Well, one of the reasons I don't enter the contests here is the popular vote thing. Plus, the themes are rather bland and generic. Verging on the uninspiring. For contrast, look at the last Dystopia contest at DAZ -- they had much fewer prizes, but they had twice as many imaes as the blah "Holiday Dreams" contest here. I think an inspiring theme with a stylistic flavor was the key. Aery Soul had a very small forum (when they were still running it) and their prizes were also products, but they had a fantastic theme, advertised the contest here and at DAZ and had a lot of entries, even though many people had learned of their forum for the first time because of the contest and had to register there.

I would love some good Carrara contests. But I think the thing to do is to find a great theme and to advertise the contest throughout the community: DAZ forum, ask DAZ to feature it in their newsletter, here at the forum, maybe see if Renderosity can support it and promote it too. And I would do 2 categories: one for all users and one for new users of Carrara, so people who don't know Carrara yet would have an extra reason to check it out.

Another thing Carrara Cafe needs is good notification system. And a newsletter.

Oh, and that reminds me. Would you like to add more images to existing Showcase profiles?

By the way, did Mark refuse to participate? He is one of the most prominent users of the software.

Also, what about Ben Craig? I think a lot of people would like to hear more about his use of Carrara and his workflow.