A Little More On Free Competitions

After we talked yesterday about Andi Peters Free Cash Friday, it got us thinking a little bit more about how to earn a bit of money on the side while COVID-19 has us all stuck at home until those clever scientists work out how to immunise us all!

We thought that we’d do a few posts over the coming days suggesting different approaches to supplementing your income, however large or small that might be.

Whether you’ve see everything dry up like us here in the openmusicscore.org team, or still could do with a few extra quid in the bank each month (who couldn’t?), we’ve come up with some nuggets that might just be able to help).

Let’s start in the same zone as yesterday, and talk sweepstakes, competitions, prize draws – whatever you want to call them, it’s all the same to us.

First and foremost, we are not advising anyone to pay for entry to anything here. Spending money you don’t have on a punt to get lucky is a bad idea, plain and simple. Yes, it probably comes off occasionally for someone, but the chance of that being you is tiny to non-existent.

On the other hand, when you’re time rich and money poor, a free online entry or two doesn’t do you any harm at all. Your investment is nothing more than a few moments of your time and then you can let lady luck work her magic.

For businesses (like ITV with Free Cash Friday), free entry contests are a terrific way to get your name out there and into the minds of millions of people who are looking for what you have to offer.

Whether it’s just a few words on your website or a sales pitch, getting your name out there and into the minds of those who are interested in what you have to say is a great way to generate some good money online.

You see, you don’t have to pay for entry contests that offer cash prizes, because that isn’t the goal here. The goal with these type of contests is to get people to share your website link with their friends and family (heck, we did exactly that for ITV yesterday), and to do that, you need to give them something of value. This might mean putting them to work or promoting their website in return, which of course would also cost you some money.

When you look at free entry contests that offer prizes of some sort, you will notice that they usually include some kind of advertising program that lets you use the information that you collect from the contest in exchange for some money. While this might seem like a scam to some people, you need to realize that it’s just a way for the company to get their name out there and to start generating traffic to their website.

If you are offering free advice or products to promote on your site, this can be another way that you can generate buzz and start generating visitors to your online store or company website. For example, you can offer to write articles for people who are trying to build a website from scratch, but who also don’t know much about computers or how to use them. Then, they will pay you to send them your article to publish on your site as well as pay you to advertise on your site for as long as they want.

When they pay you for advertising on your site, they are not going to actually buy anything from you and they aren’t going to have to worry about writing articles and posting them on your site for you to do all of the work for them. All they have to do is just pay you for the service and then you can send them their articles and post them on your site whenever they want.

These types of contests are great because it lets you reach out to people in your field that you otherwise wouldn’t have been able to reach through traditional marketing techniques. For example, if you have a blog and you offer free advice, you may be interested in reaching out to those in your niche that are having some problems, but who are also looking for help.

In addition to getting your name out there for free entry contests that offer prize incentives, you will also be able to get your name out there by having a list of links that people can click on to go to your site to get more information or to buy your products and services. This is one of the best ways that you can gain some additional exposure and bring in more visitors to your site. When they see that you have links on other sites, they will click on the links and end up coming to your site to learn more about your topic.

You see, with many of these types of contests, you never have to spend any money to enter them. There is no cost to you can simply put in a small bit of information and some of your contact information, and the only thing you have to invest is your time to fill in the form to enter.

Win The ITV Free Cash Friday

Every so often, there’s a chance to get involved with something that doesn’t come around too frequently. As musicians here at the Open Music Score, we’ve been hit hard by the pandemic this year, and many of us have missed out on the financial support provided by Rishi Sunak and the rest of the government ministers.

Don’t get us wrong, we’re not complaining, we’ve never expected handouts in the past, and we don’t do now either, but it is a little bittersweet to see so many other people caught by a safety net as some of us fall through the cracks.

That’s why it was music to our ears (excuse the obvious and lazy pun!) when we hear about one of our colleagues, Laura, who got some great news on the phone one Friday morning from none other than Mr Andi Peters!

You see, every Friday morning, he runs a competition called the ITV Free Cash Friday, which I’ve seen countless times on Good Morning Britain. What I’d not realised though, is it’s free to enter.

I’ve never been a fan of gambling, and while I’m not sure the usual ITV competitions count as gambling, they’re very close to the wire as far as I’m concerned. This though, with a free entry is totally different.

As Laura found out, there is a real winner and if that doesn’t cost you a penny, just a few minutes to enter online it’s got to be worth the effort, especially when so many of us are out of work and struggling to make ends meet.

You can get in the draw by entering on the ITV website each week. The entry form appears on Wednesday evenings (I believe it’s around 5pm), and stays there until just before the winner is picked and called. According to the website, that means you’ve got until quarter to eight on Friday mornings to put your details in.

They then pick five potential winners, and Andi Peters does his thing on his competition slot on Friday mornings just after half past eight as part of Good Morning Britain on ITV1. Typically, you’ll see their line up of previous winners telling you how glad they are that they sent that text or made that call, and then give you the details of how you could be the next big winner. Best of luck with that!

I’ve got a bit confused on one occasion as I didn’t realise I was watching on the plus one channel, so sat there like a lemon at half past eight watching for Andi to appear… and he didn’t. Of course he did really, just on the live channel. Needless to say, I didn’t win.

It’s worth a mention too that they’re sticklers for the rules. Apparently you have to answer in three rings to win the prize, and that’s why they choose five names, it’s the first one they call that answers quickly enough that gets the prize. Harsh.

The current run of the ITV Friday comp is scheduled to run up to around Christmas, so if you’ve got a tight budget and three grand could make the world of difference, why not give it a whirl. There’s plenty of other prizes on there too, but as I said, I’m not a fan of gambling so I’d advise against entering those as I bet the chances of winning are tiny. No judgement though, if you’re the sort of person that likes a flutter now and again good luck to you.

If you want to find out more about Andi Peters’ competitions, you can find his Twitter here. You can also swell his Instagram follower count here.

Live Classical Music Is A Different Experience

My love of classical music began as young boy and has only grown over the years. I collected tapes and CDs of my favourite composers and orchestras and listened to them on a regular basis growing up. I can say, though, that having the opportunity to listen to live classical music is a different experience all together.

I went to my first live classical music concert when I was 14 years old, to see a production of Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite. It was during the Christmas season, so I was already in a good mood, but when I heard that opening chord and listed to the orchestra play those beautiful notes, I was transfixed, and knew that I was in for the experience of a lifetime.

I had gone with my grandmother who had been to many live classical music performances, so it was probably old hat for her. She did look over at me on multiple occasions, however, and I knew that she could tell that I was really enjoying myself.

When the concert was over, we went out to eat and she asked me what I thought. I told her that I had never seen anything like it, and that I wanted to go to as many live performances as possible. She laughed and said that it does have a tendency to get into your blood.

A few months later, I had the pleasure of attending a Beethoven review live, where movements from a few of his symphonies were performed, as well as a couple of his better known works like Moonlight Sonata.

Once again, I was completely mesmerized by the experience. I had always enjoyed playing classical music at home, but nothing compared to the live classical music that I had gotten to experience at our local concert hall. I knew that it would be something I would enjoy for the rest of my life.

I attended my first opera when I was in my mid-20s. It was Tosca, my favourite opera of all, and it absolutely blew me away. Although I had the recording of the opera with Placido Domingo in the role of Cavaradossi, it was not nearly as breathtaking as seeing it live and hearing those wonderful arias performed right in front of me.

I have since been to see six other operas and will go to two more this year alone. Live classical music is like nothing I have ever experienced and is something that will be a part of my life for as long as I live. I would urge anyone that is a classical music fan but has never attended a live performance to do so, because it will strengthen and solidify your love of classical music forever.