Enter To Win Radisson Blu’s Sweepstakes & Chair Design Contest

I stayed at the Hilton Copenhagen earlier this year and remarked in my review that between the reception area and the bar was a chair that was covered with signatures. A plaque beneath said that famous people were welcome to sign, and when it was full the chair would go to auction. I didn’t think anything of the chair itself at the time, and just thought it was neat that the money was going to charity.

I’ve since learned that Arne Jacobsen was the mastermind behind the chair known as the “Egg”. Arne was a Danish architect and designer who created simple but comfortable chair designs, and he designed the Egg chair in the late 1950’s specifically for the Radisson SAS hotel in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Do you have an eye for design? Radisson Blu is currently running a contest where you can design your own take on Arne Jacobsen’s classic Egg chair. Using just your computer and easy-to-use buttons, you get to choose the color, pattern, and can make it as simple or fancy as you like. The prizes are pretty cool too, with the winning design going on to be displayed in Radisson Blu hotels worldwide.

In addition to bragging rights, the Grand Prize winner will also receive airfare for two to the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel in Copenhagen the week of November 16, 2015 for the unveiling of “their” chair. They’ll stay three nights at the hotel and enjoy breakfast each morning, a dinner at Alberto K, and an exclusive tour of the Republic of Fritz Hansen. Oh, and the hotel accommodations won’t just be in a random room. The Grand Prize winner will stay in Room 606 of the hotel, otherwise known as the Arne Jacobsen suite designed in blues, greens and greys. It is a tribute to his designs, and the room is furnished with carefully preserved original designs from the 1960’s. Here’s a photo from the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel’s website –

When not occupied the $750 a night suite is typically open for other guests to come by and take a look.

Even if you don’t win the Grand Prize, fifteen finalists (chosen by votes) in the contest will receive a miniature Egg chair matching their submitted design, and a certificate for two consecutive nights at any Radisson Blu worldwide. The contest runs until October 13, 2015 so if you need to brush up on your skills you have plenty of time.

To see how the contest worked, I entered myself. Mind you, I’m far from being a designer but it was a fun break from a spreadsheet project I was working on. 

Click here to be taken to the website to design your very own Egg chair.

You start with a blank white chair, and can change the colors of each part of the chair.

Buttons at the top and bottom of the screen let you choose colors, pattern and the like.

I did just a couple simple colors on mine (yellow for creativity and blue to stimulate the mind), but you could go wild with patterns and styles too. It even lets you modify the cushion color and base of the chair.

Once you’re done, you get to select scenery to go behind your chair. By this time I could already picture myself sitting in the chair and enjoying a gorgeous view of the world’s cities.

The next step is to login or register on the site. This is so the chair design can be registered under your name and displayed on their website as a contest entry, and so they can contact you if you are chosen as a finalist. I made a mistake on this step. I figured that when it said to login, it meant to a Club Carlson account which I already have. After entering my details though a simple error message was kicked back. Fail!

I went back to read the instructions and found that when creating a chair design for the first time, you have to sign up or register separately for just this contest, regardless of if you already have a Club Carlson account. Then, if you want to submit more designs as the weeks go by, you can log back in using the registration info you submitted the first time.

You can submit one chair design during each contest period. We’re currently in contest period number 2 so you can submit a total of four, spread out over the coming weeks. Here are the entry dates according to the contest website –

Here’s the judging criteria –

Want to try your hand at designing a chair? Here’s a link to the entry page.

If designing chairs is not your thing, you can still enter the sweepstakes by voting for your favorite chair. The sweepstakes is open to residents of Austria, Belgium, Canada (excluding Quebec), China, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, India, Japan, Luxembourg, Netherlands, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, Taiwan, United Kingdom, Venezuela, 50 U.S. States and D.C.

It’s easy to vote (and thus enter the sweepstakes). Click here to see submitted designs for the current contest period.

Once you make your chosen selection by clicking on the chair, you’ll get the same registration page as when designing.

Just like with the entry periods for chair designs, the sweepstakes has separate voting periods. Here’s the timetable from the contest rules page –

A winner will be drawn randomly at the end of each contest period, and the winner will receive a certificate for two nights at any Radisson Blu hotel worldwide. I absolutely love the location of the Radisson Blu SkyCity Hotel Arlanda in Stockholm, Sweden and even though my stay there last time wasn’t fantastic I would definitely give it another try!

Here’s a link to the full contest rules for both the chair design and sweepstakes.

I think Radisson Blu’s Egg chair designing contest and sweepstakes is a neat way to get people to try something new. It’s not just entering in your name and password to get in a contest, it’s a chance to be creative or make a selection amongst different designs.

Have you voted for a chair or designed your own?