You need to promote your forums in high traffic websites and forums. If you have the bucks then you can do some banner advertisements on popular Forums. You also need to promote actively on social media profiles.
Offer points for posts which can be redeemed for things such as a free domain or month of basic hosting. As for getting fans of the forum who will post without incentive, that's a tough call. Some people will just post because they like a forum and others need incentive to come back time and again. And, that's how it is for many forums, not just your niche.
my 2 cents:
1. Make your website very user friendly and unique
2. Have a lot of unique content for the targeted audience
By the way, your forum is redirecting to another forum?
The only way you're ever going to get active members is to have content that people give enough of a rats about to invest their time into contributing to.
Advertise all you like, if you don't have anything interesting to keep people's attention, then they will just click away to somewhere else.
So in a nutshell, get content. Good content. And lots of it.
Yep. Content is king. Helps if you're an avid communicator yourself.
Every day, keep your eye on current events, and be sure that if something
in your niche is in the news, that it's represented on your forum.
Last thought, interact with the physical world as well. It's amazing how
many friends, family members and neighbours may get involved if they
have a personal connection to the person that owns/runs the site.<br /><br />-- 07 Jul 2014, 16:32 --<br /><br />Also, make sure that technically your site loads fast & is up to scratch. I went to your forum, but and trouble loading it. You may not be a technical wiz (or you may be), but it's worth investing a little bit of cash to get the right server situation for your site. If people have to wait 10 seconds for your site to load, they're already on to the next destination..
