Most contests see a flurry of last-minute activity as voting comes to an end and lead the entries jockey for prizes, so put yourself in your participant's shoes. An important question to ask yourself is:
How late would I want to stay up to vote in a contest?
Chances are, you wouldn't want to stay awake until midnight on a Wednesday night (or even midnight a Friday night!). Keep this in mind as you think about your contest ending day and time.
What to avoid:
Ending your contest at midnight, especially if the next day is a weekday (like Sunday). The ending of a contest is often when a lot of activity happens, and ending late at night excludes participants that need to wake up early for work or school the next day (which could be a large amount of your participants).
Beginning or ending your contest on a holiday (Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, etc). Holidays are often busy times in our personal lives, and many participants on those days are distracted and not in front of their computers or mobile devices.
Formatting for midnight:
If you decide to end your contest at midnight on a specific date (for example, midnight on 6/15/2023) the correct format is 11:59:59 PM on 6/15/2023.
Why? 11:59:59 PM is the last second of the day. The next second is 12:00:00 AM, and is the first second of the next day.
Also good to remember: 12:00:00 PM (not AM) is noon, and not the end of the day.
We do have some clients that like to end their contests at noon, and so we will assume that's what you want if you specify 12:00:00 PM as your ending date.