Karaoke Forums

And that way of thinking is a huge part of the problem. When you devalue your services, it ends up becoming a trend in the area and you wind up in a situation like so many other places. Owners won't pay anything for karaoke/DJ services/bands because they can always get someone else who is cheaper.
When you do it in the beginning because you need experience, how long is it before you do it in the end because you need the money, no matter how little it is?
Even if it's not you, it will eventually be someone else who is stuck with the fall out of your way of thinking.
When I started, I charged full market value for my very first gig, despite not having any experience at all, though of course, I did not tell them I had never done a gig before.
From there, I was able to build my skills as I got more experience. I was eventually able to charge more than market value as my reputation gained prestige. I now command the highest prices in my area, but the venue owners also know I get the results they are looking for.
I NEVER do cut rates unless I have a very good reason for doing so. Perhaps my one-off gig is for a good friend and it's their birthday/wedding/whatever and my cut rate is part of my gift to them, but that is a very rare situation, indeed. Regular weekly bar gigs get a cute rate due to providing me with regular work, but even then, I still get the highest wages in the area. I will never devalue myself. If they think my price is too high for them, then it probably is, but I won't lower it. Even charity gigs will have to pay something, but never, ever do I work for free. Otherwise, word gets out and everyone starts demanding a lower price.
I would rather stay home in such a case and take the next full paying gig.

I went back to that bar/restaurant and was talking to one of the guys that works there. He told me they hired someone to do Karaoke every Wednesday and Thursday and the guy is doing it for $75 a night for four hours a night. Not me, no way. I didn't even work for that when I was first starting out and had no idea about what the heck I was doing.

When I was new in the business I did a bunch of seminars in retirement homes for a company that sold adjustable beds. I provided the PA system and I warmed up the crowd by singing for 20-30 minutes before the sleep seminar, then another 15-30 minutes of music at the end. Total was around 1.5 to two hour gigs including set up and tear down.

They wanted to pay me $100 and I refused and insisted on $150. They gave in and we did 17 seminars over a few months. This is where I gained my performing experience and how I got face time in front of audiences. It helped me tremendously and built my confidence-AND-I got paid to do it. Earn while you learn.

I started singing Karaoke and graduated to singing for money. Since then I've done many, many shows mostly at veterans' organizations, ELKS and at retirement communities since I do an oldies show. But my first few shows were for $100 at a small VFW post and I was happy to get them. A couple of years later they still pay $100, but I don't perform there any more . . .

I've been in the business since 1996. I started out at $200 for a 4 hr. show. After a couple years I went to $225 + mileage ($1 a mile, one way). I haven't had a pay raise in over 10 years. After hearing you all talk, I probably won't ever get one. That's OK, but I won't do what I do, with what I have invested in equipment and songs, for less. I guess I don't work a lot, but when I do, i know they want ME, not just karaoke. I don't play filler music like the guys in the city. Mainly because a bar owner once told me they appreciated the "quiet time" to take drink orders. If I don't have singers, I sing. Occasionally I'll play a fill song if I don't have singers and I need a break. This works for me. I don't play ballads very often cause I know that upbeat songs sell beer and that's why I'm there. I've gone so far as to tell ballad singers to find another song if they want to sing. Sometimes not too popular in new places, but they soon get the idea and pick better song. Maybe I'm a bit unorthodox, but I get the job done and the bar owner is always happy. And that's always the bottom line.....

The decline in karaoke in my area is evident. Most KJs have one or two shows a week, with the hardest working guy, who has been in the biz for 22 years is pulling off 6 nights a week. It's the reason I decided to go the live trivia route earlier this year.

I started 9 months ago and now have 14 shows per week. No KJ anywhere near me able to do that. I make $150 for 2 hours, I'm done and home by 10:30 every night. I do 5 shows per week and I have 3 other guys who I pay $50-60 per show to do the rest of them, so I make the over on them. No lawsuits to worry about, no "1-to-1" to deal with, and I bought the rights for my particular brand of trivia show for 2 counties, so my contractors can't snitch my shows.

I ran a karaoke show 7 nights a week for almost 2 years at a beach resort so I know the business pretty well. There are many other obstacles for KJs to grow their business other than pirated karaoke, which seems to get the most attention around here.

I still do karaoke as an add-on for private parties, but I'm done with the public side forever.

diafel, you are exactly right. Do not devalue yourself. I will admit that i did $100 a night shows when i first started too... but now I command top dollar in my area. Why? Because I have the personality to host, and the technical knowledge to balance and mix my singers well, and great sounding equipment that is fun to sing on.

Don't sell yourself short. I you're good, then you're good enough to demand top dollar. If the bar owner is too dense to pay it, move on. My bars all do well on my nights... and I've got three different bars. My oldest is now going into its 5th year, the youngest is a year old, and the reason for this is because I choose to move on from a bar I was playing at for a year and a half, due to bar owner silliness. That former bar's last night open was october 31st so I'm pretty happy that I did that! .

The point is to have confidence in what you are doing and the value of the service you offer.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

I find this thread very interesting... there are times that I'm worried that the marketability of a karaoke show is starting to flame out, and then there are times that it seems to be positively thriving. I guess, like anything else, it fluctuates. Some observations:

While most stumbling blocks are surmountable in the long run, there are certain things that simply have to be chalked up to bad luck. When the most prominent restaurant/bar in my local area announced that they were going to start incorporating entertainment into their weeknight schedule, I wanted to snag that show, because it's much closer to my house than anything else I do, and it was bound to be incredibly well-attended. The guy who does it, well, kind of sucks -- it's extremely rare for me to critique a contemporary's job performance, but in this case, it's extraordinarily obvious. There's no personality evident -- I've spoken to the guy, and he's polite, but will not engage in conversation, and will take the mic twice a night, once to announce that karaoke is starting, and once to announce that it's over. His setup is rigged to a series of widescreen tvs stationed throughout the restaurant, which advertise the order of singers, so the singer doesn't get called up or spotlighted -- they simply have to watch for their name and take the mic when it's time. Which is fine -- folks who are going to be singing all night should have some concept of where they are in the rotation -- but I kind of feel like it's a no-brainer to call attention to the person that's going to be singing, and to encourage applause when they're done. As a result, when I met a friend there one karaoke night, and chose to participate, I was greeted after my song (which was a fairly mediocre performance) with a faint smattering of mild applause. The bartender informed me that it was the most applause she'd ever heard one singer get.

I guess my point is that I was passed over for a host who, essentially, doesn't need to be there -- furthering this idea that karaoke shows can eventually become manned by the people, making the host obsolete. Which is a thought that I find problematic. The show is very sparsely attended nowadays -- the singers who attended in its first few months have since gone elsewhere, and the regular patrons who were scared off by all the singing haven't returned -- and while I'm not in the habit of poaching shows, I can't help but feel if they'd gone with me, the show would still be thriving. Additionally, the guy who's "hosting" now charges a pretty obscene price for this area, and without any returns, leading me to believe that the manager is accepting some sort of kickback. (I've dealt with this particular manager before, and I know he's capable of it.)

And then there's just the simple matter of loyalty. Another local establishment has a host who isn't objectively great, and doesn't really draw a crowd, but has been there for years; the bar owner pays her without complaint every week, and continues to bring her back even as the show has practically turned into a damn ghost town. That's the spot that I go to when I feel like just singing some karaoke for fun, and while a few people are aware of what I do, I don't pimp my business, or try to coax singers away, or anything like that. As a result, I've served as fill-in host for that establishment on several occasions - if and only if the regular host simply can't do it that night - and each time has brought in an astonishing crowd. (I do have something of a local following, and the regular host lives an hour and a half away, which could definitely have something to do with it.) This has resulted in a push among the locals for me to replace the regular host, but both the bar owner and I have agreed not to pursue that; the bar owner because of her loyalty to the regular host and me because I simply don't like to blatantly steal shows like that, especially from folks I'm friendly with. As a result, I don't have the show; but on the plus side, the regular host knows her show's in good hands if she ever needs to take the night off.

Finally -- and I know I'm relaying an awful lot of personal stories here -- one of my first regular, long-term gigs was at a pub in Delaware. We ran a 12-week karaoke contest there to kick it off, and then settled into a weekly karaoke routine. When they canceled for the summer, I paid no mind -- in DE, that seems to happen a lot, perhaps because of the sheer amount of people who migrate to the beaches for the season -- but when they brought it back in September, they specifically requested a different host. I'm aware that some hosts simply jive better with some bars, and I tried not to take it personally, but it was the first time I'd been dropped from a long-term gig.

Turns out, the owner was an old-school racist, and didn't much care for the black folks. (Inexplicably, he opened up a pub smack in the middle of one of the most urban areas in the state.) The clientele was black twentysomethings who wanted to dance and to rap, so I catered to the clientele in terms of song selection and atmosphere. The bar owner's reason for dropping me? According to my boss: "Yeah, he likes country music. Said you didn't play enough country." I simply wouldn't have thought to intersperse Merle Haggard with Jay-Z, Little Feat with Soulja Boy; I was under the impression that he liked having a full bar of people buying drinks and having a good time. That's one other situation where I've felt like my losing out on a show was something beyond my control; if I'd been informed of what I could do to keep the show, that'd be one thing, but I have to imagine that sooner or later, an upswing in country music would have kept out the crowd that was this show's bread and butter, and I would have lost the show anyway.

I dunno, I'm rambling. I'm new here and I love swapping stories. Just some of my own personal experiences.

And there are plenty here to choose from. Pretty much every karaoke host has had the same problem with a club manager or owner in one way or another.

I had one club owner that just seem to really hate young people. As soon as someone under the age of twenty-five entered the room you could start your timer and give them about 30 min. before they would be asked to leave, and for the life of me I have no idea why.

It was apparent that this owner wanted his establishment to be for the exclusive use of those singers that were fifty-five and older. He was a fan of doo-wop music and music from the early 60s so he wasn't too keen on any of the new stuff.

He found out the hard way that the older crowd – while they enjoyed a karaoke night as much as anyone else – did not seem to spend continuously through the night. They would purchase food at the beginning of the evening, they would purchase one or two cocktails, and that would be pretty much it for the night. They would spend the rest of the evening waiting patiently for their song to appear in the list and taking up space. They were also notorious for not tipping consistently to the servers. There were some that tipped heavily, and those that did not tip at all.

Eventually, this particular club went out of business. So it's not necessarily racism that can be a club's undoing. And in other cases the exact opposite can be true: I worked at a club in a very urban setting where the only people that were white in the club were the bartenders and myself. Everyone had a great time, the club made plenty of money although the servers usually complained about the low to nonexistent tips from such a large crowd. The club held over 200 people and on karaoke night it was usually standing room only. I could never understand why these patrons did not tip very well. In any case, there has been karaoke at this club for over ten years.