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SinistrosePhosphate — A Newbie's Guide to Hosting a Contest
#contest #projecteducate #beginnerweek
Published: 2020-01-30 12:30:01 +0000 UTC; Views: 611; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 0
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Being a Beginner Week
Last time, we talked about what to do when you (suddenly) found yourself in the shoes of an admin of a group on DA (see here ). We talked about getting a loyal group of core members and how to find new members. Now the next task is to drum up some excitement in your group. And there's nothing like a contest. But here comes the question: how does one go about hosting a contest?
I still remember… after I somehow took over a group, I was approached by someone in the group saying that we can drum up more interest in the members by hosting a contest. That was my first time starting a contest. And let’s just say… I’ve learned a few lessons along the way. I am not going to bore you with the gory details (it was a horror-themed contest, I wasn’t joking about the “gory details”!), but what I will do, however, is tell you about the important lessons I’ve learned along the way.
Let's get the the fun started!
1. Setting up the theme
"What to do? What to do?"
I did mention that the first time I ran a contest, it was something horror-themed. My colleague at the time came up with a wonderful idea of basing the theme on people’s phobias. From that humble beginning, we eventually concocted an elaborate plan of running a contest with a series of themes with intertwined phobias and manias. The whole thing ran for 13 months. Imagine, 13 months!
We were very lucky in the sense that we had a dedicated crew and a group of very interested and very enthusiastic participants. But I will be lying if I say it was a complete success. Moral to today’s story? Start small and scale your way up.
Helpful tips:
- If you are running a contest for a group, fit it to the theme of the group
- If you are running as an individual, find a manageable theme that is open enough for people to join but not so restrictive as to receive essentially the same entries.
- Check out other groups/individuals with similar themes to see what kind of contests they’ve run in the past to get some ideas.
- Keep it focused! A concise and well-defined theme makes everybody happy.
2. Setting up the rules
"What are these... 'rules' you're talking about?"
You’d think the rules would be easy, but no; not really. And one thing I’ve learned the hard way is something that should have been easy: who do you allow in? It’s an eternal struggle compressed in a conundrum. Naturally, you want as many people to participate as possible, but how does one judge a written piece against a painting? If you are doing this as a part of a group, would you allow non-members/new members to join? How would you stem the tide of people who just joined for the prizes and just leave after the contest is over?
It’s true, the “devil’s in the details.” After the big questions are taken care of, it comes down to the nitty-gritty bits and pieces. How long do you want to run the contest for? Do you allow stragglers? How many potential winners will there be? How many different media will you accept? Will you allow pieces created for another purpose to join the contest? You see what I mean by the “details” here. After tangling with the Devil a couple of times, you might say I’ve learned a few lessons along the way.
Helpful tips:
- Check out contests similar to the one you’re planning to run and study their rules. Keep what makes sense to you and modify them to fit your purposes.
- Better to overthink ahead of time than having to go back and fix things later.
- Keeping things short and sweet keeps people interested and motivated.
- Make sure that you have the energy to run the contest throughout its lifespan.
3. Setting up the judges
"Introducing our guest judge tonight..."
I have participated in contests where the sole judge is the person who is running the contest. It’s hard to shake the suspicion of favouritism when crowd-favourites do not place at the end. When I was running my own contests, I tried very hard to invite (rope in?) other people to be judges as well. And it’s always a great idea to have that planned out ahead and the judges announced early on. After all, more people would be interested in joining a contest if they think it’s going to be fair, right?
Of course, it’s also important to say ahead of time if the judges are allowed to participate in the contest as well. That’s a choice that you - as the person running the contest - have to decide. Some will say yes while others will say no. I don’t have the right answer for this one, but it might be something that you can try out for yourself if you run a contest. (Just in case you are wondering… if I am running a contest, neither myself nor my judges were allowed to participate. But that’s just me.)
Helpful Tips:
- If you are running the contest as a part of the group, it’s a great idea to get all the admins on board. Failing that, getting people who are very active in the group to preside is also a good idea.
- If you are running the contest solo, getting a few friends onboard may also make you look and feel more impartial.
- If there’s a specific medium to the contest (Photomanipulation, photography, etc.) it might be helpful to reach out to people who are considered to be well known in the medium to help judge. This might be tricky, but it’s definitely going above and beyond to show that you are going to give people a fair chance.
4. Setting up the prizes
"And the grand prize is..."
What’s a contest without prizes? Better yet, if I am running the contest, where do I go to find these prizes? When I was running my first contest, I got lucky. The person who was interested in running the contest, and who had approached me, was happy to offer art as a prize. The group was also open to featuring the artists who won. I had some spare points that I was more than happy to chip in. And voila! The initial prize vault was established.
This is all nice and easy if you are running the contest under a group. But what about going at it solo? Technically, it’s still possible to offer your own art and features as prizes. Some people will offer points that they have purchased/won/been gifted, too. If you put your mind to it, coming up with prizes may not be quite as difficult (or expensive) as you think!
Helpful Tips:
- Run a poll! Find out what your potential audience/competitors would like to see as prizes.
- Check out what others have offered as prizes and see if you can offer something similar (features, art work, etc.)
- Ask for donations! A lot of individuals/groups will have a donation pool that they use just for prizes when they run contests. Letting the donors participate in the contest may further drive up interest in the contest itself, too.
- When you are running the contest, ask the participants if they would be willing to donate a prize for something in return, too. (Like a feature, not a “better chance to win” - have to make that one clear!) You never know who might be happy to help out.
5. Setting up the hype
"Gimme, gimme, gimme!!!"
Partially related to the point above is how to drive up the interest for people to know about the contest you are running. This is something even more important for people who run their contest solo unless one has a large following already. How to get the word out so people will join your contest?
I’ve alluded to some of the ways to get the word out already: every person you approach with your idea can potentially be someone who can promote it for you. Even your contestants can promote it for you, too. But if you are really stuck, here are some ideas:
Helpful hints:
- Use your (and your circle of friends’) social media! Promote your own contest and ask the participants to share the information, too.
- Approach information-based groups here on DA. Some groups are basically a way for people to amplify their message across a wider audience here on DA. And they are usually happy to promote your contest for you.
- Use the public forum on DA to get your message across.
- Get the participants to post information about the contest as a part of their requirement for entry. Some folks like it, others won't. So please take this one with a grain of salt.
- Poke, not prod: It's nice to send out reminders for the contestants (see below), but sometimes a little goes a long way. What I am saying is "Don't send out daily reminders!" A watched pot never boils.
6. Plan for the finish
"Now, for the grand finale..."
Now that you have a prize vault and you’re looking at the contest entries rolling in, what to do next? Other than giving yourself a pat on the back for a job well done, the next thing to do is to keep that energy going throughout the duration of the contest. And plan for a big, satisfying finish. For my first contest, we had a month-after-month structure, so our group members gets a reminder (and a new prompt) every month for the duration of the contest. It’s like having 13 mini-contests one after another. To this day, I am still unsure of how most of our group members have pulled through this long haul. But we definitely made sure people who are interested are reminded at regular intervals.
Most contests do not run that long. So when to remind your contestants to get their entries finished and accounted for is something of a judgement call. But doing so is definitely a good idea. It’s also a good idea to gauge the situation to see if an extension is needed.
Finally, it’s important to give your contestants the satisfaction of a timely “winners” announcement. The celebration of the winners (and the participants) and showing them the prizes that they have won concludes a successful contest. And all’s well that ends well.
Helpful Tips:
- Contact the judges towards the end of the contest period to remind them to check in early.
- If there are extensions, it’s important to announce it early, not at the very last minute.
- Remind the contestants and those who still want to join about how much time they still have left, especially closer to the deadline.
- Prepare the announcement journal/article ahead of time to save yourself a little bit of time towards the end. That also helps to speed up the final announcement after the deadline so it can be released in a timely manner.
- If there aren't enough contestants and a contest fizzles out, please announce it early and find a way to compensate those who entered. This can be a feature or other forms of a consolation price. After all, they do not need to be victims of something they cannot control.
I hope this has been helpful to you. And I hope I’ll get to see a bunch of new contest coming up in the near future! If you’ve decided to run your own contest after reading this article, let me know! And if you have any other helpful hints and tips to share, let’s talk down in the comments. You never know how many people can benefit from your wisdom (or, in my case, painful experience... )!
"It's your turn to run a contest now!"
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Comments: 27
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Funny, the first contest I hosted ever was a 12 month long series of entertwined contests as well
I would love to do something like that again, but people were kinda burnt out after that (understandably so), so that the great finale kinda fizzled out with only two participants handing something in.
Besides, since I organise my group contest for such a niche of the community (German Literature), I find hardly ever new people who join. It's mostly the same +-5 people and whatever advertising I try to do has no effect at all.
This also makes finding judges very hard, since I don't really want to thin out the field of potential participants even more, so I tried asking real life friends to help judging, but didn't have the best experiences with it.
I also tried running contests across several websites with mixed results (it seems to depend heavily on how accessible the theme is).
Well, maybe I'll someday try hosting a contest that is not linked to my group and can get entries in other languages or media.
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German literature is really a niche genre! As much as I love to write, I don't think I can enter any of your contests (my German vocabulary can be counted with fingers...) So I can see where you are running into problems. Attempting ti increase the number of participants would be difficult in this case, I think. But that is fundamentally where the trouble lies. Maybe it's just as you said, opening up the contests a little more so other languages are permissible might just be the way to go.
I hope this was somewhat helpful, however. And I hope you liked the article!
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Excellent article as always 
Indeed, running a successful contest is not intuitive. Not to mention, the barrier to contest entry is higher for some mediums, with crafting and traditional art making use of (potentially hundreds of dollars worth of) non-reusable materials. From my experience, there has been little to no crafts representation in most of the contests I've joined, and this might be one reason. I wonder if allowing older works into a contest would incentivize more crafters to join - and to balance things out, perhaps artists who submit new entries could be given a few bonus points (not enough to offset technical skill and adherence to the theme, but if two entries are otherwise equal, then the new entry wins).
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Thank you so very much!
It's difficult to pit one kind of craft to another. I am a jack of all trades, but even I find it really hard to compared one craft to another (especially when I don't personally do some of these crafts myself.) Instead of allowing older crafts to join... in a perfect world, at least, I'd choose one craft to run a contest with at a time. All needle points or all papercrafts. That way people start on the same footing and most people start with the same kinds of overhead for their projects. Otherwise, it's really not fair to pit someone who just cut paper to someone who use precious metals and jewels.
... well, that's just me daydreaming, that's all.
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You are very welcome!
It is indeed difficult, and in an ideal world, that would be neat (and also encourage people to try out new crafting mediums). Perhaps imposing a restriction on the materials types or costs would also even out the playing field, so we don't run into a situation where artists using affordable materials compete against artists who use gold and sapphires in their works.
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Thank you!
Now I must find my guts to start my very first group-contest
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If you do, let me know! 
Best of luck to you!
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Thank you
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You're more than welcome!
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Although I'm not a newbie at hosting contests it was great
to find some extra tips here, thank you
I also don't enter my groups' contests. I think it's unfair
for a founder to enter the contest, but I do let my admins
enter if they want to. In two of my groups I let the members
vote for the winners while in a group that I recently took over
I stick to their rules of getting judges to vote as well as members.
I think that is more fair when you have judges count along with members'
count, than members only. You can ask you friends to vote for you
and voila, you're the winner. So I just might change my other two
contest to having judges too, but I'll see on that one
Oh and skill levels is also fair to me. You compete against your
own level participants and that's also fair to me. Two of my
groups are judge according to skill levels.
Thanks again for this fantastic info. You don't need to be a
newbie to learn something more here
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
I wouldn't call you a newbie at all! 
But thank you for letting me know that I had been somewhat helpful to you! 
I like the idea of letting the contestants vote along with the judges. I think that's an interesting idea! I don't know how to make things work for me, but if it works for you, then it's perfect. Skill levels is also important, too. I think it's helpful if a big number of people joined up for the contest. If there aren't enough people joining, it's almost inevitable to lump people of all skills levels together. It's unfortunate!
But thank you so very much for your input!
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I'm definitely not a newbie, but I did get some helpful info
in your article, thanks for that, again
Thanks, and yes, I thought so too, skill levels are important
You're most welcome
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Glad to hear that you like it!
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And please, for the love of everything, ANNOUNCE IT if you're going to cancel prizes if you happen only get 1-2 entries.
It's a stupid rule in general because you're punishing people for something beyond their control, but it adds insult to injury when you tell them out of the blue after they put in the work.
A few contests I've entered have done that and I'm never entering anything they do again.
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Thanks for the comment!
You're right about that, when a contest fizzles out it's only fair to let the contestants know. I am sorry to hear that this has happened to you a few times already, I didn't know it's something that happens so often! Thanks for the tip!
Your suggestion has been incorporated into the article!
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Np!
Honestly if it's not stated in the rules at the *beginning* of the contest that that there will only be consolation prizes if only 1 or 2 people join, the only thing that I'd be consoled by is something worth one of the place prizes... (I believe this strongly enough to actually practice it, btw.)
*cough* Anyway. Thank you. And you're welcome!
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That's true. I actually agree with you on this one.
It's just unfortunate that not a lot of people would do that kind of "Consolation" prize. It's too bad!
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Thank you for all the great tips! It's a very helpful journal.
I hope it's ok if I add some of my own experiences with contests ^^
Personally I'm not a big fan of contests who require you to also make a journal or status update to enter, especially if it's a 'Draw my OC' contest*. Whenever I see that rule I immediately lose interest in entering. But that's a quirk of mine I guess 
*In a 'draw my OC', people are already giving you so much by drawing for you <3
When I host a contest I also like to include a small participation prize (on top of a feature of all the entries), so I can give something to everyone as a thank you 
While it can be tempting to regularly update you contest journal to remind your Watchers that you are running a contest, don't overdo it! Sending a daily (or even weekly) reminder is not necessary, especially not if the deadline is still months away. If people feel you are overdoing it, they might turn of journal notifications, and then they won't get any notifications at all!
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Hello!
Thanks a million for the comment!
Yeah, you're right about the "spammy" feeling when advertising. It's a bit of a bone of contention for people. And as such, there's no hard and fast rule. I try not to present myself like "you do this, you'll succeed" because it simply doesn't work that way. It's up to each individual deviant.
Participation prizes are a great idea! Unfortunately, not everybody can do that (or afford that.) I do love the bit about "don't use points" but not everybody have these handy "P2U" stock to be given away. I know I don't!
You're right about this one, too. I tend to just remind people around the time when the contest is about to end. I don't know if there's anybody who sends daily reminders! (I haven't met any, but that doesn't mean they don't exist...
Thanks a million!
Some of your ideas have been incorporated into the article!
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
You're right
And right again haha. You need to have stock to be able to offer it as a prize ^^ It was just a suggestion based on how I like to run my contests. But as you say, it's different for everyone! In a group contest there might be a larger chance of having an admin that has stock and is willing to offer it as a prize.
I don't think I'll ever feel 'established', haha
Daily reminders are rare, but I have had weekly reminders in my inbox on quite a few occasions, for contests that were still quite some time away from the deadline. And yes, after a while I did mute them until the contest was over
Oh wow, I didn't expect that! I'm happy you found them useful 
👍: 0 ⏩: 1
That's just it... I try to keep the tutorials and articles relatively open for just that reason.
I agree with you on that one - Probably will never feel "established'!
But stocks are a great idea, but not everybody's got stocks lying around. It's a great thought, though.
No worries! I figured if you guys are going to give me great suggestions and ideas, I should add them into the article. How's that for feedback? 
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Aw well, if we feel established we might become lazy
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You're right. It's probably better that way...
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