Capital Region Living Besties: How Voting Works & How to Win

What the Capital Region Living Besties are and who runs them

Capital Region Living Magazine runs the Besties, a readers' awards program for the Capital Region, the Albany-centered part of New York. The ballot page is titled 2027 Bestie Awards and announces that voting opens October 15, and the line under the headline reads, "Vote for your favorite Capital Region businesses in the 2027 CRL Bestie Awards." The prompt names the audience (readers) and the subject (businesses) in one sentence.

The ballot lives on crlmag.com, the magazine's own site, which makes the magazine both the publisher and the host. The Besties belong to the group of broad readers' polls rather than single-topic contests, since the prompt covers favorite businesses across the whole Capital Region. A reader may never use every part of the ballot, and a business may appear in several places.

For a business owner, that framing explains the stakes. A Bestie is a reader-chosen title that a shop, restaurant or service can mention to customers, and it carries weight because the readers of a regional magazine did the choosing. The magazine is the arbiter, and the page it hosts is the only place where the count is kept.

The program also has an earlier page for a food and drink Besties ballot, which the confirmed material links to the year 2019. The table below sets out the facts that the pages state.

The ballot window and the confirmed years

The magazine's page gives the dates directly: "Online ballots are open October 15 through November 30." That is a window of about six weeks. The program is confirmed for 2019, 2025 and 2026, and the page for the 2027 awards describes the ballot window that follows.

The window is longer than many readers' polls, which often run for a few weeks. Six weeks is long enough for a business to send a reminder each week without wearing out its audience. It is also long enough for a late starter to catch up, so a business that learns about the ballot in November still has time to act before the November 30 close.

The three years are not consecutive, since 2019 sits apart from 2025 and 2026. The pages on file do not explain the gap, and the magazine has not published a statement about the years between; confirm on the live ballot each cycle. What the dates do establish is a recurring autumn ballot that opens mid-October and closes at the end of November. A reader or business planning for the 2027 awards should mark October 15 as the first day and November 30 as the last.

How a reader votes on the Besties ballot

The mechanic is an online ballot on crlmag.com. A reader opens the Bestie Awards page, finds the categories that matter and picks favorite Capital Region businesses. Because the ballot covers favorite businesses across a whole region, it can be long. Most readers will vote in the handful of categories that cover places they know, such as a favorite restaurant, a hair salon or a local shop.

A broad ballot affects how businesses campaign. In a poll with a few categories, a business competes against a handful of rivals in one place. In a regional readers' poll, a business may need to ask supporters to look for the right category, since a vote cast in the wrong one does not help. Owners should tell customers the exact category name when they share the link.

Readers who live outside the Albany area should read the prompt carefully. It asks for favorite Capital Region businesses, so the ballot is built for people who know the region's shops, restaurants and services. A voter who has moved away can still name a business they remember, but the magazine's rules, not this page, say who may vote.

The page does not state a vote limit, a login requirement or the list of categories in the text on file, so a reader should check the live ballot before acting. The window of October 15 through November 30 leaves time for repeat reminders, and a business can ask customers once at the counter and again by email. Because the magazine hosts the ballot itself, there is no outside platform to learn.

How the Besties sit beside other New York ballots

New York has many readers' polls, mostly tied to a borough, a county or a magazine. The Besties are the Albany-area one. The siblings on this site are Best of Brooklyn, Best of Hudson Valley, The City's Best (Best of New York City), Best of Queens, Best of the Bronx and Best of Westchester.

Setting the ballots side by side shows a pattern. The New York City boroughs each have their own list, the suburbs have theirs and the Capital Region has the Besties, so a business in Albany competes only with other Capital Region businesses. That keeps the field local, which helps a small shop that could never compete in a statewide contest.

The Besties differ by region and by length: the Capital Region has its own magazine, its own ballot window in the fall and a long list of favorites to choose from.

Building support for a Bestie

Start with the category. A business that fits more than one category should pick the one where its customers are most likely to look, and tell supporters its exact name. Repeat reminders matter, because a vote is cast on a single visit and a customer who intends to vote may forget unless prompted again.

With ballots open from October 15 through November 30, a business has several weeks to remind customers. A counter sign, an email and a social post that name the category and link to crlmag.com cover most of the work. The magazine's page is the authority on limits, and the exact wording of the category should be copied from the live ballot.

Our guide to getting more votes online covers outreach for readers' polls, and buy votes online describes the paid service. The magazine has published nothing about outside help in the text on file, and a Bestie cannot be promised.