Welcome to another monthly round up of exciting competition news and information about Loquax. The first thing you might notice is that we’ve made a few minor adjustments to the blog. Now don’t feel bad if you didn’t notice because we’re going to tell you what’s changed. Firstly we’ve made the blog sections header and footer look a little bit more like the listings and forum. Secondly we’ve made some font size changes so it’s easier to read and there’s a few layout adjustments including adding a search box on the blog index. Finally we’ve gotten round to linking things together a little bit better so for example Comping News gives you links to find blog posts on other topics such as Comping Tips, Scams, Compers In The News and Competition Sites. Now these things are in place we obviously now have no excuse not to post regular blog posts – and that’s what we’re aiming to do. Since our last update in May we’ve updated the Be On TV post and added content about apps for compers and money saving.
It’s The Final (Competition) Countdown
Anyway let’s kick off this update with some news about pay to enter prize draw sites. If you’ve been following us over the last few months you’ll know that we exposed some dubious behaviour at one particular site. We then had some issues with a Trustpilot reviewer who we exposed as being linked to the dodgy pay to enter prize draw site. Well the good news is that the site in question has stopped running giveaways and hasn’t been updated in weeks. No winners have been drawn for a number of cash draws either which is pretty much the same modus operandi as the owner’s previous site. As far as we know he’s not launched anything else since. Let’s hope it stays that way! Pay to Enter sites are slowly becoming the bane of our lives. In April we covered the subject of why some sites dislike compers entering their competitions and there’s another, who gives away guitars, to add to our blacklist. It still baffles us why any company who’s aim is to sell tickets for the chance to win prizes would turn down visitors interested in entering competitions and winning prizes. Furthermore those users who frequent ‘raffle sites’ do so because they know what they are whilst the majority of compers tend to avoid them. The good thing is that there are plenty of other pay to enter prize draw sites to visit including Guitar Comps, Daily Guitar Draw and Guitar Gear Giveaway.
The Contestant – Comping In The News
Do you think that you could you live on competition prizes alone? Imagine being stripped naked and left in an almost empty apartment with the task of winning prizes to live? Well that actually happened in 1998 on Japanese TV. The contestant, Nasubi, apparently spent 15 months trying to survive on prizes (The BBC) but also didn’t know that he was part of a TV show. Nasubi’s ordeal, which occured well before Big Brother or The Truman Show, has been made into a documentary called The Contestant and the trailer is below. The show is currently streaming on Hulu but isn’t available yet in The UK. We don’t think anyone would try to live on competition prizes in 2024 but if they did they’d need a whole load of hints and advice. We’re not quite sure they’d get them off The Guardian though who recently published an article called In It To Win It: How To Maximise Your Chances In Competitions. It’s an OK article but doesn’t add anything new or interesting. There’s nothing about the kind of prizes you can win, the platforms that they’re on, the many options available when comping, no reference to pay to enter sites, nothing about property prize draws and of course – the biggest glaring omission – no Loquax! LOL! Back to comping in the news and in a previous update we mentioned the A Little Friendly Competition Podcast. A couple of new episodes have dropped including a May Prize Round Up and advice on how to win creative and effort competitions. The latter might be worth a listen to see if you can pick up a few extra tips. It is nearly an hour and a half long though. Finally if you fancy being on TV but perhaps not like Nasubi then check out this article about How To Get On Game Shows & Win. Let us know if you do end up on the telly.
Win Holiday Homes In Spain & Dubai
Although Omaze remains the most well known platform for win a house competitions, pay to enter prize draw sites are doing their best to disrupt the sector. Over the last year or so the likes of Bounty, McKinney and Elite Competitions have run regular prize draws offering houses as prizes. However this month things have gone up a notch with Lucky Day Competitions and Storm Competitions both getting in on the action by offering Spanish Villas as prizes. Not wishing to miss out we also have an apartment in Dubai from Bear Competitions in the current win a house listings. The price of entry does vary from site to site with some erring on the side of too expensive. For example McKinney recently ran a flash property prize draw for a house in Amargh. It ran for three days and ticket prices started at £100. Now obviously we think that’s way too expensive but there are discounts and offers to be had on pretty much all win a house competitions, including Omaze. For the latter you might want to check out the comments on the review pages on Loquax as users regularly share links. With other platforms you can get early bird discounts and/or late entry discounts. To be honest we’re not keen on seeing sites slash prices just to get sales (think the end of every selling task on The Apprentice) because it’s unfair on those who have paid full price. Another practice that seems common place now is setting an initial price (e.g. £100) but then offering an early bird (e.g. £50) that never actually changes to make you think you’re getting a good deal.
Thanks & Winners
Loquax can’t be as good as it is without the selfless input of a handful of users. We can’t thank them enough as their efforts not only help boost the listings but it means that we can do the day to day things that then help us keep the site running and of course free to use because let’s face it “comping doesn’t HAVE to cost you money ;o)”. Anyway we’d love to see a few more names on the contributors list (every little helps) and remember everyone who contributes is entered into a weekly draw to win a small prize as a thank you. The winners of these draws are announced on the forum in the Site Announcements section. If you are a winner of our poster giveaway, or one of our own prize draws, or any competition then we do love it when you share your success in The Winners Post. No win is too small so don’t be shy! Hearing about holiday and other big wins is great but just knowing that prizes are being awarded helps keep us inspired as well as other compers. Another reason to post is that those of us who do post competitions love to hear if you’ve won as it makes the effort in posting that little bit better.
Euros 2024 Competitions
Apparently there’s a football tournament taking place this month but as Wales aren’t in it no one cares do they? Just kidding! There was a plan to create a section for sites running comps relating to the football but sorry it never happened as Jason went on holiday! Anyway look out for plenty of giveaways during the tournament as brands love to jump on the football bandwagon, especially on the days that England play. Many of these will be under the Sports Prizes section where you’ll also find a few competitions related to the up and coming Olympic and Paralympic Games in Paris. One thing you might see a lot of is a bunch of the if/then sports giveaways that frequently appear on Twitter. With these prize draws a brand will only offer a prize if something happens (e.g. England win, Harry Kane scores etc). If you’re not keen on these draws then we suggest using the filter options or ignore options that let you block comps by type or poster. To filter you need to head to preferences and select the type of comps/prizes you want to ignore whilst to ignore a poster (which we appreciate is a bit drastic but perhaps sometimes necessary) you simply head to their profile page and click the ‘ignore’ button. You’ll then not see that user’s posts on the forum or listings. And with that we’ll conclude for June. Perhaps by the time we get round to July’s update we’ll be celebrating a win for England?