Miscellaneous MileHiCon Art Show Information: 1999-2005

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1999   GoH: Robert Daniels Jr.
Other artists displaying: Jim Bainbridge, Steve Barkus, Brett F. Bass, Dana Bell, Mitchell Davidson Bentley, Beth Blackburn, Denise Boie, Craig Caldwell, Margaret Carspecken, Alan M. Clark, Stephen M Clark, Shirley M. Fine, Weston Firerunner, David Forby, Dan Frazier, John A. Garner, Michael Georges, Alan Gutierrez, Brad & Dana Guy, William Hodgson, Mary Hanson-Roberts, Lew Hartman, James Humble, Scott Keegan, Mike Kimble, Mark K. Krabbenhoft, Jane Labie, KC Lancaster, Deborah Larson, Rebecca E. Lee, Victoria & Julius Lisi, David Martin, Lubov, Theresa Mather, Robert McNabb, Ellisa Mitchell, Monte Moore, Betsy M. Mott, Julia C. Nosal, Valerie Oswald, Patricia Pierce-Phillips, Eric Ren, Felicia Rouillard, Keith Russell, Anabel K. Sabo, Sandra SanTara, Denise Satter, Alisia Silliman, Teri Stearns, Pat Thielen, Nene Tina Thomas, James Wappel, Jeff Ward, L. A. Williams, Leonald Allen Wiens Jr., Raelinda Woad, Bill Womack,  and Dale D. Ziemianski.

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 didnt see much of the convention outside the art show.  Im told it went well, that people seemed to enjoy it, and that we have a much improved new Critter Crunch champion.

Thank you again.  We couldn't do this without you.

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. 

Thank you again.  We couldn't do this without you.

10/29/2003: Thank you for helping to make the 2003 MileHiCon Art Show a success.  Your art was mailed back Monday, October 27.  If you have not received it, please let us know (phone 303-936-4092, or email bruce.miller@dot.state.co.us).  Your check should be in the envelope with this letter.

     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 35^th 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. Your art was mailed back Monday, October 21. If you have not received it, please let us know (phone 303-936-4092). Your check should be in the envelope with this letter. 

    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 wed 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 (shes the con chair). For the first time ever, we got the truck early on Thursday and loaded up all the con suite stuff first, before loading from Lindas and then my house (Im last because Im nearer the hotel and art show stuff comes off first). We got done earlier than usual on Thursday evening, which was good, as it gave me a chance to hear that an artist had cancelled, verify it, and call two wait-listed artists to notify them that they had space. 
    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 Lindas. Before the con, Cheryl helped me clean out my garage sufficiently to store it at my house, so its 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 hotels circuit breakers when we plugged an artists lights into the same circuit as ours, but we got it fixed in time for opening (the hotels 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 dont 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 didnt 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. Thats partly because we want to pay artists as they check out (which we cant 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. We could have started sooner, but our auctioneer, the admirable Michael Burgess, who didnt know Critter Crunch was about to end, had gone up to the con suite for something to drink. As soon as he returned, we started. 
    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 wed have been done by 7:30, which would have been a record. Our staff was simply awesome this year. We all went out to Dennys afterwards, rather than Cheryl and I ordering in pizza. 

    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 Steins) arrived at Cheryls 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 Garners box to return their unsold work in. The staff says that this happened last year, too, and insists I relate their theory that the Garners send an agent to MileHiCon each year to abduct their box. I think thats silly  disappearing ink would be much simpler  but do have a theory as to what happened and how to prevent it next year (assuming they dont get fed up with us losing their boxes). For this year, we sent their work in another box and paid for their postage. ... Im running out of room here. This letter was up to 8 pages before trimming, even without mentioning the plastic pegboard, the weather, the all the time in the world incident, 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.  Your art was mailed back Monday, October 29th.  If you have not received it, please let us know (phone 303-936-4092).  Your check should be in the envelope with this letter.

            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.  Your art was mailed back Monday, October 23^rd.  If you have not received it, please let us know (phone 303-936-4092).  Your check should be in the envelope with this letter.

            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 didnt 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.