Karaoke Forums

I've only heard of this, never saw it in action... sounds like great customer service!

...the KJ holds on to the singers' slips and return them next time they come. I do that for my regulars, but my method is getting cumbersome.

What method do you use or have you seen? peg board and clips, plastic boxes, ... ???

I have to be portable... I do 2 different gigs, several of the same regulars.

Thanks!

Hmmm… I’d just let them have their slips back,

and they can hold on to them for when they return.

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Hate is like taking poison, hoping the other guy gets sick

Computer with kiosk. It keeps track of rotation and singer's past songs. Just sip your beer and click play.

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Okay, who took my pants?

I used a small file box (that holds index cards) - big paperclips, write the person's name on the index card and clip their slips to it. Leave the box where they can access it without bothering you.

Empty one pound cottage cheese containers. I've got around 60 of them stacked behind me. The 10 or so singers who are there no matter what have theirs stacked on a separate table. The others I toss to the singers as they come in from where I am on the stage.

I have an athletic bunch. They seldom drop a pass.

I've seen it work several ways.. Some keep slips, some KJs remember every song.

Best system I saw was a 96-CD case with the slips stuck in the pockets.

I use CompuHost, so the computer is the thing. We now have taken to copying over a different history file for each venue so all the Joes aren't run together.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

We don't keep singers slips. This is threefold. One, hopefully they'll look at the books more and change up on regular songs. Two, advertisers pay for our slips (we haven't paid for slips in over 6 years), so the more they're out there, the better. The last of course keeping slips and digging them out is a pain in the @$$ and makes singers even lazier and more expectant.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I had started to keep slips in the beginning, 1 card box turned into two, then three, then 4 etc...Got too much of a hassle, now I have several that just keep their own slips & have a place on my website they can download their own & fill them out ahead of time.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I prefer my singers keep their own slips. For backup, , every once in awhile i'll type up a paper with extremely familiar names/numbers in case they happen to forget to bring them and have their song numbers ready.

Same as Lonman here. I started out with keeping the slips and hand them back, when the singers came in, but it just built up too much. Then I started to give it back to the singers, before they left and most of them lost them.

Now I don't use slips at all anymore. Compuhost keeps track of their history and for the most part, people like it to not use slips and just tell me the song, when they walk up. I had one complain since I dropped slips and easily 200 compliments, that it's so much easier.

Offtopic: Lonman, I just visited your website, it's pretty nice. But the schedule site is not working.

Thanks i'll check it tomorrow!

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I at one time kept people's slips, but in a mobile environment, it became a TON of problems. Like Tim mentioned, it also kept people from trying new things.

One thing I saw someone do that I thought was excellent was to keep them in the cdg paper sleeves, so storing them wasn't that bad.

Although I am on computer, I don't use a hosting software. But it would be nothing to create a .txt file or make playlists for each singer. I'd prefer that the singers give me new slips everytime, though.

Depends on the individuals.

When I had a large regular base I was keeping slips. but I did notice it stopped people from looking in the book for other songs or newer releases.
They id get LAZY and started to sing the same 3 or 4 songs every week.
it was GREAT customer service and the singers really appreciated it ...
So its pro and con ....

I'm one of those, I have a photographic memory so it's no prob for me

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[shadow=white][scroll]Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.....It's about learning to dance in the rain[/scroll][/shadow]

I'm very hightech. I've heard disadvatages of this way. I would like to point out the advantages.

I use index cards to keep track of people's most sung songs. I start a card for someone when they've obviously chosen to sing a few songs the same week to week and have become a regular. I do not save slips.

It has become an honor to have your own list and people will ask when do I get mine? You must become a regular first which means come to karaoke for a few months continuously. People will come more often just to get there card.

I don't consider it a burden to keep index cards. When they chose a new song I just add it to the card after they've sung it and decided to keep it. Many times people will sing a bigger variety of songs because they have the list to look at and just don't sing the 2 or 3 they can remember. I cut them off at 2 index cards which means they have about 100 or more songs on their lists.

Another advantage of this is when people walk in the door and I see them I add them to the rotation. People love this! If they don't want to they don't have to lift a finger all night to sing, they can just enjoy being there. It makes people feel special.

More advantages: I can control the mood of the night. Most of the regulars come up on stage and just expect me to have already picked their song for them because I have the list. This is a huge plus! I can keep it hopping most of the night this way. They have learned to trust that I will pick songs based on what the crowd wants. Have you ever read a slip before cueing it up and thought, no matter how well they sing this the crowd is going to moan. Well when I'm chosing I don't have this problem.

It doesn't detour people from picking new songs. I have people adding new songs all the time. If someone does get in a rut people let them know and we try and figure out new songs for them.

The upside of doing it manually and not with a computer is I can hand them their list to look over or they can take it home if they'd like. (I'm not sure how compuhost host works. Maybe you can print out their list.) Plus I only put the songs on their list they want to keep, so they aren't trying to sift out the good from the bad. (Again, I'm not sure how the pc software works for this.)

The way I look at it is if I had a choice of going to a bar to sing and I knew all I had to do to get my first song in is walk in the door and that I could order my drink and say hello to my friends first without worrying about filling out a slip I'd go there.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

I do it the same way, as soon as they walk in the door, they are in the rotation. And they love it, I agree.

To answer your questions Babs: Compuhost allows for songs to be deleted (and added without singing it) from/to your history. A print out function is not available. But in case, somebody would ask me for a list, I could easily type it down and print it out with another program within a week. Would be a convenient feature to have that print out function, but honestly... nobody ever asked me for that so far.

And for me, they become a regular, when I finally start to remember their name... . I'm soo bad with names

I also do this for anyone who always wants to sing the moment they get there. Some people want to wait, and they just come up and talk to me. Also, I put spouses together even if one doesn't want to sing right away, so they can leave together immediately after both sing.

I have some singers that want me to pick the song, which is easy on CompuHost. But what do you do when they look daggers at you and mouth "Not that one!" I just apologize....


If you had a printer, yes I believe you could, but I have never seen one at a show. One of those little receipt/credit card/label printers would be the way to go...

I am now working on a history setup that will allow us to find singers and save their selections to a database. When we get home, we upload the history export to our server and it adds any new songs, key changes, or other changes to the user's account there. Then they can get a weekly email sent with their song list, along with a link to a list of where we will be that month.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

mckyj, if you have that figured out, I would be VERY interested in that! I could integrate that with my website.

CompuHost already makes this a simple task!

1. Click History from CompuHost's Main Menu
2. Locate the desired singer and RIGHT-CLICK the selection.
3. From the popup menu, select "Select All Listings Matching Name: ???"
4. Click the "Export to CSV" button and select the "Selected" option when asked what you wish to export.

Now you have a simple CSV file that can easily be imported into Excel or whatever!

tbreen