People often talk about opportunities in the art world as though they’re simply there for the taking.
Enter the competition, submit the work, get seen.
But more and more, those opportunities come with a cost.
Over the past few years, I’ve noticed a steady rise in pay-to-enter art competitions — open calls that require a fee just to submit your work. Some are small, some are well-known, and most promise exposure, opportunity, or the possibility of something more.
For a long time, I avoided them completely — not out of ignorance, but out of instinct.
Why I’ve Always Avoided Pay-to-Enter Art Competitions
There were two main reasons.
The first was simple: I didn’t think you should have to pay to enter a competition. Something about it never quite sat right. It felt less like an opportunity and more like a system where the organisers were guaranteed to benefit, regardless of the outcome for the artist.
The second reason was more practical. Early on, when you’re not consistently selling work, every cost matters. Entry fees might seem small on their own, but they add up quickly, and spending money without any clear return didn’t feel like a sensible decision.
So I stayed away from them, and for a while, that felt like the right choice.
A Conversation That Stayed With Me
A conversation I had recently made me question that position.
I was speaking to another artist and, as these conversations often go, we ended up talking about how things were going. She mentioned that she’d been entering a number of art competitions — paying the entry fees, submitting the work — and getting nowhere with it.
It was starting to wear thin, not just creatively but financially as well.
If anything, it reinforced my thinking. It felt like confirmation that I’d been right to avoid them. But at the same time, it raised a different question.
Because if you don’t enter at all, you’re left with a different kind of certainty — a 100% chance that nothing comes from it.
Not All Opportunities Are the Same
This isn’t a new line of thought for me.
I’ve written before about the blurred line between opportunity and exploitation in the art world, particularly when it comes to galleries that charge artists to exhibit their work. In many cases, the question isn’t simply whether something is right or wrong, but where it sits on a much wider spectrum.
(You can read more on that here: Vanity Galleries: Exposure, Exploitation or Something In Between?)
Pay-to-enter competitions feel like they exist in a similar space. They’re not the same as vanity galleries, but they raise some of the same questions.
Who really benefits? What is actually being offered? And is the cost justified?
The reality is, not all competitions are equal. Some are little more than volume-driven systems — collect enough entry fees and the model works regardless of outcome. Others are different. They have a recognised name behind them, a credible judging panel, or a genuine exhibition opportunity that places your work in front of a wider audience.
And that difference matters.
Reframing the Cost
For a long time, I saw entry fees as exactly that — a cost. Money spent for the chance of something happening.
But there’s another way of looking at it.
Not as paying to enter, but as investing in visibility.
As artists, we already spend money in other areas without questioning it in the same way — materials, studio space, website development, even advertising. All of it is part of putting the work into the world.
A carefully chosen competition isn’t necessarily that different.
The key word there being carefully.
The Real Risk
The issue isn’t entering a competition. It’s entering too many of them without thinking.
£12 here, £20 there, another open call next month — over time, it builds into something much bigger, both financially and mentally. And when nothing comes back from it, frustration sets in.
That’s where artists start to feel like they’re chasing something that never quite materialises.
A Shift in Perspective
Recently, I came across a competition run by Cass Art.
On the surface, it looks similar to many others — an entry fee, a submission process, a selection. But looking closer, it offered something more tangible: a recognised organisation, a physical exhibition opportunity, and a pathway to being seen outside of your own immediate audience.
That was enough to make me pause.
Not because it guarantees anything, but because it feels like a different kind of risk.
Time to take the plunge
I still don’t love the idea of paying to enter competitions, and I’m not convinced I ever will.
But completely avoiding them might not be the answer either.
Like a lot of things in the art world, it seems to sit somewhere in between — not something to chase endlessly, but not something to dismiss entirely either. The difference, it seems, is in choosing when it actually makes sense to step forward.
So for the first time, I’ve decided to enter one and submit two pieces from my recent work. Not because I think they’re guaranteed to stand out, but because they represent the direction my work has been moving in — somewhere between structure and disruption, clarity and noise.
Fragmented Fears and Brain Fog — the two works I’ve decided to submit
Not with any expectation, and not because I suddenly believe competitions are the answer, but because it feels like a considered decision rather than a reactive one.
Maybe nothing will come from it. That’s always a possibility.
But doing nothing guarantees exactly that.
So this time, I’ve decided to take the plunge — and for now, that feels like enough.
