Carnival of Music and "Critical Mass"

JohnL at TexasBestGrok laments about a languishing Carnival of Music...

I have not been as engaged in the Carnival over the last few weeks as I should be, and I'm sure that hasn't helped much. Still, it seems like the Carnival hasn't ever reached that critical mass of readers to stimulate volunteers for hosting and posting.

So I brainstormed with myself and came up with the following:

• I'd say we need to narrow the theme. While lots of people are passionate about some aspect of music, I'm not sure what it means to be passionate about the topic as a whole, which is what makes people participate in the carnival. This doesn't mean that you have to redefine the carnival, it could be more fun to dedicate a particular issue to a narrow topic (I like his suggestions, and I'll add on: jazz, composers, chamber music, art song, getting published or recorded, music and intellectual property, community music-making, singing in the shower, music software reviews, etc, etc, etc).
• Seems to me that people overestimate the impact of blog readership, and underestimate the need for personal communication, at least for getting together that elusive "critical mass". You need a small group of friends you communicate with regularly who are passionate about the subject, and are willing to do some of the heavy lifting. Give your friends homework ("everyone get me one post on composers and composing by friday!"). You may think you're giving them work, but they'll see it as a scavenger hunt.
• Invent games around music, and host them on the carnival. How about "everyone submit a blog entry where you've posted a recording of yourself singing your favorite Carpenters tune". Or, "walk around one day this week with a notebook, and write down all the background music tunes (elevators, on hold, shopping) that you recognize. Post the resulting playlist, and send me the link." (I actually hosted an all-day scavenger hunt that had people scurrying all over manhattan with tape recorders in search of sounds, musical and otherwise. It was a blast).
• I think this kind of carnival, especially with rotating theme that goes deep rather than wide, would do better as a monthly event, rather than weekly. That doesn't mean we can all sit on our asses for more time, it means we have more time to talk it up.
• Carnival hosts don't need to live off submissions; I think it's great to see links to articles and web resources that the host found and thought were interesting enough to share.

Anyway, that's just off the top of my head. What else might we do?