competition prizes idea help

Ask yourself this question:

Say you had a yearly competition where the 5 or so best singers were given the prize of a record contract. Why would this happen? TV ratings? Why would the people who had these record contracts give them away? Can you think of anything that matches this?




A better reason, though, would be this:

Perhaps there is a dangerous, but possibly very lucrative part of space that we want to colonize. Very wealthy people wouldn't necessarily want to go, because of the great danger. But very creative engineering teams with innovative ideas on how to survive the dangers could stand to earn massive amounts of money, and could sign on to split the earnings 50/50 with the sponsering space-ship company.

Sponsorship. Slightly obsolete starships supplied by SPACESHIPS-R-US CORP. "To infinity, and beyond!"

Dangerous territory. Something happened to the people who previously set foot on those planets. Maybe linked to reality hyperTV. "What they DON'T know, fellow sentients, is that the family that got sent in ahead of them got EATEN!"

Evil plot. Those who "won" the "prize" are undesirables. Political pains, religious zealots, racial minorities, criminals, vampires, internet junkies.

-Derek
My Web Page - shameless vampyre fiction & other shameless writings.
Bio-readouts are all in the green, looks like she's alive. Well, there goes our salvage, guys.

Another evil plot: The competition is intended to find the "best of the best" at something so the winners can be used by the ones sponsoring the competition for some nefarious end.

If the sponsors don't have a hidden agenda, perhaps the spaceships or territories are rare commodities and they want to make sure the prize goes to someone who can use it properly as opposed to someone who just has lots of money. The competition becomes a way for the competitors to prove themselves worthy. If you can't make it through the competition, you don't deserve the prize. There might be some long-term strings attached to winning, like the winners become employees of the sponsors or are required to also perform other tasks.

The society in my fantasy WIP is feudal. One of the settings in my story is a village situated in a mountain forest where many artisans have settled because of the excellent quality of wood, so the exports of the town are things like quality furniture, sculptures, and most importantly, musical instruments. Every year they hold a competition in which all the artisans submit exceptional pieces of work to be judged. The grand prize of the competition is the first pick of wood during the next year. Other prizes include money and trophies.

So, the pros of the situation: the competition fosters creativity. Every year the entries are more and more extraordinary. Even the losers benefit from the spark of competition, and sometimes end up with new commissions. Also, it's fun and it draws in outside trade. From the standpoint of the noble house who owns the land and sponsors the competition, they are assured that the artisans who are at the top of their game will have the best raw materials to work with in the coming year.

The cons? Sometimes there's too much competitiveness. In the past, there have been incidents of sabotage in order to win.

sunandshadow, have you decided what the prize will be? That might help you decide what the competition will be and what the sponsors want.

Interesting proposition...

sunandshadow said:

Say you had a yearly competition where the best 5 or so teams were given the prize of a spaceship or a territory to rule - can you think of any idea why this might happen?

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Just based on your own parameters, the field narrows.

First of all, it's a "yearly competition." First parameter: there has to be a good deal of either land or spaceships to be given away. I suppose you could limit it by saying it's the "First Annual So-and-so Competition" but even then, how many "whatevers" will the sponsors eventually give away?

sunandshadow said:

Why would the people running the competition have spaceships or territories to give away, a limited number each year, and people couldn't get them enywhere else? Why not just sell them to the highest bidder if they're rare and valuable?

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Chances are, in a world without absolutes, there probably is land/spaceships that can be bought by high bidders (or just those with enough capital to fund the expeditions), but your sponsors want to see some egalitarian balance and want to offer up opportunities to folk that might not otherwise have the chance.

It reminds me a little of how royalty gave land grants in the new world. Your idea throws on the competitive spin to see how it's parceled out. Second parameter: Since this territory is basically for homesteading (you haven't mentioned anything about having quell native revolutions), it's probably a modest size – perhaps big enough to support a town and surrounding farmlands.

If you took the spaceship route, I could easily see a crazy rich industrialist commissioning a series of ten (or however many) self-supporting space stations – complete with their own tug to be dragged to whatever orbit they can get clearance for. That year's winner has a chance to set up their own invite-only culture as part of a social experiment.