Create a Contest!

Opium's known for our wacky contests: 500-Word Memoir, 250-Word Bookmark, 7-Line Story.

Annoyingly, we don't have a fourth, to make the cycle a bit rounder (or to consider doing two per issue, maybe).

The idea: we invite the Opium readers and the literati to create Opium's "next" contest.
Questions: What's the reward? (There's already the "Shya Scanlon 7-Line Story Contest.")
Do we name the contest after them? $50, and two free entries to any Opium contests? Something else? What's our strategy for monetizing (charge to enter seems a little silly)? Sponsors?

Handout Idea For LDM

You said something about having a handout to pass along at the matches with the web site, so i mocked this up quickly. We could print something out on card stock and then get a scrapbooking punch like this, or some other nifty shape.

You could have your designer do something awesome with the design, but i think the important info is pointing them to the new issue, the fb fan page we'll make and the web sites. Looking at it now the text would need to be a lot bigger, but the general idea is there. Youknowwhaimsayin'

Take a Hit for Opium

Literary-Inspired Dodgeball tournament/ water polo/ kick ball/ alternative sports--talk to New York Social Sports Club or similar venue.  Teams sign up for nominal fee and are assigned a name for a literary character or author and sports shirts with that person’s face and a quote.  Before each game team has to pick a quote from that character/author that inspires their game play for that round (or something along those lines). Could have famous people referee.  

New York Opium Wars

There is this thing in Raleigh that is basically a large underground water gun fight that goes on for about a month in August. You’re assigned a person to “kill” and they are assigned a person to “kill” and so on and so forth. You can’t kill the person assigned to kill you, only the person you are assigned to kill.  When you kill that person you take over their assignment. And then the last person standing is the winner!

 We could change the rules a bit to what we think is best, and would need to make set groups of like 50 people or so, divide up by neighborhood, something like that—but Raleigh folk get SUPER into it.  I had a few friends that it was all they talked about for a month. It was hellua annoying then, but could be an awesome idea for us.  We could try to figure out a way to tie in with literature, maybe award the winners at a death match or something.

Wild Ideas

Subscribers
PDF's, or something cool, to subscribers. The idea is: we send them something to make them feel cool, they send it to people to show how cool they are, then virally we get other eyes on us. A thought to consider.