Looking for advice on art contests

[yozoragadaisuki]

Hello, fellow members. My name is Sheen and I have been conducting art contests on other platforms for a while and will be making more, but I would really appreciate any advice you could give to improve my contests.

Quick background: My contests usually requires people to draw characters from the Holders series. The final judge is always me, but sometimes I let other readers pick. I usually get more than 10 submissions per contest and half of them are not from amateurs. My last contest received 44 submissions. This number is expected to increase.

So I really, REALLY need advice on how to let people keep enjoying these contests while improving on their art.

Some of my main concerns include:

1. When I receive multiple great submissions from different artists, how do I choose only one winner without offending the others?

2. If a certain artist never wins at my contests, will he come back to reentry? Will he be discouraged?

3. My contests are on instagram, so I would like to award reader's choice to post that gets the most likes. But this is heavily biased because some really good artists has almost non-existent followers and some... mediocre ones has millions of followers so the mediocre ones always get more likes. I considered creating a voting system, but how is that possible when there are so many entries? Any suggestion?

Again, any other suggestion is also highly welcome. You can view a sample of my contest on Tapas but most of my participants are on Instagram.

Thank you for your help!

Cheers!

[kuromonoart]

Hey I can help with a few suggestions (which may or may not answer to your questions)

When I receive multiple great submissions from different artists, how do I choose only one winner without offending the others?

From what I have read you seem to only choose one winner, and that will surely cause a certain disagreement among the other contestants. I often see artists who hold contests on Instagram, decide on multiples winners (2 or 3) and some honorable mentions. However if you insist on only one winner, you can kinda sooth the others with reposts of their submissions and tag them as a way to say 'Hey, I looked at your work, though you didn't win but it was nice'

If a certain artist never wins at my contests, will he come back to reentry? Will he be discouraged?

It can happen,although you can always drag them back, eg. with interesting rules/requirements, or cool prizes, or if you notice a certain contestant that never won but kept joining, it doesn't hurt to give him/her a word of encouragement or thank to have joined. Plus there will be more and more people joining so I don't think you should worry too much, it's their choice . You lose some but you also gain some.

My contests are on instagram, so I would like to award reader's choice to post that gets the most likes. But this is heavily biased because some really good artists has almost non-existent followers and some... mediocre ones has millions of followers so the mediocre ones always get more likes. I considered creating a voting system, but how is that possible when there are so many entries? Any suggestion?

To be honest I'm never a fan of voting. To avoid the bias I think you gotta make a personal selection of really good ones that deserve the attentions and then have people vote for those particular chosen ones.

And btw I think it's also better if you have one or two extra judges in case you are worry about your choice being too personal? (like you would always prefer something that suit your taste) A few different opinions would seem fairer to the readers.

[yozoragadaisuki]

Thanks! I will definitely look into your suggestions!