Entertainment For Lively Minds
Innit to Winnit
So - in recent times I have become more and more wary of marketing campaigns masquarading as competitions.
On the other hand I have always been someone who tends to spend the 30 seconds it takes to enter competitions around the place.
On Saturday I noticed the Guardian had tickets for Arcade Fire at the O2 to win, so I quickly entered and lo-and-behold I only blumming won.
Over the years I've picked up:
- entire bowie back catalogue
- record tokens (remember them)
- numerous gig tickets and events (Studio visits, album playbacks, etc)
- lots of CDs, DVDs, novelty guff
just filling in an online form.
The feeling I get is that lots of people don't bother with them, thinking they're going to get marketed - but I reckon I have a 1 in 10 hit rate.
I even almost won the Word DVD box set thing last christmas (well I got a mention at least) ;)
Do you enter things? If so, do you win?
ps - I never buy lottery tickets.
- More from Sinj.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Never...
..usually enter. Responded to email from my broadband supplier with some multiple choice answers this week; only went and won a modem!
Not something that will change my life, nor something I can give away for Christmas, but its better than a slap on the belly with a wet fish, as my old English teacher used to say.
You know those competiion boxes
by the tills in deartment stores? I'm told that almost no one enters. Sometimes there are more prices than entrants.
Competitions....you bet!
Until the BBC ban on competitions (?!!!!!) I got most of my CDs via Mark Lamarr competitions. He'd have five copies of a 60s soul/Rock 'n' roll compilation, usually on Ace, and I'd enter twice! I'd win one every two months.
Also, although I've stopped buying Record Collector I still always enter their 50s and 60s competitions and have about a 20/25% success rate.
In the last six/seven years these have all landed gratis on my mat:
A guitar, two tickets to a 'secret' Robert Plant gig, a Marc Bolan biography, a Buddy Holly CD/DVD set, a 4-CD John Lee Hooker box set, a Beach Boys compilation, a huge book/discography on Jamaican ska/rocksteady, twelve funk singles on vinyl, the complete post-60s Stones' back catalogue, two season tickets to a Conference football side, two FA Trophy final tickets, two tickets to a Test Match at Lords, Harold Pinter's complete works, and many, many rock 'n' roll and 60s CDs.
Frankly, if it ain't free I rarely go near it!
Always the bridesmaid....
1. On a snowboarding holiday, I won a week's worth of ski hire. D'oh.
2. I came second in a competition in Sounds magazine in 1983, winning a Rick Derringer LP. The winner got a drum kit.
3. I came second in a nationwide quiz competition for sixth-form students, winning £10, plus £100 worth of books for the school library. This was announced in assembly, to my great humiliation. The winner got a trip to Alaska and Canada.
Until today, never....
I must have entered 100+ competitions in my 42 years on the planet, from write in competitions in Warlord and 2000AD to Internet based comps today, and never won anything. A case in point; I attended a function with the FPO a few years back at which there was a raffle with well over 100 prizes. We bought the same number of tickets as the other couples at our table... they all won multiple prizes and we won diddly-squat.
Up until today that is, when I got an Email to say I'd won a competition on Facebook organised by the Guitarguitar music shop chain, won a Line6 Pocket Pod Express guitar effects thingy - result! Think I'll buy a lottery ticket this week...
I once had
a great run of success in competitions from late 80s/early 90s magazine 20/20, including tickets for the Reading Festival 1989, VHS copies of the great French films Jean de Florette/Manon des Sources, a bottle of champagne and a Le Creuset cast-iron saucepan (!). I've also won HMV vouchers from the Times Saturday Arts magazine; a double box set of mini Penguin Classics and Contemporary Clssics (celebrating an anniversary about 15 years ago); a T.Rex compilation from the NME; and a signed copy of Hounds of Love from a Kate Bush fanzine - yes indeedy, Kate and I have both touched the same object...
Can only remember
getting second prize in a Mojo crossword competition.
I won a Bob Dylan t-shirt and 3cd Greatest Hits.
Then again I don't enter many so after this thread I will enter as many as I can.
Any chance the Word can do a music crossword like Mojo's (not Uncut's). The only thing I really miss since I defected.
Won quite a few over the years....
A video player (the week after I bought my first one)
50 West Coast cds from Warner Bros (I think) - only entered it to win the compilation it was publicising - never mind, lots of cds I'd always wanted
Quite a few runner-up prizes from Q crosswords (books, cds etc)
A few from VH-1 - the beloved Mr H's Around and Around (FPO still wears the t-shirt as a nightie)
A ride in a hot air balloon
A car radio/cd with 10 disc changer
A VIP trip to see Leeds v Besiktas in the Champions league many many years ago ( a great night - 6-1...those were the days)
A few other pairs of tickets to Elland Road
VIP tickets to Nottingham Rugby
Tickets to a RL world cup final quite a long time ago (early 90s?)
erm - probably a fair bit more, that I can't recall at the moment
Not bad really, for someone who never has any luck
Got the REM back-catalogue
off of Gary Davis on Virgin 1215 when I was 16, just after I got my first CD player. That was good enough for my lifetime and I've quit while ahead after that.
I've only won things
from random prize draws.
So I got one of the White Stripes 'Red Death' 7" via MOJO (only 300 copies I think)
And recently cos I ordered my vinyl copy of Grinderman 2 thru HMV I got put in a draw for tickets to their album launch gig at the Garage and taht was ace and loud as hell.
that reminds me
i'm still waiting on my signed "Beatles to Bowie" book from Bowienet that I won *last christmas*!!!
It'll be my fifth signed Bowie artifact.
1) record contract from 1966
2) serious moonlight poster
3) Hours CD cover (only time i ever actually met him and "got" his autograph)
4) Art Poster signed from his exhibition in 1995
5) this new book
Love how he now dates his sigs. Shame he's now invisible...
Bowienet - they're brilliant at competitions but the prizes take an eternity to appear...
My mate
entered a competition via EMI around the time that the live Santa Monica came out and apparently hardly anyone entered and he got signed copies of the CD and vinyl.
The jammy get
The extent of my lifetime winnings
was off Radio Trent in 1988. I was the only person to enter a Go-Betweens compo. I got vinyl copies of 16 Lovers Lane and the 12" and 7" versions of Streets of Your Town and two tickets to their gig at Trent Poly. Result! I also won the 3" CD version of Streets of Your Town in a nice traffic light pack. As I didn't have CD player at the time and couldn't envisage affording one for a long time (the prinicple of technology getting cheaper with time not really having established itself by then), I flogged it at Selctadisc. Doh!
Nearest I came since was last year. When my mum and dad were divvying up advent calendars between the kids, they swapped one they'd bought for my nephew with one of my daughters' ones 'cos he preferred it. My brother entered the competition code on the back (as did we with ours) and won a Wii (we won nowt as usual). Ironically he'd just bought a Wii the week before so of course he did the decent thing.
He flogged it on EBay.
I think he still holds against me the time a couple of years back I put my feet up on his Alfa Romeo dashboard and left a mark...
ooh yeh
I won loads of albums & singles (vinyl) & concert tickets from Radios Trent & Nottingham in 70s. I won a clock radio/cd in the first Trent Castle Rock quiz, where 5 winners of daily comps the previous week gathered together to fill in a quiz (off air). The scores were so low that they didn't inform the listeners of how many I got, and the idea was never repeated. Also, my mates and I were quite well known on Radio Nottingham rock show (sadly after the time of Trevor Dann) and we occasionally were allowed into the studio during live shows.
It's all coming back to me now...
Result....
You do have to be in it to win it.....enter enough competitions and you'll win something.
Over the years I've won:
2 longhaul tickets on BA
Digital camera
Tickets/flight to the Rugby World Cup final in 2003
England rugby shirt and ball signed by the team (will Carling era)
Nintendo SNES
Various CDs and books
Most enjoyable was a 1 minute run around HMV on Oxford Street grabbing us much booty as I could carry.
I think I've entered one competition...
which was on this here website. One had to think up potential AC/DC song titles. I won a copy of Brian Johnson's book. For which I am most grateful.
Quite a bit
I've won an Epiphone Les Paul from the late lamented Vox magazine. A pair of really nice powered speakers from MacUser. A couple of things from this place - A CD for spotting an LP cover in a photo, and a song custom written by Matthew Ryan, which arrived as hand written lyrics, with a home burned CD of the song and his back catalogue. And although it's not a competition per se, seeing my live review of the Posies in the latest issue was a lovely surprise and felt like a 'win'.
I enter a nearly every competition in guitar and bass magazines, but nothing from them. I can't grumble.
I won a gallon of beer
Playing Killer Pool at a bar in Greece.One of my proudest moments.
Orgasm Addict
I won tickets to see the Sex Pistols on their reunion tour. I had to come up with the best song for a musical condom (local radio...). I entered with Orgasm Addict by the Buzzcocks. The DJ refused to believe it was a real song, and I only won when I told them my surname (which has, ahem, a certain sexual connotation).
Won 2 tickets
to see Alice Cooper/Motorhead/Joan Jett tour at MEN Arena.
Most of my freebies come from internet research sites/questionnaires where I frequently get vouchers for Amazon and cheques from £10 - £50.
Not the same but was nominated and given a 2-week family holiday in Florida umpteen years ago.
I once won big!*
It was a Capital Radio sweatshirt back in 1990, for writing Capital Radio-themed lyrics to the tune of "Turtle Power" by Partners in Kryme.
*bit pathetic, really.
Capital Radio cardigan
I had one from Roger Scott. I was a child - all you had to do was ring up, I think.
My greatest triumph was a Beano T-shirt. You had to draw a new face for Roger the Dodger, so he could give his dad - gripping a slipper and snarling angrily - the slip. I made him look like Robert Robinson and I won!
Me too
I had a Capital cardigan too but I had to actually go into the studios to win it on Cash on Delivery. It really a bit too small for me!
I remember the jingle
It's embedded in my brain now again after having been dormant for 30 years.
For anyone that doesn't remermber!
COD COD COD ...... Cash On De-liv-er-y . (repeat ad nauseum)
For anyone that doesn't remermber!
COD COD COD ...... Cash On De-liv-er-y . (repeat ad nauseum)
What have I been missing?!
I never enter any competitions, mainly because I'm a pessimistic grump.
But reading all the above makes me feel as if I've been missing a great opportunity that's there for the taking. I hereby vow to enter every stupid competition and survey that presents itself to me. I'll give it a month, anyway.
6 Music
In the early days of 6Music I was working at home and we listened all day long and we expected a new jiffy bag with a prize in to arrive at least once a week, sometimes we had a few in a day. Lots of CDs, some T-shirts, signed books, Pens, Mousemats, CD cases along with a film premiere was quite a good haul. It all suddenly stopped when other people started to listen!
I remember that too
Only it was three of my mates who seemed to win something once a week on rotation. It's actually nice to know that some others benefitted and they weren't hogging all the booty.
Not a competition I suppose
But I got an email yesterday from a chap in Nigeria. Amazing stroke of luck - I have the same name as a client of his and he's going to give me a stash of cash for helping him get his personal fortune out of the country. No pesky competition questions, just had to send him my bank details and a deposit.....
Mate of mine
picks up the phone
"Hallo Mr Lynch. My name is Harry Potter from London. I am be telling you that you won a car in competition you enter long time ago."
May mate says "Brilliant. What colour is it?"
"Umm, urr erm..." Line goes dead.
Yes, and when I get a phonecall
wanting to ask me research questions I ask, "How much are you paying". They usually twitter on until they get sick of me repeating myself.
Some of the "research" I do simply involves opening an email link and then closing it = 5 points. 3000 points = £10 Amazon voucher. The more profitable ones involve face-to-face sessions in Manchester. The most I got was £150 cash-in-hand for talking about why I hate banks. Kerching.