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We recently hosted one of our partner’s favorite webinars (okay, it’s one of our favorites, too) – 30 Contest Ideas in 30 Minutes. During this webinar, Julie Foley, our Director of Affiliate Success & Matt Coen, our President, reveals the top 30 contest categories run on UPICKEM in the past year. Each category comes complete with several examples for you to get your contest-building creative juices flowing to help build out your year-long contest calendar.

If you weren’t able to attend the live session, watch a recording in our resource center.

Be sure to check out all the contests mentioned in our webinar.

KISS-FM asked listeners to upload a video of their acapella versions of one of two songs: “One Last Cry” by Brian McKnight or “Sweet Thing” by Chaka Khan. All entries get a chance to win $25,000 and a chance to open for Jill Scott & Anthony Hamilton. Not only does this contest look incredible, it generated excellent participation from the station’s audience. Great work!

You know how all TV morning shows have a peppy theme song? How cool would it be if that song was performed by one of the station’s best fans? That’s exactly what KWGN-TV (Denver, CO) asked their most loyal (and most musical) viewers to do with “Your Big Break on Daybreak”. Not only does the winner get their song on TV everyday, they receive a gift certificate to Guitar Center and a brand-new iPad2!

WJW-TV (Cleveland, OH) promotes the I-X Indoor Amusement Park‘s stay in their town by running this video contest. Viewers submit a video of themselves singing the park’s catchy jingle for a chance to win 3 stellar prizes – grand prize is a VIP party for 20 to the park. Browse through the adorable entries, but I’m giving you fair warning, this jingle has been stuck in my head for 4 days.

To see more successful video contests, click here.

What a rockin’ contest! Cornbread, a morning radio show host for WIL-FM (St. Louis, MO), hosts this idol competition for local wannabe country singers. In August, hopefuls sang their hearts out at Cornbread’s World Fair on and the WIL community has voted to narrow it down to the top 3 competitors. The Cornbread Idol winner will be awarded a trip for two to Nashville to compete at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge! Plus, one lucky listener wins a trip for two to the Tootsie’s 50th Anniversary Concert in Nashville just for voting. (Yes, even the voters win – this contest just keeps getting better!)

Karaoke is fun for everyone – kids too! Northwest Herald (Crystal Lake, IL) teamed up with the Raue Center for the Arts to create a kids karaoke contest to help draw interest in the “Raue Focus” program, which strives to promote emotional, intellectual and intuitive development in children through the encouragement of artistic expression. By sending an email blitz to previous talent show entrants, Raue Focus supporters, as well as advertising the event in the paper, The Herald was able to seed this contest with filmed entries they collected at a preliminary event and post videos for viewing and voting. The contestant with the most votes will not only win a chance to perform his/her song at the Raue Center for the Arts FOCUS event at the end of the month, but will also win travel vouchers from first time contest sponsor and brand-new advertiser to The Herald: Worldwide Traveler!