Presented by Illuminiche and RTC Products, Illuminiche’s exclusive distributor. This is a judged installation and photography contest with $3,500 in total cash prizes.

1. Contest dates

Entries open October 1, 2026, at 12:00 a.m. Eastern Time and close December 31, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Eastern Time. The entry system’s receipt timestamp controls.

Final judging and initial potential-winner notification: January 1–3, 2027. Verification and photograph preparation: January 4–8, 2027. Target winner announcement and final cover approval: January 9, 2027, subject to verification. Alternate selection may delay an announcement; updates will appear on this page.

Catalog distribution is targeted for January 2027, subject to confirmed printing, shipping, and holiday schedules. January 1 delivery is not guaranteed.

2. Who may enter

Open to contractors, installers, and authorized representatives of installation businesses located in the 50 United States or District of Columbia. The individual entering must be a legal U.S. resident, at least 18 years old and of legal age in their state, and must have performed the installation or be authorized to represent the responsible business.

Employees and owners of Illuminiche or RTC Products, contest judges, and their immediate family or household members are ineligible. Void where prohibited.

3. Free products, sponsorships, and promotional discounts

This contest recognizes paying customers and their installation work. An individual or represented business that has received free Illuminiche products or special, deeply discounted promotional pricing through an influencer, ambassador, sponsorship, product-review, testing, content-creation, barter, or similar arrangement before or during the entry period is ineligible. This exclusion applies even if the submitted project uses products purchased separately at normal pricing.

Projects using donated, sponsored, or specially subsidized Illuminiche products are also ineligible. Standard contractor, dealer, volume, and publicly available sale pricing does not by itself disqualify an entrant. Ordinary warranty replacements are not free promotional products.

Entrants must disclose relevant promotional arrangements. False statements or omitted material information may result in disqualification. Eligibility may be verified against invoices, purchase records, and agreements.

4. Project categories

Illuminiche Niche Category: The completed installation must feature a genuine Illuminiche niche. Only this category is eligible for the front-cover prize. Illuminiche light channels installed inside a site-built niche or another manufacturer’s niche do not qualify for this category.

Illuminiche Light-Channel Category: The completed installation must feature genuine Illuminiche light channels without an Illuminiche niche. These projects compete for the Light-Channel Project Award. Interior or back-cover placement may be considered but is not guaranteed.

Products must have been purchased through Illuminiche, RTC Products, or an authorized sales channel. Purchase by the installer, contractor, builder, or property owner is acceptable when the purchase and entrant’s installation work can be verified. Existing completed projects are welcome. There is no separate entry fee or additional purchase requirement for an existing qualifying project.

5. How to enter

Use the official entry form on this contest page during the entry period. Provide your name, business name, email, phone number, optional business website or social profile, project city and state, category, Illuminiche products used, a brief project description, one to three original full-resolution photographs, and a copy of the qualifying purchase invoice. Confirm eligibility, required permissions, and acceptance of these rules.

Each person or represented business may submit up to three distinct projects. Each project may be entered only once and in one category. Multiple people cannot submit the same business’s project to obtain additional entries. Do not include homeowners’ names or street addresses in public project descriptions.

Comments, direct messages, likes, follows, shares, and tags are not entries, are not required, and do not improve judging scores. Questions: sales@illuminiche.com.

6. Purchase invoice and private handling

An invoice is required with every entry. An invoice issued to a builder or property owner is acceptable if the entrant has permission to share it and can establish that the products were used in the submitted installation.

Leave visible the seller’s name, purchaser’s name, invoice or order number, purchase date, qualifying Illuminiche products and quantities, and product prices and relevant discounts or credits. Redact payment-card and bank information, personal phone numbers and email addresses, street addresses, and unrelated purchases. The organizers may request clarification privately if necessary to verify eligibility.

Submit invoices privately through the entry form, never in public comments. Access to invoices will be limited to designated eligibility-verification personnel at Illuminiche and RTC Products and service providers supporting the submission process. Sales-team members helping judge photographs will not receive invoices solely for judging.

7. Photograph and print quality

Image quality is an eligibility requirement. Images must be sharp, properly exposed, and suitable for professional printing. Blurry, pixelated, heavily compressed, or otherwise unusable photographs cannot qualify, regardless of installation quality.

Submit original full-resolution files. Screenshots and social-media downloads are not acceptable substitutes. Photographs must show an actual completed installation. AI-generated scenes, renderings, composited installations, and edits concealing defects or materially changing the installation are prohibited. Basic exposure, color, straightening, and cropping adjustments are permitted. Enlarging dimensions or changing a resolution setting does not restore missing detail.

For front-cover consideration, vertical photographs are strongly encouraged. Allow room for the catalog title and branding. The photograph must remain suitable after cropping to the cover format.

The planned finished catalog size is 8.5 × 11 inches. Allowing ⅛-inch bleed on every edge, the usable cover image must be at least 2,625 × 3,375 pixels after cropping, supporting 300 pixels per inch. Larger original files are preferred. Pixel dimensions alone do not establish suitability; focus, exposure, compression, composition, and print reproduction also matter.

Potential winners must provide original files for print verification. An entry that cannot meet the required print standard will be disqualified.

8. Photographer, property, and personal permissions

Entrants must own the photographs or have written permission from the photographer covering the uses described in these rules. Paying a photographer does not automatically transfer copyright.

Obtain the property owner’s permission to photograph and publish the project and any necessary consent from identifiable people shown. Written evidence may be required before a winner is confirmed.

9. Judging

Illuminiche and RTC Products will judge eligible entries within their categories using these weights:

• Installation craftsmanship and execution: 30%.

• Photography, composition, and visual impact: 30%.

• Effective presentation of the eligible Illuminiche product: 25%.

• Suitability for the intended catalog or promotional feature: 15%.

Only entries meeting eligibility and image-quality requirements will be scored. The organizers may maintain private provisional rankings as entries arrive. After entries close, all eligible submissions will receive final consideration using the same criteria. Provisional rankings do not confer winner status.

Winners are not selected randomly. Follower counts, public votes, likes, shares, and customer spending do not affect judging. Ties are resolved by product-presentation score, then photography score, then an additional judge applying the same criteria. Judges must disclose conflicts and recuse themselves from affected entries.

10. Prizes

Illuminiche Niche Grand Prize: $2,500 cash; winning project on the front cover of the 2027 Illuminiche catalog; a full-page contractor spotlight inside; a joint Illuminiche and RTC Products social media feature; 100 printed catalogs; and a digital “2027 Illuminiche Catalog Cover Winner” graphic for the winning business.

Illuminiche Niche Runner-Up: $750 cash and a social media project spotlight.

Illuminiche Light-Channel Project Award: $250 cash and a social media project spotlight. Interior or back-cover placement may be considered but is not guaranteed.

Total cash prizes: $3,500. One prize maximum per individual or represented business. An entrant qualifying for multiple awards receives the highest-value award; the next highest-scoring eligible entrant receives the other award. No award is made in a category with no eligible entries. If only one distinct eligible entrant qualifies in the Niche Category, only its grand prize is awarded.

11. Notification and verification

Initial potential winners will be contacted privately January 1–3, 2027 using their submitted email and phone number. They must respond within 48 hours and supply requested eligibility documents, purchase records, original photographs, publication permissions, and business information within 72 hours of notification.

Have these materials ready before entering and monitor email, including spam folders. If a potential winner is ineligible, declines, fails to respond, or cannot supply required materials, the next highest-scoring eligible entry may be selected. Alternates receive the same response periods, which may postpone the affected public announcement beyond January 9, 2027.

12. Payment and catalog delivery

Illuminiche will administer prize payments and required reporting. Cash prizes will be paid within 30 days after verification and receipt of required tax documentation. Winners are responsible for applicable taxes. Tax information will be requested only from potential winners through a private process, not through public posts or the initial entry form.

RTC Products will include the winner’s 100 catalogs in its printing run. Catalogs will be shipped after production; January 2027 is the target distribution period, not a guaranteed delivery date.

13. Ownership, permitted uses, and credit

Entrants retain ownership of their photographs. By entering, they grant Illuminiche and RTC Products a nonexclusive, royalty-free license to use submitted photographs, project descriptions, business names, and supplied public business links for contest administration and judging, contest promotion and winner announcements, the 2027 Illuminiche catalog, and related catalog and project promotion on websites, email, social media, and paid advertising.

This permission continues through December 31, 2027. Previously published posts may remain available and already-printed catalogs may continue to be distributed afterward. New, unrelated advertising uses require separate permission.

The organizers may crop, resize, make reasonable color adjustments, and add text or branding without materially misrepresenting the installation. The grand-prize winner’s business will be credited inside the catalog and in the winner spotlight. Business-name placement on the front cover is not guaranteed. No additional payment is due for the permitted uses beyond any prize awarded.

14. Contest privacy notice

Entry information will be used to administer the contest, verify eligibility, judge submissions, contact entrants, and fulfill prizes. Illuminiche and RTC Products will share information necessary for those purposes with designated personnel and service providers supporting the contest. Submitted photographs and public business information may be published as described above. Private contact information, invoices, and tax documents will not be published.

Marketing-email signup is optional and is not a condition of entry. Do not submit tax identifiers, card details, or banking information with your entry. For privacy questions, contact sales@illuminiche.com. See also the website’s Privacy Policy.

15. Facebook and Instagram

This contest is not sponsored, endorsed, administered by, or associated with Facebook or Instagram. To the extent permitted by law, entrants release Facebook and Instagram from claims arising from participation in this contest.

16. Administration and contact

The organizers may disqualify fraudulent, unauthorized, duplicate, or otherwise ineligible submissions. If circumstances beyond their reasonable control prevent the contest from operating as described, necessary changes will be announced on this page, subject to applicable law.

Contest administrator: Illuminiche. Contest contact: sales@illuminiche.com; (706) 676-5900.

Co-organizer and exclusive distributor: RTC Products, N57W13282 Carmen Ave, Menomonee Falls, WI 53051.