What if there was some promotion on the main site? Like just a post once a month or so saying that there are competitions going on at the forums. The main site gets a hell of a lot more traffic than the forums, this could attract some new blood to come and participate. I really enjoyed the competitions. Even if I didn't enter myself, I liked looking at/listening to the entries and voting for my favourite.
I wonder if the issue lies with the competitions being too frequent. I recall the music competition being two weeks, but it was almost always getting extended to at least a month. Maybe if we had each competition last a month, but have them all on different weeks? For example, first week of a month would be the beginning of the drawing competition, second week would be the beginning of the writing competition, third week would be the beginning of the music competition, etc. Repeat next month. This gives participants plenty of time to complete entries and vote, and this way there's something happening in the section every week. idk how well it would work this way, but it's worth a try I think. Sometimes, two or three competitions would run at exactly the same time, and I'm sure some people who wanted to participate in both weren't able to. Everybody would win this way. Also, people who normally only participate in a certain competition can at least check out the others and vote for the entries because there would be a dedicated week for each competition. Like I said, I'm not too sure it would actually work, but I do believe it could and it's at least worth a shot.
I actually meant to bring something up recently about reviving the music competition, as it was my favourite one overall. I don't have much time nor resources to participate myself at the moment, but I would love to host it if Heroine can't or doesn't want to anymore.