Voting for the PCA started on 15th March, just 20 days ago, and already 1300 votes have been cast, and over 400 comments added to the website. Brilliant! The artists currently in the top 3 positions however can take nothing for granted, as there are still nearly another 5 weeks in which to vote, and everything can change from day to day, as last year’s nail-biting finish taught us!

Meanwhile, there’s a fascinating programme called Google Analytics, which  tells us everything we could possibly want to know about numbers of people   visiting the website, which pages they look at, what countries they live in, etc etc. And the great news is that the Art awards website is busier now than it’s been at any time since voting in 2009. Over the last month there have been 54,357 pages viewed, with people spending an average of 5 minutes each on site. Whilst the vast majority of visitors to the website came from the UK, 350 came from the USA, 80 from Canada, 50 from France, 40 from Australia, 20 from India, 6 from Russia, 2 from Iran, 1 from The Democratic Republic of Congo, and so on.

This year, we have a longer period for voting than we had last year, so there is still plenty of time left to build up to that nail-biting finish. Meanwhile, why not add some comments about the work of artists that you do not know? Although limited to 3 votes per person, there is no limit to the comments you can post.
There are finalists without a computer, who have never seen the online gallery, and who would be delighted to see their work on screen. Do you know anybody in this position, and if so, could you help?

Don't forget, the winner of EAC's People's Choice Award 2011 will receive their prize on the exhibition Open Day on 14th May 2011 at the RBSA gallery in Birmingham.