Contests ... Good or Bad?

[Lonman]

Funny thing is if contests are so terrible, WHY then do people feel the need to enter? Why are contest nights always packed?
Answer simply, if it's fun to do & people enjoy something, SOMEONE is going to make it into a competition - this goes for ANYTHING that's supposed to be fun, not just karaoke. Why do people compete - it's human nature to try to be the best! All the way from the prettiest baby contest to a Grandma quilting contest & everything, sport, hobby, music & anything else you can think of - Guiness book of world records is nothing BUT a huge contest in almost everything imagineable.
We run contests all the time, don't lose customers over it, our regs know that when the contest is over, things will get back to normal & we've actually gained new regs from contests - not all the time, but most of them we've ran. Only advice is try to keep everything as fair as possible (even though people will still see it as not - again, human nature), allow all judges sheets to be reviewd, never allow audience response as a scoring criteria, have judges at least knowledgeable in the music field & having absolutely nothing to do with the club holding the contest.