Halloween is just around the corner, and for many, that means spooky costumes, eerie decorations, and unforgettable parties. But it's not just the planning of these spooky details that matters; organizing and coordinating with friends, family, or colleagues to create the perfect Halloween event is equally important. This is where PollUnit comes in – a versatile tool that helps you plan your Halloween celebrations efficiently and interactively.

1. Easy Costume Contest Organization

One of the most popular Halloween traditions is the costume contest. With PollUnit, you can easily set up a vote to determine the best costumes. Every participant can upload a photo of their costume, and the other guests can then vote for their favorite.

PollUnit's photo voting feature makes this simple:

• Upload photos: Participants can directly upload pictures of their costumes.
• Real-time voting: Other participants can cast their votes immediately.
• Anonymous voting: You can decide whether the voting should be anonymous or open.

This way, you’ll have a clear winner, and they can be awarded a spooky prize!

2. Decoration and Party Planning

A Halloween party wouldn't be complete without the right decorations! PollUnit allows you to involve your guests in deciding on the decor. Should it be a classic setup with pumpkins and cobwebs, or a modern horror movie theme? Let your guests decide!

With the voting feature, you can put various decoration ideas to the vote and let your friends or family choose their favorites:

• Gather suggestions: Everyone can share their own ideas.
• Multiple choice: Your guests can vote for multiple options if that's important to you.
• Result overview: You get a clear view of the most popular decoration ideas.

3. Finding the Best Date for the Party

When multiple people are involved, finding the perfect date for your Halloween party can be tricky. PollUnit's date poll makes this easy. You can propose several dates, and your guests can vote on when they are available, ensuring maximum attendance.

4. Food and Drink Polls

A spooky party needs spooky treats. Whether you’re planning pizza with »bloody« tomato sauce, creepy cupcakes, or eerie snacks, PollUnit lets your guests vote on what should be on the menu.

A multiple choice poll for food and drinks helps you gather the best ideas and ensures there's something for everyone. Or you can create a spooky potluck list or table where participants can sign up to indicate who is bringing which eerie snacks or drinks to the Halloween party

5. Group Gift Ideas for Halloween Parties

Sometimes, as a group, you might want to get the host or a special person a unique gift. PollUnit’s idea collection and rating features allow everyone to share their suggestions and then collectively choose the best gift.

And don’t forget: as soon as Halloween is over, Christmas is just around the corner! PollUnit offers many great features for the holiday season as well. You can organize an Ugly Sweater Contest, where your guests can vote for the most hideous holiday sweater design. Or set up a virtual advent calendar and make your friends and family happy with little surprises. Whether spooky or festive, PollUnit makes event planning a breeze!

We are excited to announce some exciting new features for PollUnit photo contests! From now on, you can easily filter your submitted photos and find the photos that you have not yet rated. For people who review submissions, there is a new feature to quickly find duplicate entries.

Why these features are especially valuable for photo clubs

Photo clubs play an important role in the photography community. They offer their members the opportunity to showcase their work, receive feedback, and develop their skills. In photo contests in photo clubs, it is often of great importance that each participant rates all submitted photos. This is the only way to ensure a fair and comprehensive assessment of the works.

With PollUnit's new filter functions, this is now even easier.

Filter by own images

You can now display your own submitted photos with just a few clicks. This makes it easier for you to keep track of your submissions and ensure that your work is seen and rated by others.

Filter by unrated images

This function is particularly useful to ensure that you do not overlook any submitted images. You can quickly and easily display all photos that you have not yet rated. This ensures that you give each image the attention it deserves and contribute to a fair and comprehensive evaluation.

Filter by duplicate images

A filter for duplicate or identical images offers admins an efficient way to manage submissions and resolve potential problems with duplicate entries. This filter automatically identifies identical files that have been uploaded multiple times and allows admins to quickly review them and take appropriate action. By reducing duplicates, the evaluation process becomes fairer and more transparent. The duplicate view can be found in the »Evaluation« section of your PollUnit.

We are confident that these new features will be a valuable addition to PollUnit photo contests. We encourage you to try them out and let us know what you think!

In 2020, we launched our Submission Approval Dashboard, initially designed for managing and approving submitted images in Photo Contests. Since then, we've made significant progress. Now, you can create your own Video Contests and Music Contests, both benefiting from an approval workflow. Recently, we've added some new features that we'd like to share with you.

What is an Approval Dashboard?

The Approval Dashboard provides an overview of all submissions. You can review each submission, approve or disapprove it, and the submitter will be informed about the approval status. Approved items become visible to other participants.

Approval Messages

Admins can now add messages when disapproving an item. This feature allows you to explain why a submission was not approved and what needs to be done for it to be approved.

Additionally, you can add positive feedback or express gratitude when approving an item.

Resubmitting or Updating Disapproved Submissions

If a user knows what needs to be corrected, they can resubmit or edit their submission. The Approval Dashboard now has the capability to filter for disapproved submissions that have been updated after disapproval, making it easier to recheck and approve them.

Today, we have an update for all music fans, musicians, and anyone interested in voting on music, sounds, or other audio data. PollUnit music contests and audio data voting have received a comprehensive update.

A PollUnit music contest allows you to create your own competition for audio data. You can ask participants to submit their own music and let others vote on it. You have access to the familiar PollUnit features to customize your contest flexibly. This includes custom designs, custom forms, embedding the voting on your own website, and much more.

Not only do music fans benefit from the capabilities of our music voting platform, but musicians and creatives also have the opportunity to present their music to a broad audience and receive valuable feedback.

But now, let's talk about the latest updates in PollUnit music contests.

Cover Art

If your uploaded MP3s contain album cover art, we extract them and use the graphics in your contest for a more impressive music player. If your MP3s don't include cover data, you can also upload your own graphics. This can be useful even if you're not voting on music tracks but on other sounds or audio.

You can add your own cover via the context menu (three dots) of the respective audio option.

Choose between Gallery and Playlist View

As an organizer or creator of a music contest, you can now choose between two layout options. In Playlist Layout, your participants can quickly scroll through your audio data in a compact and modern player and vote directly in the audio player.

The new Gallery Layout, on the other hand, displays large covers and can show additional information like the artist directly on the cover. With optional search and filter functions, you can quickly find the right track.

In the world of online voting, as well as in video and photo competitions, the participation of experts is invaluable. Their expert judgment can not only improve the quality of submitted entries but also ensure a fair and objective evaluation. This is where our new Jury Mode comes into play.

What is the Jury Mode?

The Jury Mode is a feature that allows selected jurors to have special rights to judge the submitted entries. In contrast to traditional voting by the general public, the Jury Mode enables the formation of an expert panel to evaluate the submitted works.

Participants visiting a PollUnit with the Jury Mode enabled can submit, review, and view the voting results. Voting is only possible for members of the jury. Of course, you can also configure your PollUnit so that the voting results or distribution of votes remain confidential.

What is the difference compared to invitations without Jury Mode?

You can also require an invitation in the security settings of your PollUnit without activating Jury Mode. Without Jury Mode, our system assumes that all visitors to your competition should be able to vote. Therefore, without Jury Mode, participants without an invitation will be shown an error message, stating that they need a valid invitation to vote. This error message is not displayed in Jury Mode.

Also, check out our article »Preventing Multiple Participation«.

Benefits of Voting with a Jury

Expert Judgment

With the Jury Mode, professionals from relevant industries or disciplines can be invited to evaluate the entries. Their expertise and experience contribute to ensuring a high-quality assessment and selecting the best works.

Objectivity and Fairness

The involvement of a jury ensures an objective and fair evaluation since decisions are not solely dependent on the opinions of the general public. This minimizes potential biases or manipulations and ensures a fair competition.

Improvement in Quality

The expertise of the jury helps to improve the quality of submitted entries, as they are able to assess technical aspects, recognize creative innovations, and identify works with high potential. This leads to a higher level of excellence and innovation in the results.

Versatility of Evaluation Criteria

Unlike purely quantitative voting, the Jury Mode allows for a more nuanced evaluation based on various criteria such as aesthetics, originality, message, and relevance. This considers more facets of the submitted entries and enables a more comprehensive assessment. For this PollUnit offers also a Voting Category Feature.

Appreciation for Experts

Involving professionals as jurors in voting and photo competitions contributes to the recognition and appreciation of their expertise. It provides them with a platform to showcase their knowledge and share their opinions on relevant topics.

Inviting Jurors

The Jury Mode can be activated in the "Advanced" step. After activation, you can invite jury members via email in the admin link of your PollUnit. Each member will then receive their own unique one-time link, ensuring that each juror can only vote once. Alternatively, you can also generate manual invitation links and distribute them yourself.