The Strictly Spoiler 2016 Competition

The new series of Strictly is underway soon and what better way to celebrate with a competition. With more prizes and more chances to win than in 2015 this is the biggest and best competition this site has run.

The competition will run every single week this series with a £20 Amazon UK voucher given away to one lucky winner each week. There will also be additional spot prizes on Facebook and Twitter some weeks so watch out for them. Each month one lucky person who won the weekly competition or a spot prize on Facebook or Twitter will also win the monthly prize of an Amazon Kindle Fire Tablet.

Entry to the competition is quite simple, you simply have to join the discussion on any of the posts on this site or its associated social networking channels. Details of the specific entry routes are as follows:

Strictly Spoiler Website

To enter on this website simply join the discussion by commenting on any of the posts on this site during each competition period to be entered into that week’s competition

Facebook

Like The Strictly Spoiler on Facebook and then simply like and comment on any of the posts made on that page during the competition period each week

Also keep an eye out for special spot prize posts with a like/share requirement. If the post receives more likes and shares than the requirement by the closing time/date the prize will unlock and one person who has liked/shared that post will win the prize.

There will also be occasional spot prize posts where you need to guess an answer. These won’t have a like/share requirement and full entry requirements will be detailed on the posts themselves

Entry for the first Facebook spot prize is closed but there will be plenty more exclusive Facebook spot prizes later in the series

Twitter

Follow me on Twitter and reply to any of my Strictly Come Dancing related tweets. Remember to include the hashtag #StrictlySpoiler and tag @davejthorp in your tweet for the entry to count.

Please don’t include any other hashtag especially if your tweet is discussing the spoiler. Please remember Twitter is a public medium and others can view your tweets especially if they are posted to official Strictly hashtags. Please be considerate of those that may wish to wait until the not live results show to learn the results

Also keep an eye out for special spot prize tweets with a retweet/like requirement. If the tweet receives more retweets/likes than the requirement by the closing time/date the prize will unlock and one person who has retweeted/liked the tweet will win the prize.

There will also be occasional spot prize posts where you need to guess an answer. These won’t have a like/share requirement and full entry requirements will be detailed on the posts themselves

The first Twitter spot prize is open right now and you can find more details here!

The second Twitter spot prize has opened. If the spoiler tweet on 1st October 2016 receives over 150 retweets one person who has retweeted the tweet will win a £20 voucher. Check my twitter feed here for more details

Email

Finally, I recognise that not all of this site’s audience will be users of social networking but I don’t want to exclude anyone from having the chance to win a prize this series. So you can enter by email by sending an email with your name and address with the subject “Competition” to competition@strictlyspoiler.com

This entry route is limited to one entry per person/email address per week. Multiple entries will be discounted.

Boring Legal Bit

  1. This competition is open to all UK and Republic of Ireland residents with the exception of any family members of the promoter
  2. The competition runs from Saturday to Friday each and every week from 23/09/16 until 16/12/16 with the exception of the first week which will run from Friday to Friday (23/09/16-30/09/16)
  3. There is 1 (one) prize each week which consists of a £20 (twenty pounds) voucher for use on the Amazon UK website
  4. There is 1 (one) prize during each of the months of October, November and December which consists of a Kindle Fire 8GB Black tablet without promotional offers (amazon issued adverts on the home screen and screensaver). The tablet will be delivered unregistered and you will be required to register it to an Amazon UK account during the setup process
  5. The promoter reserves the right to substitute any prize with one of equal or better value/specification
  6. Entry in each promotional period closes at 00:00 on Friday Night/Saturday Morning
  7. Entry to the competition can be made using any or all of the entry routes described above by following the instructions above for each route. Entries must comply with all the requirements described above including liking or following any particular posts, profiles or pages and the use of any applicable hashtags in order to count
  8. Additional spot prizes will be made available to users of Facebook/Twitter who follow or like the respective social profiles of this site at the promoters discretion.
  9. Some spot prizes will only unlock if selected posts on the social network receive a predetermined number of likes/shares/retweets before the time stated on the posts. Should a post not reach the predetermined number of likes/shares/retweets the prize will be forfeit.
  10. Spot prize values will vary at the promoters discretion and will be detailed in the respective posts on the social networking sites
  11. Winning a voucher spot prize will enter the winner in that month’s monthly prize draw to win a Kindle Fire Tablet
  12. Entrants are permitted to enter the weekly competition through more than one entry route and more than once per entry route with the exception of email entry which is limited to one entry per person per week through that entry method. Email entrants may still receive additional entries through the other entry methods each week
  13. Whilst entrants are permitted to enter the weekly competition multiple times, should anyone be judged by the promoter to be spamming the comments system on this site or spamming on social networking sites in order to artificially inflate their number of entries, the promoter reserves the right to disqualify these entries. The aim of this competition is to promote discussion about the spoiler and Strictly in general both on this website and on the applicable social networking profiles. As long as entrants keep to the spirit of this it is unlikely an entry will be disqualified
  14. Weekly prize draws will take place on each Saturday during the competition period. Monthly prize draws will take place on the final Saturday of each month during the competition period or in the case of December it will take place on the date of the Final of the 2016 series of Strictly
  15. Weekly winners will be selected at random from all qualifying entries across all entry methods and will be announced on the first spoiler post following the draw
  16. Spot prize winners will be selected at random from all qualifying entries and announced on the respective social network.
  17. Monthly winners will be selected at random from all weekly winners and spot prize winners who have won since the last monthly draw, including the weekly winner drawn on the same day as the monthly draw and will be announced on the first spoiler post following the draw
  18. Winners will be contacted by email or on the applicable social network and will be required to provide any details required to deliver their prize, and confirm their acceptance of the prize within 7 days of being contacted otherwise the prize may be forfeit. In the event of a prize being forfeit a redraw will take place and the prize will be offered to another participant
  19. Prizes will be delivered within 1 month of acceptance of a prize. Amazon UK voucher prizes will be delivered to an email address provided by the winner and will be delivered directly by Amazon. Kindle Fire Tablet prizes will be delivered to an address provided by the winner and may be delivered directly by Amazon or directly from the promoter. UK winners will receive their prize by Royal Mail Special Delivery or by a courier of Amazon’s choosing. Republic of Ireland winners will receive their prize by Royal Mail International Signed For or by a courier of Amazon’s choosing. Winners may also be given the option to have their prize delivered to an Amazon Locker location of their choosing.
  20. Any personal information provided during entry or as a part of fulfilling a prize will only be used for the purposes of this competition and will not be stored beyond the completion, used for marketing purposes for the Strictly Spoiler or any other enterprise operated by Dave Thorp nor will it be passed onto any 3rd party with the exception of Amazon where it is necessary to fulfil a prize. Emails via the email entry route will be deleted each week once a draw has taken place
  21. Entrants will require an account with Amazon UK or will be required to register for an account with Amazon UK in order to redeem or use any prize and will be required to agree to any terms and conditions set by Amazon when using their products or services
  22. Kindle Fire tablets are covered by a 1 (one) year limited warranty which is provided by Amazon UK. Winners should contact Amazon directly in the event of any warranty issue with their prize. The promoter cannot accept any liability in the event of any fault with a prize. The 1 year warranty period may run from the date the prize is purchased by the promoter which may be different to the date of delivery of the prize but will be no earlier than 19th September 2016
  23. The name of all winners will be announced on the Strictly Spoiler website and/or its associated social networking channels
  24. The promoter reserves the right to alter these terms and conditions or amend any entry methods should it become necessary to do so for any reason outside of the promoter’s control including but not limited to removal of social networking profiles by the BBC
  25. The promoters decision in all aspects of this competition is final and no correspondence will be entered into
  26. This competition is promoted by Dave Thorp, trading as The Strictly Spoiler (//www.strictlyspoiler.com) and is not connected with Amazon, Twitter, Facebook, The BBC or any other party

Site Migration Complete

As I discussed towards the end of the last series, I was looking at changing my web hosting once again as the site was starting to struggle to cope with the strains being placed on it around the time the spoiler was posted.

I’m pleased to report that process is now complete and the site is now being hosted with my new host. This will (hopefully) be the last time I need to move this site as my new host provides me with a couple of advantages that should allow me to keep the site up.

Firstly the site is now being run using web server software that is less resource intensive than the previous one so that in itself will help when the site comes under heavy load when the spoiler is posted.

Secondly, and more importantly, the site now has dedicated resources (CPU and RAM) available to it rather than having to share those resources with other sites on the same servers. More importantly I can increase those resources on the fly as and when they are needed (usually about 10pm on a Saturday night when there are tens of thousands of you refreshing the site at the same time).

I’ve tested the site pretty thoroughly before making the switch so there shouldn’t be any issues but if any of you notice anything wrong let me know either in the comments section or over on Facebook or Twitter and I’ll get it sorted. Same applies for when the spoiler is posted if you are having issues let me know and I’ll ramp the resources up. The first couple of spoiler weeks I’ll be trying to find the right balance of resources to cope with the spikes so may have to play around with my settings to get things right but hopefully after that the site should be issue free (touch wood)

I continue to be amazed at just how much this has grown over two short years from receiving a few hundred visits over a Strictly weekend to several hundred thousand towards the end of the last series. I have a feeling that 2016 will blow that out of the water but with any luck the site now will be able to cope just fine!

Strictly Come Dancing 2016 – Launch Show Discussion/Poll

The launch show may not contain any surprises for anyone who has read the Launch Show Spoiler but there still will a be a lot to talk about I’m sure both during and after the launch show airs. And what better place to do it than here at the home of the Strictly Spoiler.

You can join the discussion right here in the comments section and tell me what you think or over on Facebook or Twitter. Don’t forget to head on over to Facebook if you want to enter the first competition of the 2016 series. See the Facebook page for details.

A poll will open once all the pairings have been revealed on the Launch Show. Will Young is currently your early favourite but now you know the partnerships has that changed? You can let me know by voting in the poll when it opens.

As always if you could give this post some love using the buttons for all popular social networks and google+ above and below. It really does help me out and helps spread the word about The Strictly Spoiler.

I also need to let you know that at some point in the next two weeks the site will temporarily go down for maintenance as I move the site to a new host to allow me to keep it up during peak periods once the results spoilers start to roll in. Don’t worry if you can’t get on I haven’t gone anywhere and the BBC haven’t silenced me! Once the site has moved the web address will remain the same so you don’t need to update your bookmarks!

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