Is there some way to be emailed or notified in some fashion if/when the next thing comes about? I know, for me anyways, the reason for not submitting was not knowing about the contest until after it had already ended.
Imho that be an idea to improve numbers of participation actually. I'm sure a lot of people don't look at the site much during album downtime so maybe if people consented to a mailing list?
If you click on THIS LINK, you get taken to the "Watch Forum" display for the news forum, if you select "New Threads" under "Send notifications for" and "Emails" under "Send notifications via", you will get an email whenever a new news post is made. Also make sure to follow on Facebook and Twitter, the notifications show up there 5 minutes after the post is made.