Question: Avatar Contests - Attracting Contestants

[Cognizance]

Greetings all! I know it's been some time since I've stopped in to the guild. AT seems so foreign to me these days that I shy away from major activity.

Anyhow, the point of this post.... I was curious what kind of tactics you (as a contest organizor) may have in attracting contestants.

I've been hosting contests with my mall thread, and lately it seems tougher for me to gather contestants in a timely mannor.

I'd love to collect everyone's thoughts on the matter, and possible build a thread (if there hasn't already been one created) to keep the collective information to help others in their quest to host a successful avatar competition. ^^

Thanks in advance for any input you may have to contribute! heart  

[Cognizance]

Some questions to get us started!

(None GAC related questions!)

Do you host avatar contests?
How many have you had so far?
Did you feel they turned out successful?
Explain to me a little bit about how you ran your contest. Any details you would like to give. heart  

[Cognizance]

FYI: This is a brainstorming thread. All ideas, constructive critisims are welcome. All Gaians that help with the main thread will, of course, get credit. ^^  

[Cognizance]

These spots are reserved for collecting everyone's ideas. ^^  

[Cognizance]

Recent stuff...

Cognizance

aisuakuma

Good judges is also a importaint aspect to look at. They should be people that you know are fair in rating, have been judges in the past, and that they won't favor one of their friends in the contest over others who have a better avatar. Last judges who work for free is a plus. biggrin

Most definitely. I agree. ^^ I believe I mention that in the judges sticky in AT.

But do you thin that having the judges pre-determined and anounced is a good thing? Do people look at that prior to entering?

Nena

...Oh and I have 3 prizes with a reasonable entry fee and not to much profit for myself. ex.. if your entry fee is 300 with 10 spots - 1st.prize 1100g* 2nd.prize 800g* 3rd prize 500g *. leaving you with a profit of 600g which you can play with ex.. best bumper gets a prize (keeping this a mystery) this way you can pay 20g each to the 5 best bumpers and still make a profit of 500g for yourself. Don't forget it should be fun so stay active.
hope this helps Cognizance xd

Most definitely! I like the idea of best bumper prize. I've seen that implimented in many contest threads. I think that's a good note to keep. ^^ And three prizes is a good thing. I've been only offering 1 prize, an unopened letter, in my contests. And I like to give a little something to my judges for their participation as well.

Miss Natsu

Well.... Firstly theres always the entrance fee....

High fee = high prize
We know that, but you really can't always think about that way... =\

I mean you could have a 5k entrance fee with ten contestants and the winner would get 50k, but I doubt anybdy would enter. The best thing to do is 100-300 gold entance fee.
Then you could have 10... 20... 30.. contestants. And you know. It may take a while. But if you work at it, it might be a big hit.

But, then theres also the work you put into the thread. I always want to enter a contest when I see like they put work into their thread and you know its a nice prize and I don't have to ask anything about the contest because it already answered all my questions.
Just you know, decorate up your thread, make sure to be very specific, but you know, don't make it so huge and hard to read that nobodys gonna join.
Take about three to six posts, making people think its simplistic. People(n general here, this is mainly the reason people don't read all the rules in a rate me thread) hate reading through the whole page just to enter a contest or something. ^^;;

Then theres always the way to judge... If you have more than ten contestants, you can't use a poll now can you? No. Not unless you decide to split up the contestants for voting.
But if you decide on judges. Make sure you know who (in AT, I'm not talking about your seven yea old kid sister) the people judging are. Know that they are fair raters. If you aren't a reg in AT or if you like aren't sure you want to trust your opinions on people... Then make sure you get the judges to rate you that way you know if they're good raters or not.
People wouldn't want some noob deciding if they win your contest. =\
And also if you make a poll, do it in AT, sure, chatterbox polls will end faster, but AT is where we have style. wink XD

Oh! And make sure to seem nice. Because if I click on a contest and first thing I see the contest owner is throwing a fit and yelling at somebody and has a very short temper with the contestants. I'm not gonna want to join.

Aye, thats about it I think. ^^;;
Hope I helped. ^__^

Oh! And I don't make avatar contests... >>;;
Or join them to often. Mainly 'cause I'm uber picky. XD

 

[Cognizance]

Crawlerette

Personally, I like the Avatar Contests that have a really interesting theme. Such as MAKE FOX ITEMS WORK!, PIRATE THEME!, etc. Put some thought into it, and it really gives people ideas. 3nodding

Grae

Another thing I noticed tho was that contests with a second and third place fill up faster than that with just one prize.

 

[Cognizance]

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