Open voting for all ArtPrize entries in "Round One" ends Saturday

Round 1 voting for ArtPrize 2014 ends on Saturday, October 4 at 11:59 p.m.

If visitors want to see their favorites in the Final 20, now’s the time to vote, as there are only two days left in the competition. “The margin of votes between a public vote finalist, and those finishing 6th, 7th or 8th, is not in the thousands, or even the hundreds. In some cases the margin is so slim, a small dinner party could change it. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!” says Todd Herring, Director of Marketing and Communications for ArtPrize.

Visitors can register to vote while they are within the ArtPrize boundaries with their smartphones or at any number of ArtPrize voting locations. Once registered downtown, voting can be done via text message to 808080, on the ArtPrize app or on the ArtPrize website.

A video walk-through of using the ArtPrize app to register and vote can be found here.

The new voting structure uses the same categories for both the public and juried vote, enabling easy comparisons between visitors and the juror’s picks.

Compared to this time last year, voting is up.

“We crossed the 200,000 vote mark one day earlier than last year. Percentage wise, that’s about a 5% increase,” says Herring.

In past years, last-minute voting has come upon a crowded experience, slowing down voting as servers are overwhelmed with traffic. Though servers have been boosted to handle the high traffic expected, Herring encourages earlier voting for another reason.

“Voting changes the way you visit ArtPrize in a positive and meaningful way,” he says. “Most non-voters are shocked to find out that the act of casting even one vote had a great impact on their desire and ability to consider the work of the artists.“

Visit the ArtPrize website to see the current Top 25 lists in each category for the public’s votes and the jury’s shortlist for the juried awards.