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.Spectrum Fantastic Art Live!
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Advance three-day memberships are NOW AVAILABLE to purchase! Click on the 'attendees' button above to buy yours today!
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.
What is it?
Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! is a natural extension of the eighteen-year success of the award-winning Spectrum art annual. As an international melting pot of talent, Spectrum: The Best In Contemporary Fantastic Art has come to symbolize the vibrancy, diversity, and overall excellence of the creative community. The popularity of the books has steadily increased over the years, and Spectrum exhibits at the Museum of American Illustration in New York City in 2005 and 2009 shattered attendance records, leaving artists and the public clamoring for more. Spectrum Fantastic Art Live!, in collaboration with Bob Self and Baby Tattoo Books, is an answer to that call.
We envision Spectrum Fantastic Art Live! as a fantasy-focused art fair, one in which creators will be able to sell originals and prints while promoting their work to patrons, collectors, and potential clients. Presentations, panels and displays will help broaden the public’s awareness of and appreciation for our field; art directors will be invited to meet new talent and conduct portfolio reviews; workshops and educational opportunities will be offered; and there will be the chance to network, socialize, and share.
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.
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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!
