Fresh Contest Ideas

[Sammiie 40]

Hey all!

 

I'm looking for some fresh contest ideas for our board. These can be anything from posting contests, to raffles, to IC-events (entwined with contest themes), etc. I find it hard to find innovative contests because Google's often a dead-end and surfing around forums isn't always helpful, so I'll ask here and hopefully get some willing contributors lol. 

 

Have you hosted a contest before that has gone well that you'd be willing to share? Honestly, at this point, all ideas are welcome, even concepts!

 

Thank you all ~

[Mistress Of The Obvious 70]

I went around a bunch of sites to gather up ideas for different contests and activities outside of the typical masquerade ball or character/member of the week. Here’s what I found. Some are not going to apply for your particular site since it’s about stray dogs in the city (great concept!), but they can be tinkered with:

Create an open thread

Take on a wanted ad character

Create a wanted character ad

Update character profiles

Post site ads on other sites

Write with someone you haven’t before

Christmas or winter related post/thread

Write a post with the following words (insert words here)

Use one or more quotes in a thread (insert quotes here)

Post word count must be a prime number

Write a post or thread not using a certain letter

Write a thread with dealing with consequences

Your character sick or injured

Write a thread about rain or taking a bath or shower

Write a thread somehow relating to flowers or plants

Create a postcard graphic for or about your character

Write your character drunk

Create a blind date thread (can be opt in where characters are chosen at random)

Write an April fools/prank thread

Your character attempting to write a novel

Write a thread that has or deals with a recipe or instructions of some sort (cooking, assembling something, etc.)

Your character gender/sex swapped

Your character creating a new years resolution in a thread

Succeeding or failing one of those resolutions

Write a love letter Secret Santa

A thread involving music somehow

Create a superhero alter-ego for one of your characters

Write your character in a scary or horrific situation

Your character at their job (doesn’t apply to your site, but to plenty of others)

 

Outside conversation starts:

Songs about your character

How you created your characters’ names

Favorite recipes Book/movie/tv club thread reviews

 

Potential events:

The fair

Retro drive in movie theater night (maybe ‘50s Americana theme)

Oktoberfest

Halloween

Motorcycle and Tattoo culture festival (think Sturgis or a convention)

ComicCon

Summer Solstice (could be Neo-Polytheist in theme)

Charity Race

St. Patrick’s Day Party

Valentine’s Day Dance

Agriculture or food related fair (think Strawberry festival, Clam Chowder cook out)

Music festival

Easter Egg Hunt

Art fair (home craft goods)

Labyrinth/maze

Pride festival (LGBT, Black, Italian American, etc.)

 

Now a good chunk of those events are going to be harder with what your site is about, but some of them should work or can be tinkered with.

 

From my own experience, I was on a site that had a raffle twice a year or so. I was staff at the time. It wasn’t in character, but it can be and was for an event. You took your post currency and currency you won from contests to bet on items, powers, etc. It worked pretty well. I’m interested in seeing what others might add on to this.

[Grimscythe 181]

We held writing tournaments, but that can be tricky—judges can be biased. 

[TheFay 10]

Some of the contests we do are... 

Create-a-Character: I'm a firm believer of encouraging instead of restricting, so if we are in need of a certain type of character (gender, member group, ect) we will hold a contest to encourage people to make that type of character. I prefer to do random selection, so we draw from everyone who enters. 

Member Group Change: To encourage people to expand on their character's experiences, we will hold a contest to have them change their member group (we're a BDSM themed site, so we have the 'civilian' characters to join one of the other groups).

Random Match: Randomly pair participating players up. You can change things up and give them prompts. We did one with music-themed prompts that were suggested by the members. There was a lot of participation and everyone loved it. We will also do this for events we are running. 

Finish A Thread: Encourage people to write more by having a contest where they enter ballots for every thread they complete. 
 

Development Contest: Either expand on characters, events or the site's canon. We've ran contests where writers build businesses for the site (they are still up five years later). When we had an AU event, we had a contest for people to develop their characters and the world in that event. You could give prompts, give them something to fill out, or keep things completely open. 

Bring A Friend: Encourage members to bring their friends to the site. This is great because the new people will automatically have someone to play with. 

 

New Member Contest: Throw a contest where existing members thread with new members, which will both enter them into the contest. I do this with a random draw, but you could always have some fun criteria to pick the winners (longest thread for example).

 

New Friends: This is a little different than the contest above, and is great for a larger group. Have your members write with someone they have never written with before. This will encourage people to move out of their comfort zone and strengthen your community.

 

If you look at the challenges or improvements needed for your site, try to think of ways you can involve the members. People love interacting with each other and a nice little prize is always fun.