Went to the workshop Zapp had for the CCAF, yesterday. The great thing was you could submit your slides before the workshop along with your booth-shot. and get a critique of your slides. I even had my application but on hold until after the workshop in case I wanted to change anything, cool.
Here are a few things I learned. First you had better have a dyno-mite booth-shot with work that matches the work in the slides because they definitely want to see a body of work. If you are entering slides that have have vertical and horizontal elements be sure to submit in an order that compliments the pieces, in other words if say, you have a four slide entry with two vertical elements and two horizontal elements the book case your pieces. The work is projected on a large wall in front of the jurors, lined up ina five slide row, with your info in front of them on laptops. So if you haven't seen your work big you probably should if you apply and apply and don't get into shows. Don't ever, not ever submit slides with printing on them even though you think your brochure is awesome because everybody said so. Make sure all shots are either in color or in black and white (this would apply to photos) don't mix and match. Don't show the frame on a piece, glare on glass, or stuff behind your work in the background. Make sure you are representing one body of work. So don't include both flowers and portraits of kids in your slides.
On booths I could go on forever, but for now I will say this for starters, read read read the prospectus about ten times so you get where the fair is coming from and exactly what they want to see in your booth shot, if you still don't know then ask. I was a little surprised to hear that the booth-shot could break you even if your other slides of your work clearly showed talent and were presented well. Make sure your booth is hung like you would for a show (for the booth-shot), crop out those lights, grass and extra stuff that doesn't relate to YOUR ART. No people, no bins, no chairs, no clutter, no crowding, and no signage.