Karaoke Forums

In that case you are the same as any other participant in my view.

Ha I find that funny as well. Contests run correctly are just that - contests, using outside judges not affiliated with the club or knows any of the contestants and have musical knowledge (musicians, music/vocal instructors, etc) and judges broken up between men and women, allowing contestants to view the final judge sheet, etc.
Contests run poorly - ie in a club that uses their regulars/friends of contestants as judges will 99% of the time end up being a popularity contest, hide the final judging sheets, etc. Obviously you have never seen a properly run contest.

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When people make posts wherein they obviously do not know what they're talking about, they simply lose all credibility with me...

Don't try to tell me that ALL contests are simply popularity contests... Don't try to tell me that service clubs cannot have successful contests... Neither are true, and simply shows the poster's ignorance.

We have been running very successful contests for more than 9 years, and each year they get better and better... We pack the venue, particularly in the semis and finals. The service club makes good money. The contestants keep coming back. Our sponsors are happy.

So... show me how contests don't work. They may not work for YOU... but mine do very well indeed. You may not like them... but, if run properly, they can and do work.

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Earl
(BS, PHD & Certified CurmuDJeon)

[font=Times New Roman]"Growing Old may be mandatory... but growing UP is still optional."[/font]

Your contests, judged strictly by impartial unbiased A&R, AD, and/or similar music industry pros, would be the anomaly. So I stand corrected, only 99.9% are popularity contests.

That is a perfect response! I really don't have an opinion on whether 99.9% of contests are popularity contests. I do know that karaoke, in general, is mostly about popularity. We've all seen that singer that is average at best, but has tables full of friends, and they get a standing ovation. The next singer comes in by themselves and rips something off that you'd expect to hear on the Voice and no one even notices. This is especially true with the 20 somethings these days. Had three tables of them in the other night and they were horrible about this.

So I can't help but assume that even impartial judges could be slightly influenced by the about of Love a singer gets in a contest.

That's if you allow audience response as part of the judging criteria - I never do. It isn't fair to the great singer that has 1 friend vs the good singer with a table full only applauding for their singer. So popularity isn't a factor here! It's based on singing and depending on other criteria - stage presence may be a factor (do you move around or just stand and stare at the screen) and occasionally we throw appearance (dressed in a tshirt & ripped jeans or did you dress for the occasion). Usually the last one we don't use often unless it's a higher dollar contest.
And yes, our judges (ESPECIALLY higher dollar contests) also have something to do with music and nothing to do with the bar (not regulars) - either karaoke friendly musicians/bands (yes they exist), vocal instructor/coaches, local recording engineers/producers, etc. Not just people hand selected from the bar crowd knows/hates people, voting for their friends only.

Example, a few years back there was a statewide contest that consisted of around 100 bars or so - local level qualifying, semi finals & finals. The grand prize was $1000 & do a song opening act for Diamond Rio at the state fair. Our criteria was strict all through the contest - while I heard from others that went to other clubs that friends of kj or bar managers were qualifying regardless of who should've won. 8 finals judges total, 7 main & 1 for tie break if needed. Our finalist took it all the way & won the grand prize - the semi final & finals were ran by the company putting on the contests, all qualifying was done in the bars however the kj's saw fit to run them.
The next year our finalist took it all the way and won 2nd place - which the pots had jumped and he got $1000 while first place took $2000 and opened for Peter Frampton for 5 songs.
We quit doing the high dollar contests after that, they do take a lot of work to do them properly! Lower dollar contests are more fun anyway.

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I do think the percentage of well run\fair contests are more than 1% but I did find that answer really funny.
My niece was in the State Fair karaoke contest. She's very talented but raw as a 16 year old. I wish she was as good as her mom thinks but she is still extremely talented for a local kid. I didn't go but I saw the videos. It seemed like a well run deal and it had a melting pot of people there. That kid was all over the place and kinda reminded me of the expressions those half time dance teams use. I've never seen her like that before. Anyway, she made it to the final three for her age group and ended up with the "Most Expressive" award or something like that. Which meant she didn't win but she won. Without hearing the others but having a pretty good handle on her talent level, I would think that was fair. And I liked the idea that she didn't come in second or third. She came in first is a category and she was very happy about that.

I think karaoke contests in general are misnamed. Especially when you get into the higher dollar ones. They may show the words on screen, but the singers have memorized lyrics, polished dance moves, outfits, etc. It's a talent show, not a karaoke contest. It might as well be American Idol.

There is a company up here in Seattle that has been doing a karaoke contest that I am actually interested in. Every week there is a different genre of music that has to be sung. Contestants only have a week to practice the song they are going to sing. I am sure some still memorize, come up with routines and do costumes, but at least there is some pressure every week to learn a new type of song instead of relying on a song they have been performing every weekend for 10 years.

I think if I were to do a karaoke contest (which I believe should be more fun than competitive) I would have contestants pick songs out of a hat 24 hours prior to getting up on stage. Or perhaps right before they get up on stage. Level the playing field a little bit so the ringers have to step out of their comfort zone and look at a screen like everyone else.

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-Chris

Honestly, with the advent of all the vocal talent shows on tv, doing the same thing locally is probably a market that should be tapped into and KJs are the perfect choices to host it. Doing it big is the only way to go with this kind of idea, including getting a local recording studio involved.

The one we were involved in was the Evergreen Idol. Not sure if they still do it or not, it was quite a few years back. But yes, that is exactly what they were looking for, which is what we were looking for and judging on. Like I said I heard from others that bars were just advancing their friends, may have been great singers but not entertainers - that is NOT what the contest was looking for, they wanted the whole package.

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We've done the kamikaze karaoke contests as well. You literally drew a song out of the hat & that is what you did - know it or not. Contestants were judged on their singing (how they made it their own if it was completely made up) and how hard they tried. The kicker was they had to finish the song otherwise they were dropped.

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