How do I run an online AMV contest? Maybe?

[MikeWilliams]

First off, I'm going to start with a little self introduction. If you don't care, skip this paragraph, go down to the next one. I am not an AMV editor, I'm an AMV contest runner. It took me a long time to get to where I could approve a budget for AMVs, and since then I have been super happy to give cash prizes to the folks who won the contests that I ran. My convention has gone away, but I have not, and my bucket of money has not. I would still very much like to be a head judge of an AMV contest that awards its winners with cash prizes.

I have never run a web only AMV contest, and I would like to reach out out to the community to ask how to do it in the best way. My instinct is to put videos that are submitted on Youtube, but I'm not going to lie, I have gotten a good deal of pushback on that. When I was part of a real world convention, I could pipe those videos from Youtube into our video rooms - it was kind of a slick set up, if you ask me.

But now it is me, and you. I want to run a contest. I want to feature everybody who enters my contest... somewhere. But I don't know where. Is Youtube the right place? Should it be somewhere else?

Look, here is what is not going to change. I am an old dude who has worked in television, and I've run an AMV contest for years. I have a group of judges who were a long time video judges, but I finally have a Nashville dude doing our audio judging for us. The standards that my team uses to judge this contest will not change.

But I don't know where to put a contest if I'm not a part of a convention, so I'm reaching out. I have prizes, I have judges - I want to run a contest. Y'all, point me in the right direction and I will go.

[SQ]

Several ideas here...

Partner with a convention
Find another convention. Volunteer your expertise there.

Partner with an established online community
This site, amvnews.ru, big discord communities, big youtube channels, etc. Contact them and ask if you can run a contest that they will promote/host in some kind of official capacity.

Run it on your own and:

Livestream it
Promote it wherever (on this forum is good) and establish certain event times where you will show the videos and/or award show. Twitch and youtube streaming typically don't take down copyright violating videos when they are actually live streaming. a-m-v.org and momocon's amv contests are typically livestreamed and I don't think they've ever had any issues with this.

Create your own website or discord server and stream/host the videos there
In a non-AMV vidding community I am in, they promote their events wherever and then have a group stream for the premieres on a website they personally own or in a discord voice call.

Most online contests I know of usually have a discord server specifically for the event.

I personally have a bit of a hybrid approach.
I run my own vidding discord community and it has its own "official" peer-reviewed vidding event (so everyone who submitted are the judges, there's no official judge panel). The videos are submitted to an online video reviewing service (I use https://kollaborate.tv but https://frame.io would be a more popular alternative). This takes care of the hosting, streaming, and comments.
I have my own website that displays the rules and calendar (the event itself is about a month long) and hosts the forms for voting (but google forms and/or paid cloud form solutions are alternatives).
Most of this information + news is duplicated in discord.
Inside discord over the time period, there are also scheduled voice calls and group streams to watch and discuss the videos with others in live time.

The awards show itself usually a scheduled video premiere on youtube (I personally don't have the internet capability to livestream), but one year we had to do it over a discord call instead since it was blocked. It went fine.

Final notes
Personally I think you're over-thinking it.
If I'm understanding you correctly, your main concern is how to make an awards show. Youtube is fine for that.
If your concern is more about storing the videos, there are plenty of cloud hosting providers that exist now. A fair amount specialize in videos.
If you have the ability to give cash prizes, it shouldn't be too hard to split off some money for these services (If it's even needed, since there are some free ones with limits).

[SQ]

My instinct is to put videos that are submitted on Youtube, but I'm not going to lie, I have gotten a good deal of pushback on that.

What kind of pushback did you get? What were their concerns?