Karaoke Forums

I feel your pain, Mark!

My 1st KJ gig was a graduation party. We were told to set up by the pool (which was never mentioned until we arrived) in the back yard.
The yard in question was approximately an acre and as far away from a power source as possible. We had to quickly run out to a hardware store and drop a chunk of the deposit on 2 additional 100' extension chords.
It also didn't help that one of the singers thought it would be funny to jump into the pool after his song, taking my cordless mic into the deep end.
Oh, did I forget to mention the place we plugged into kept blowing the circuit breaker?
Or the people who kept doing "cannonballs" into the pool just to see how big a splash they could make (trying to douse our equipment)?
How about the little d-bag who thought it was hilarious to keep unplugging the connected power cords?

Oh, such joy!

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Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!

Whoa Griffon, that sounds like a special kind of hell.

Besides the cordless microphone being damaged, was your equipment ok?

That story makes my blood boil, those inconsiderate ******.

At least we can relate eh?

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LOVE YOU LOOOOONG TIME KARAOKE.

Yeah, I got comped for the mic and I just so happened to have a big blue tarp in the back of my van which we tossed over the equipment. I remembered it when I got to thinking about the best way to hide the carcass of that little d-bag who kept disconnecting the extension cords.
I have since learned to channel my righteous rage into scathing sarcasm

_________________
Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!

You also will learn, with time, to say "If the a-hole who unplugged my equipment does it again, I'm packing up and leaving", and then do what you say.

I have walked out of gigs after, but since that was my first one I kinda hung in there.

_________________
Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!

This guy is such a crook!

He replies to my many emails and texts stating that he has paid me, and he will send proof of payment, but never does.

He even said one of his general mangers will send this proof to me.
I discover he is quite famous locally being friends with a few local celebrities as well.
I found his Facebook page and there are about 4 people complaining about being owed from $120 up to $600 for not being paid.

I even discovered somebody posted an announcement in the Gumtree classifieds about what a terrible DJ he is as he never pitched to a show, but the advert was quickly removed by him reporting it i assume.
Bless the Google cache.

I have his website, his email, cell number,Facebook/twitter/myspace and i can do nothing about it.
He even has a massive advert touting the fact he has over 400 000 karaoke songs to choose from(suspecting he is a major pirate as well)

Makes my blood boil from rage how he has conned others, and crushes the little guys as he certainly is a marketing genius.

Is there anything one can do about this?

I accept i will never get paid but he cannot get away with this, as he is also attempting to monopolize Karaoke in the region.

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LOVE YOU LOOOOONG TIME KARAOKE.

You can take him to small claims court if you have proof of your agreement with him, along with the amount you two agreed to. It seems to me he would have the burden of proving he paid you.

Compuhost more often than not will freeze up when I set up for a gig. The second time I start it, it almost never does it again the rest of the night. I have V2. I have 8gb memory but just upgraded to that due to my VDJ acting up when I had 4. I had no problems with the V2 with the 4.

If this guy screws you over, and as you said others have had problems with him, let people know so they don't get screwed. I personally don't use facebook for a smear campaign but I'm not above it as long as I make my point in a manner that I don't have to worry about a lawsuit.

This could happen to anyone, hasn't happened to me yet (knock on wood) but I demand payment for all weddings and private parties once I am set up or I don't play. For bar gigs I haven't demanded that yet and haven't been burned.

As others have said, if possible, I go to the venue if it is nearby and unfamiliar to me to get an idea of the setup.

Live and learn!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Mark, this one looks like a lesson learned. Move on, my friend.

If jobs are limited in your area and this guy is the best source, then let him know you need to see your entire fee up front, 5 business days in advance (which means the payment can't be reversed later), before you accept the gig.

If the guy gives the excuse that he doesn't get paid until the day of the gig, then let him know you'll be collecting your fee directly from the bar or event before the show. If the venue refuses, then you walk away and leave the damaged reputation on the guy who booked the show. It is not unprofessional to powder out when payment is in doubt. Just make sure you hit the venue at least a half hour in advance of set up time to settle YOUR payment.

Pay to play is very common in this industry and should come as no surprise to a bar/venue. Let the show booker sweat his cut of the gig if he doesn't trust you to collect the entire fee and remit his share after all is said and done.

You might also want to spend a couple bucks on a receipt book to cover your bases in case the flip side happens where the bar tells the booker that the show was paid in full. That's saved me on more than 1 occasion.

_________________
Karaoke should be a selfish pleasure.
Check out my Facebook page "Griff's Karaoke Adventures" to see how many tunes I can do without repeating!

Thanks Mr Boo, Ripman and Griffon.

Advice greatly appreciated and I have contacted a our major radio station to take this up further, so he cant screw anybody else in the future.

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LOVE YOU LOOOOONG TIME KARAOKE.

Best of luck to you Mark.


You really got your baptism of fire, but hey, you got a lot of great tips from the wonderful people here and learned a lot. Take what you learned and act on it and the next time will go much better. For what it's worth here is one thing I can offer you...

If they are readily available where you live, pick up a USB memory stick and use Ready Boost or whatever the equivalent is in your operating system to quickly and easily add a few gig of ram to your system. If it doesn't automatically offer you the chance to speed up your system you can click on system properties and find the readyboost instructions.

I run Compuhost V2 on an older 64 bit machine running the Vista operating system and the extra memory makes it run smoothly. Before I upgraded the memory, even V1 would occasionally crash.

Let us know how this turns out!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]