It was dismal.  None of the volunteers we expected showed up, for various reasons.  Friday morning setup started at 8:30am.   The first volunteers actually arrived at 7:30am.  The panels were all up before noon, and setup ran smoothly.   We opened on time.
            We discovered that the hotel had redecorated the room.  New carpet, new light fixtures, new doors.  The new carpet received uncomplimentary remarks during setup (it wasnt so visible once the show was up).  The new light fixtures are fancier than the old ones, but put out less light - quite a bit less light.  With the addition of our supplemental lighting, it was OK.  And the new doors had no locks.  We want the Art Show to be locked when closed. The old doors had locks  it never occurred to us to ask if they were going to redecorate and remove them.  We ended up using bicycle locks to chain the doors shut.  Not elegant, but it works.

            The show this year contained fewer (and larger) pieces.  We had only 778 pieces, down from 918 last year.  We also had a lot of no-shows.  We had two in-person and 3 mail-in artists not bring or send art.  We filled all but one of the empty panels, though.

             Above, I mentioned starting on time.  But the program book also claimed we were open from 10am-5pm on Sunday, which was a major problem.  We were actually scheduled to be open from 8:30am to 10:30am, then closed from 10:30 to 12:30 to prepare for auction.  The auction was to start at 12:30, and we would be open from then until 5:00 for art pick-up and artist check-out.   People showed up at 11:30 wanting to get into the Art Show, and were disgruntled when we said we were closed. 
            The program book said the Art Auction was at 1:00pm Sunday, in the middle of the 10-5 it claimed we were open.  Were good  you can pick up the artwork you just bought at the auction, plus the pieces you got by written bid, while the auction is still going on  but we still have to close to get ready for auction and packing up. All the art has to be picked up - by both buyers and artists - before 5:00pm, so we can disassemble everything and pack it into the truck and get out of the room Sunday.  In case you cant guess, I am not happy with the program book people.

            Sales this year were soft, despite setting a record.  The good news is that we broke our record for the most expensive piece wed ever sold.  The bad news is that the most expensive piece wed ever sold barely put us over last years sales.
            Until this year, the most expensive piece wed ever sold was for $900.  This year we sold a $2,500 piece.  This is a good thing, in and of itself.  However, without it, wed have been back down around $10,000 in sales instead of $12,000.  And the percentage of pieces sold slipped a little from last year, as well  from 43% down to 41%.  The average price per piece was up considerably, to $39, but without the one large sale it was about the same as last year (which was $32).   And the number of individual buyers at the Art Show dropped from 155 last year to 119 this year, which I find worrisome.
            Quick Sales continued strong.  24% of all pieces went via Quick Sale (down from last years 31%, our record).  19% went to auction (up from last years 15%), and 38% went for minimum bid (about the same as last year).  The remaining 19% went for written bids over the minimum.
            So I dont know what to make of this years sales.  Going into the show, I wasnt sure MileHiCon was big enough to sustain sales at the $12,000 level we reached last year.  Coming out of the show, Im still not sure.

            Checkout was smooth.  We never built up much of a line for people picking up art, or for artists checking out. We paid most of the attending artists as they checked out.  Most of the attending artists were checked out and purchased art picked up by 4:30pm.  We had the mail-in art checked out by 5:00pm, and got all the panels down by 5:30.  We bundled and loaded all the lumber for the panels, and packed all the mail-in art and the Art Show supplies.  We were out of the room around 8:30pm, which is good.  All the flats and Art Show supplies were in the truck, all the art to be returned was in our hotel room, and we started checking the paper Control Sheets against the computer records.
            Monday we slept in late, finished checking the paper Control Sheets against the computer records, calculated insurance amounts, checked out of our hotel room, and returned the mail-in art.  Tuesday I slept for 15 hours.  

October 26, 1999 -  Thank you for helping to make the 1999 MileHiCon Art Show a success.  Your art was mailed back Monday, October 25th.  If you have not received it, please let us know (phone 303-936-4092).  Your check should be in the envelope with this letter.

            The excitement here wasnt actually at the Art Show, but with Cheryl being pregnant.  She was due around Christmas, but that isnt quite how it worked out.

• Thursday, Oct. 7: Cheryl comes down with something flu-like.

• Saturday, Oct. 9: Cheryl is hospitalized for premature labor.  The 3^rd medicine tried finally halts labor.

• Monday, Oct. 11: Cheryl is released from hospital.  She is sentenced to bed rest for at least two months, and is given a huge bottle of pills to keep her from going into labor.  I have to run this show without her.

• Tuesday, Oct 12: Cheryl goes back into labor.  Alexander Jarl Erik Sundseth was born at 8:35pm.  He only weighed 3 pounds, 2 ounces (which is why they hoped to wait another two months), but seems to be OK.  Cheryl is OK, too, but is spending most of her time at the hospital with Alexander.  She did manage to drop by the Art Show for a couple hours Friday and Saturday evenings.

             We sold $12,022 in the Art Show, a new record for us.  Our previous high was only $10,481 (during the 97 blizzard  last year was less, but still over $10K), so this was quite an improvement.  We also sold $889 from the Print Shop.  There were 59 artists displaying 918 pieces of art in the Art Show.  46 pieces were NotForSale, a few more than usual.  Of 869 pieces for sale, we sold 376, or 43%.
            We had originally planned 104 panels and 13 tables.  Cheryl was hospitalized about the time we filled the show.  I took over dealing with artists, but letters piled up at her house while she was in the hospital.  We oversold the show so we had to put up extra panels.  We finally put up 111 panels.

            Friday morning setup started at 9:00am.  The panels were all up before noon, and everything looked normal. But usually Cheryl would check in the mail-in art as it arrived.  Then she would fax the control sheets to me, and Id enter them in the database.  This year she checked in some of the artwork but hadnt faxed anything to me, so we had to enter the entire show into the database starting Friday afternoon.  My thanks to Rex Baker and Robert Pechman for heroic work on the keyboard.  We finished entering the last of the show by noon on Saturday.

            In Cheryls absence we just didn't get to some things.  All were minor, though.  The How to Buy Art signs never got put up.  The same information is also on a brochure/hand-out, which we couldnt find  until Saturday morning.  The alphabet tabs never got put in the Art Control notebook.  Our supplies were not as well organized as they could have been. And we opened a half hour late, at 7:30pm.  There were quite a few people waiting impatiently at our doors by this time.  Its good that they wanted in, although bad that they had to wait.

            The Art Show had a lot of Quick Sales Friday night.  I finally shut the show around 11pm.  We continued to have a lot of Quick Sales on Saturday.   We set a record for Quick Sales this show, and had a smaller auction.  This is a Good Thing.  We cant handle too big an auction, but the only limit to Quick Sales is the number of pieces available.  We sold 116 pieces Quick Sale.  That was 31% of all pieces sold.  I hope this trend continues.  Quick Sales are good prices, and keep the auction from growing too long.
            Saturday is usually a bit calmer than Friday or Sunday (dont need to put the show up or take it down), and this year was no exception.  Thanks to Robert Daniels, Bill Bass, W.J. Hodgson, and David Martin for doing a piece for the charity auction (after the masquerade on Saturday).  We closed the show around 10pm Saturday.  MileHiCon wasnt even on the time change weekend this year, so we didnt have the extra hour for sleep (oh, the good old days when I was younger and that was an extra hour for partying).
            Sunday the printer for our computer died, so we couldnt print receipts for people picking up artwork they bought (they do get the yellow copy of the bid sheet, though) or print control sheet summaries for artists checking their work out.  This was a nuisance but not a show-stopper.  We had scheduled the auction for 12:30, but didnt actually start it until 1:00, because the Critter Crunch, which follows the auction, asked us to delay a little bit.  The person running the Crunch was off having an injured ankle X-rayed, and wouldnt be back quite on time.  No problem for us to accommodate that request.  It was a small auction of only 56 pieces  the effect of all those Quick Sales.  I generally want about 70 pieces to fit our time slot.  Fifty-six fit nicely with starting late.  Id like to thank Michael Burgess and Robert Daniels, Jr., for their skillful auctioneering.

            Checkout was frantic as usual.  We paid most of the attending artists as they checked out.  Most of the attending artists were checked out and purchased art picked up by 4:30pm.  We had the mail-in art checked out by 5:30pm, and got all the panels down about the same time.  Then we bundled and loaded all the lumber for the panels, and packed all the mail-in art and the Art Show supplies.  We were out of the room around 9pm.  All the flats and Art Show supplies were in the truck, all the art to be returned was in the closet of my hotel room (its amazing how many large boxes will fit in a closet if you dont put anything else in it), and I even got to attend the post-con party  not that there was much of one.