Absolute Radio 'Live Stories' – Forum Competition (Entry now closed)

[Jenjie]

Absolute Radio “Live Stories” – Forum Competition

We have the opportunity to take part in another forum competition with Absolute Radio, similar to the Rock-Off. This time around it’s all about your live experiences, and could win prizes for you and the Coldplaying forum.

This summer, Absolute Radio is bringing you free live music every day. To celebrate, they are once again pitting forums against each other in a series of competitions called 'Live Stories'. Your gig and festival experiences could win you tickets to a fantastic live event, and the winning forum gets to pick the line-up for a virtual festival to be broadcast on Absolute Radio, using our extensive archive of live recordings!

Here’s how the Absolute bit works:

• Absolute are asking forums to discuss your live experiences and submit the best stories. It could be anything connected to live music; the time you watched a David Bowie gig from backstage, or got lost at Glastonbury and discovered Tibetan throat singing for example. Chances are though, it will be a Coldplay show!
  
• Coldplaying.com has to submit 4 live stories to the Absolute Competition (that’s one a week for 4 weeks from 3rd August)
  
• Each week, the entries from each forum will be judged by a panel. They will select stories to go forward to the public vote for that week.
  
• The winning story for the week wins the writer a pair of live concert tickets (see below for more info), and puts the forum into the final.

Here’s how Coldplaying need you:

1. Submit your story to this thread when you have finished it;
2. Your fellow forum friends then vote for the entries and the Administrator of the forum submits a vote-winning story for each event. (four in total)
3. Each week, the nominated stories from various forums get filtered down by a panel of Absolute judges. The selected stories then go to a public vote for which story is the best.
4. The winner for the event it was submitted to will receive a pair of tickets to that event.
5. The winner of each event then writes an account of the event they attended, and these stories then go to a vote. The forum the winning story came from then gets to program their very own two hour virtual festival made up of live music from the Absolute Radio back catalogue to be played out live on air.

What you need to do now:

• We need you to post your live stories in this thread by 19:00 GMT Sun 19th July. The following instructions apply: Please don't use any smilies or links in your review. The review should be written in proper english - no abbreviations or text speech. Think of how the better newspaper reviewers write their reviews!
  
• From Sun 19th July to Wed 29th July, the forum will vote on their favourite reviews. The 4 reviews with the most votes will be our 4 entries for the Absolute Competition. In the event of a tie-break, the Admins & mods will decide which stories are entered.

The Prizes:

If your story is one of Absolute’s 4 weekly winners, you will get tickets for any of the following:

• Oasis at V Festival
• The Killers at V Festival
• U2 at Wembley
• Coldplay at Wembley
• Radiohead at Reading Festival
• Arctic Monkeys at Reading Festival

(as far as I understand it, they will specify which tickets are up for grabs each week). Even if you can't go to one of these concerts, please consider entering and if you win, donate your tickets to your Coldplaying friends! They'll love you forever!

*If Coldplaying gets to the final, the forum wins its own virtual festival on the radio! We program a two-hour festival, choosing songs from Absolute’s live archive.

There’s a little bit more about the competition on Absolute’s website http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/music/live/stories/ but as yet there are no terms & conditions. Once we know more, we’ll let you know.


The Terms & Conditions are here: http://www.absoluteradio.co.uk/music...ource=left_nav

The bits that stood out to me:

• The live stories submitted for entry must be on behalf of the forum, not you as an individual.
• Only one entry is permitted from each forum and must be submitted by a forum administrator or moderator. (As part of the entry process, you’ll have to include the forum thread/s showing the discussion your forum had).
• Your entry has to be made up of four live stories, one per competition. You’ll be able to match your stories to events on the entry form.
  By entering the competition, you warrant that your submission is original and does not infringe the third party intellectual property rights of any third party (and you shall indemnity Absolute Radio for any breach of this warranty).
• We’re looking for great stories from live events. These could be about seeing a band play, or the exploits you got up to at a festival.
• We need to see that your live stories are a true forum effort, so make sure plenty of your forum users contribute to a lively discussion in the forum thread you submit with your entry.
• Winners in each competition will be chosen by the public by way of an online vote at absoluteradio.co.uk/music/live/stories. Each competition vote will be open for five days, between 8.00am (GMT) on the Monday and 11.59pm (GMT) on the Friday.
• Only one vote per person per competition is permitted.
• The winner of each match will be announced on-air at 2.00pm (GMT) on the Saturday.
• For each competition, the person whose story wins (as voted for by the Absolute Radio listeners and users) will get a pair of tickets to a live event the following weekend.
• The prize events for each competition are as follows: 3rd to 9th August, U2 at Wembley; 10th to 16th August, V Festival; 17th to 23rd August, Reading Festival; and 24th to 30th August, Coldplay at Wembley.
• The winner will be asked to create a live story with their experiences from the events they won tickets to. This will then go on to represent the winner’s forum.

[Hi.I.Am.New.]

hmm

[Mimixxx]

Ooooooooh

[Corkus]

Holy smokes. I've been in a writing mood lately, but July 19th means I would have only a few hours to whip a review up once I wake up from the concert the night before.

That said, I doubt I could afford either plane tickets or the days off. I'll likely sit this competition out because of that, but you weren't lying when you said you had something big up your sleeve! Best of luck to everyone!

[iPsy]

You couldn't make up one could you? To support Coldplaying? And myself

[Zeya]

Oh I guess this competition is for those who can attend those shows..
And I obviously cant...bummer.
But anyhow good luck to those who are entering! We can surely rock this

[Pris]

Ohhh, so this is what you had under your sleeve
I'm assuming this is only for people who either live in/near the UK or can afford to get there, right??
Good luck to the ones going for it!!!

[ApproximatelyInfinite]

Oh man, I can write fairly well, but not when it's under pressure...I always try too hard . Are they looking for things geared towards the sorts of generic live reviews you would find published in newspapers, or more individual fan experiences? I guess I'm wondering what perspective they want it in: first-person active-voice personal account, or passive-voice, critical review. I think I'd write about the Today Show just because that was more of a unique concert experience that hasn't been as beaten to death by other fan & professional reviews, but I'll think about it

[strawberryfields]

That means I have less than 5 days to write a killer review.

Do we have any more information on how the review should be written? Should it be formatted just like a generic (but good) newspaper article, or can we go crazy and write a really creative short story type thing? I need to start planning!

[Jenjie]

they haven't said, but I'm guessing from what they've written on the website, they're looking for something that you found special, and a good description of why you found it so great.

as for anyone outside the uk, as I said at the bottom of the first post, they haven't posted terms & conditions yet. they're adding the entry form for the forum on Monday, so hopefully should have more info then.

[Clocks In My Place]

Bummer, I haven't been to a show yet and will not untill August the 16th.

Well, good luck to the everyone on here participating and to Coldplaying.com! I'll do what I can to vote.

[Lore]

*If your story is one of Absolute’s 4 weekly winners, you will get tickets for any of the following: Oasis at V Festival, The Killers at V Festival, U2 at Wembley, Coldplay at Wembley, Radiohead at Reading Festival, and Arctic Monkeys at Reading Festival (as far as I understand it, they will specify which tickets are up for grabs each week).



even if I had an awesome story I couldn't go there even with free tickets

good luck everyone and of course some nice coldplayers must win

[but a dream]

This is so cool

Not that my story is interesting enough to win!


Good luck Coldplaying.com! We can do it

[Malcolm-Edge]

I'll submit anyways. I've had a couple amazing Coldplay live stories over the last year. Im one of the few lucky enough to seen them 3 times this tour. I'm working on it now!

[ApproximatelyInfinite]

I keep reading the title of this thread as "Absolute Radio LOVE Stories"

I'm still undecided as to whether or not I'm going to write something...I can't make it to most of the concerts anyway even if I did win, despite actually being in the right country at the time (shocker there), and I almost feel as though there aren't enough guidelines for me to write something worthwhile. Knowing the way I write, whatever I come up with would be A) too long, B) unoriginal if I were to take the "gig review" road, or C) too personal and fangirly if I were to take the "personal experience" road.

Anyway, sorry for blabbing, I'm just trying to work out whether or not I should have a go