Attention, inventors: Here's your chance to put your great idea before thousands of retail buyers at one of the world's largest wholesale markets.

The Dallas Market Center is searching for new products by holding a contest appropriately titled "The Next Big Thing."

Three finalists will be selected by a panel of judges from the center and from trade and consumer publications. Finalists get airfare and hotel accommodations to attend the Dallas Total Home & Gift Market FINDS Temp Show on Jan. 16-19. They will show off their ideas in complimentary exhibit space in front of 50,000 domestic and international retailer buyers.

The winner gets to come back to the June show and receives a prize package worth more than $10,000 that includes time with branding, public relations and visual merchandising experts.

Dallas Market Center spokeswoman Meredith Hite said companies and individuals can submit entries. The center's staff is hoping at least one finalist emerges from the Dallas area.

Here's some hometown inspiration: In the 1990s, Plano entrepreneur Tim Cappelli created the Bed Buddy, a bag of rice that warms up in the microwave for instant heat therapy.

Dallasite Tomima Edmark created the hit TopsyTail hair-styling doodad. Haggar Corp. invented Wrinkle-Free Cotton Khaki pants. More recently, Mike Clarke of Dallas invented the Jewel Jet, a steam-cleaning gizmo for jewelry that's been a big hit on QVC and was featured on HGTV's I Want That, a program featuring new and improved products.

And from the file of favorite Dallas trivia: Dallas secretary Bette Nesmith Graham invented Liquid Paper in the 1950s and originally called it Mistake Out. (She's the mother of former Monkee Michael Nesmith.)

Applications and more information are available at www.dallasmar ketcenter.com. WRINKLE-FREE COTTON KHAKI PANTS

JEWEL JET

TOPSYTAIL

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