I've notices from other artists that I follow, that it seems to a trend that the 'organizers' only select those who they like, and others are left out.

Exactly that.

Plus the hotel rates are around $200 per night. Hope to win the state lotto someday.

I stay outside of Pittsburgh on the outskirts. On the weekend it's a 10-minute drive and a LOT cheaper!

Good strategy. Helps to have GPS too.

It's like a High School clique. They decide who gets to play and who sits on the sidelines.

I agree with you,as one of those who were declined for anthrocon this year.Thing is it isn't just artists that are being biased against,it is us book dealers that have been shut out this year also.people like us that sell your books have also been declined tables.I do hope people bring your books to be signed because there won't be any book dealers there to sell them.

I got frozen out by some similar selection process as early as 2000 or 2001. It might have been a random thing, but I could not help but notice that I have no relationship with any of the organizers, and in fact hardly knew who any were. But it wasn't only losing my table after several years, the orgaqnizers would not tell anyone if you could buy a table until only a couple of months ahead of the con, making it hard to find fares, reserve a room or make arrangements of any kind. Finally, you simply couldn't be sure whether 20% of one's expected income that year had vanished down a lottery hole. It is not possible to conduct business that way. To be honest, with so many artists from all walks of life flooding into furry fandom for the chance of making a buck, I wasn't increasingly concerted that *this* year was the first in which I might lose money. That was when I decided to cut the expense of travel out of the equation, and made up the lost revenue from commissions and mail order sales... however, I never realized how important impulse sales were, or how the occasion itself was what people came to cons for, and the excuse to spend money they had saved up for the con. I quickly found that if I wasn't a fixture at furry cons, I was more or less out of business entirely . In the long run, all that my retirement check was what saved my bacon.

We're sorry that you have an issue with curation, which we have begun for 2019. We feel that despite the complications, it is a necessity at this point We have curated with an eye towards a range of Dealers old and new and of multiple genres and balances of Dealer genre. We feel that our staff has done a good job at this curation, and while no selection can be completely free of bias, we feel the end result is a quality Dealers Room for our Dealers and attendees.

We wrote an explanatory post at https://www.anthrocon.org/news/2018.....ng-to-curation explaining our motivations and process.

I will also note that of the largest ten furry conventions, eight use a curated model; this includes the largest four.

But (to the best of my knowledge) the largest-of-the-large, San Diego Comic Con, does not.

They're rather a different market, but according to their application at https://www.comic-con.org/sites/def....._exhapp_v1.pdf : Small Press Tables are "Selected by jury, not all applicants will be accepted." They also start at $600 for a 6-foot-table.
There are other, more expensive table types, but their method of selection is not listed. Unless it's in the page of fine print on that PDF.

I'm wondering when they will actually get rid of Kage as CEO. This new generation of the AC staff already got rid of the usual Masquerade to replace it with a show that not everyone can be a part of and replaced 2 with another dance contest.

I am used to being rejected for dealer tables these days with the same generic "please work on improving your art skills and products' rejection letter sent out to anyone. I used to ve at FC, BLFC, Rainfurrest, etc, but each has since turned their back to myself and many veteran professional dealers. I sell 1000+ laminated badges at large cons, so the demand is there, but the organizers would rather have more fursuit dealers or artists focusing on the particular interests of the organizers.

And that is their right to do so.

Times change and we have to adapt. People don't want fanzines, comics, or prints. They want custom badges, fursuits, and shiny bondage things.

I can foresee myself not attending any furry cons as a dealer within five years. That would be sad, but not unexpected. At which point I will only stream art and do online commissions.

I have a table at AC, but that is all I have for this year currently.

The Art Show is always an option for any artist attending Anthrocon. https://www.anthrocon.org/artshow