Canon City snubbed for grand prize on Small Business Revolution

Canon City didn’t win the grand prize on Hulu’s Small Business Revolution — instead, it was Searcy, Arkansas.

A watch party took place at 5 p.m. before the winners were revealed.

The winning city gets a $500,000 revitalization grant, plus six businesses receive makeovers, and it’s all documented in an eight-part miniseries for the show’s fourth season. It’s sure to draw a lot of eyes to the town.

Despite the loss, Chris Brady with the Chamber of Commerce in Canon City says people in town should still take this entire experience as a win.

“We came together as a community, and I think we still won,” said Brady. “We still win as a community. We all came out in support of each other. It has been a really really good thing for Canon City.”

Canon City received votes from people in all 50 states across the country, and received major endorsements from a number of Mayors in Pueblo, Colorado Springs, even Denver. Even rock legend Billy Joel lent a helping hand and endorsed Canon City to win the ultimate prize.

Brady says he is extremely grateful for the support throughout this entire process, and it will continue heading into the future.

“We’ve had a lot of push for Colorado,” said Brady. “A vote for Canon City was pretty much a vote for Colorado. I think we will see that trickle down with tourism now that we have had the spotlight for so long.”

It is still unclear what place the city took. Canon City was in third place in the last poll one week ago.

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Small businesses in Canon city were hyped up early Tuesday morning after it was announced the mountain town is one six finalists in the reality TV show Small Business Revolution on Hulu.

The winning city gets a $500,000 revitalization grant, six businesses receive makeovers, and it’s all documented in an eight-part miniseries for the show’s fourth season.

Judges with the show visited Canon City back in January. Those judges have narrowed down the field of eligible small towns across America from 12,000 back in October to just six. Throughout this entire process, Canon City businesses have rallied together in order to win.

“I feel like we have come together more now than we ever have,” says Shae Sandritter, the manager at Touch of Love Florists and Weddings. Her business is one of six shops eligible for a makeover should Canon City end up victorious.

“We need help cosmetically or even help fix our logo, or teach us how to move dead merchandise,” said Sandritter. “We would greatly appreciate them helping us with a number of different aspects of the business.”

Tuesday morning, a large number of Canon City business owners met together to watch the live stream of the announcement of the final six American cities.

“The crowd went wild,” said Ryan Stevens the Economic Development Director with Canon City. “A lot of cheering, hooting and hollering, I couldn’t even hear the next four names that were called.”

Stevens hopes Small Business Revolution can make the Canon City less dependent on revenue from the summer time.

“Tourism starts to die down right after Labor Day. So we’ve got a pretty slow period between Labor Day and Memorial Day,” said Stevens “We’re trying to find ways to boost that and get more visitors here during that time.”

And if Canon City wins Small Business Revolution, the rest of Colorado wins.

“Nobody is getting into Canon city without flying into one of the two major airports or driving through one of our four borders,” said Stevens. “That’s economic activity for every community in the state of Colorado.”

But Canon City needs America’s vote if they hope to bring in the victory now.

You can vote for Canon City here.

You can vote once every day on any email that you currently own. However, you can’t make new email addresses and begin voting on those.

The voting period ends Feb. 19.