The best contests are unquestionably worth it. Winning or ranking highly in those contests is a very public rubber stamp of excellence for a screenwriter’s resume, and is critical in terms of securing precious read requests from extremely busy agents and managers. That being said, only 5-10 contests (of which The TITAN Awards are one) carry any weight in the industry, despite hundreds being technically active.
Why is this?
Well, the best screenwriting contests provide a real connection between writers and the industry. In theory anyone can do a call-out for screenplays and call themselves a screenplay competition. But the screenwriting contests that carry actual weight are those that have a connection with industry professionals as their foundation.