Memberships
Memberships are no longer available for purchase on-line.
$40 Three-Day and $20 Single-Day Memberships will be available to purchase at the Registration Area above 14th Street & Wyandotte starting at 12 Noon on Friday, May 18th.
Spectrum Fantastic Art Live!
Featuring 200 art exhibitors, panel discussions, lectures, live painting demonstrations, and portfolio reviews by renowned art directors from the world's leading creative companies, this is the art event for everyone-artists, students, collectors, and fans-who love fantastic art in all its incarnations. Join us in celebrating the people responsible for adding color to our sense of wonder!
It’s time for the creators of fantastic art to have an event they can call their own. It’s time to step away from the periphery of the comics, SF and media-focused “pop-culture”, conventions; it’s time to reinforce the excitement, influence, and value of fantastic art to the public via a first-class venue; it’s time to gather for educational opportunities, for networking opportunities, for social opportunities, and for sales opportunities in a centrally situated, cost-effective location. It’s time we try to grow the market, not shrink it. It’s time for a fantastic art convergence.
LOCATION
Bartle Hall Grand Ballroom
301 West 13th Street, Kansas City, MO 64105
(facing the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts)
[ map ] [ visitkc ]
The Registration Area for Exhibitors and Attendees is located
above the corner of 14th Street & Wyandotte.
Three-Day Memberships are $40
Single-Day Memberships are $20
and can be purchased on-site at the Registration Area
above 14th Street & Wyandotte
SHOW HOURS
Friday, May 18th 3:00pm – 7:00pm
Exhibitor Check-In & Badge Pick-Up begins at 8:00am.
Following Check-In, Exhibitors may enter the hall to set up their booths. Badges will be necessary to access the Exhibit Hall prior to opening. Exhibitors will have access to the hall one hour before opening (9:00am) on Saturday & Sunday.
Pre-Paid Membership Pick-Up and On-Site Registration opens at 12:00 Noon.
Membership holders will not have access to the Exhibit Hall until the doors open to the public at 3:00pm. Three-Day badges or Single-Day wristbands will be required for entrance to either the Exhibit Hall or Program Rooms.
Opening Night Party starts on the South Lawn of the Convention Center at 8:00pm.
Sketch Session @ the Aladdin Hotel (sponsored by The Art Department) starts at 10:00pm.
Saturday, May 19th 10:00am – 6:30pm
Exhibitor Access to the Hall opens at 9:00am.
Only Exhibitor badge holders will have access to the Exhibit Hall one hour in advance of the doors opening to the public.
Spectrum Awards Show at the Midland Theater: 8:00pm – 11:00pm.
Seating at the Spectrum Awards Show is limited and only available to those with an Exhibitor badge or Three-Day Membership.
Sunday, May 20th 10:00am – 4:00pm
Exhibitor Access to the Hall opens at 9:00am.
Only Exhibitor badge holders will have access to the Exhibit Hall one hour in advance of the doors opening to the public.
EXHIBIT HALL
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Biographies of the Exhibitors and samples of their artwork can be found on our Exhibitors page.
PROGRAMMING
See the latest schedule for panels, lectures, and presentations on our Programming page.
PARKING
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You can also download a [ pdf ] version of this document from the KC Conventions website.
HOTELS
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The Aladdin, Crowne Plaza, President, Downtown Marriott, and Phillips
Hotels are fully booked for the weekend of Spectrum Fantastic Art Live!
There are still a number of hotels within a 5-minute cab or bus ride away from the Convention Center. Both the Westin Crown Center and the Sheraton Crown Center have rooms available.
TRAVEL
AIRPORT INFORMATION
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GROUND TRANSPORTATION
Getting To and From the Airport:
There are a number of ways to reach your hotel from the airport. Taxis, rental cars, and shuttles are all available to attendees. Please see the graphic above for details about each – the best deal is the SuperShuttle service which services the downtown hotels and sells a round-trip ticket for $30. You can reserve a trip in advance of your arrival through their website.
Getting To the Convention Center:
The Aladdin, Crowne Plaza, President, Downtown Marriott, and Phillips Hotels are all within walking distance of Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! and its after-hours events.
For those staying farther away, many of the downtown hotels have taxi stands or for $1.50 each way you can ride the rapid-transit MAX service. Use the MAX Trip Planner to see if there are stops near your hotel.
DINING
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The Convention Center is within two blocks west of Kansas City's Power & Light District which houses a number of restaurants and bars that are open well into the night. The resurgence in the Crossroads District to the south has managed to bring a variety of culinary styles downtown within walking distance as well. The map above lists some of our favorites, and only begins to scratch the surface of dining in the area.
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Goin' to Kansas City
Why Kansas City? The real question might be: why not? After all, you’d be hard-pressed to come up with a more central location than the heartland of the country. The KC Metropolitan Area has a population of over two million with approximately fifty million people within relatively short driving distance.
The city itself is a mixture of the old and the new, thanks in no small part to the energetic Freight House Arts District and a revitalized downtown. The annual Brookside and Plaza art fairs draw tens of thousands of visitors who happily buy all manner of paintings and sculptures; the Nelson Atkins Museum and the Kemper Museum are internationally renowned for their collections. The Kansas City Art Institute, the University of Missouri, the University of Kansas, and scores of other area colleges foster an enthusiasm for all things fantastic. For a population this significant, the area is under-serviced when it comes to shows that cater to the aficionados of the fantastic — a void that our show will fill!
The Hall
Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! will take place in the Grand Ballroom of the city’s Bartle Hall Convention Center: 45,000 square feet of beautifully designed, fully carpeted exhibit space, room for over 200 10’x10’ booths. Bartle Hall is one of the very few cart-and-carry major convention centers in the country, allowing exhibitors to bring their own material through the doors without additional charge (though Union staff will also be available for shipping and delivery of goods, just as they are in San Diego or New York). Other function space in the center will be utilized for panels, displays, and presentations during the event. Perhaps the nicest aspect of using the convention center is that everything is walkable: hotels, restaurants, bars, theaters and parking are all close by, eliminating the need for taxies, shuttles, or buses.
It will be affordable. The visit to Kansas City will not elicit sticker shock: the cost of exhibit space will be reasonable and the price of a hotel room will be modest. Meals can be as cheap as Burger King or Planet Sub, or as upscale as The Bristol or 801 Chophouse.
But perhaps the most unique aspect of Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! will be its focus. It won’t be a comics convention or a science fiction con or a movie/TV convention or a gaming convention or a hotel/motel art sale or a flea market. Comic artists and SF artists and movie concept artists, artists of all stripes and sensibilities—as well as a percentage of art-specialist publishers, print retailers, and original art dealers will be welcomed and afforded the chance to sell their work, meet fans, an expand an appreciation for our field.
We will advertise. We will promote. We will make sure that Spectrum Live Fantastic Art! is not a secret. We’ve all talked about something like this through the years. We’ve all wanted a chance to put our best foot forward and show everyone just how wonderful and expansive and exciting the fantastic arts and artists are. We’ve talked about doing it with style and class; we’ve talked about doing it with respect; we’ve talked about doing it right. You can only make a good first impression once—and we intend to make Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! a memorable event. For everyone. Because...
It’s time!
