Karaoke Forums

Like Babs I have just been asked to do my second contest.
The first one was good for the till then but has suffered since.
Have not seen any of them back in. Not even the winner.
Some of the regulars no longer return.
What the till gained at the time it has lost since.

Any ideas how a safe thing could be run
without negative after effects???

Contests do have that effect on occasion. It brings in people that just do contests from all over, they come in for the contest duration & are gone afterward.
One idea to do is have some kind of a raffle, they come in certain night(s) & are given a raffle ticket after each singer sings so many songs - say 5. This would be a little extra work on your part to log each singer & checkmark each time. Anyway, give the singer a raffle ticket for every 5 songs. The more they sing, the more chances they can get. Which means the more they come in, the better their chances as well. At the end of the months, all raffle ticket holders come back on a specified date & at a specified time, with a must be present to win clause, do the raffle for the cash that would have been given for the singing contest.
Or you can do a weekly drawing, or even nightly.

We had one club up here that would give everyone a ticket & draw 1 ticket halfway through the night. The winner got to pick from 5 envelopes - one which contained a starting cash prize of $50. All the other envelopes had something relating to bar discounts or free drinks so nothing was a loser. If no one got the cash that night, it would grow next week by another $50. It got to $650 one time.

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Wow!!! A karaoke contest that has absolutely NOTHING to do with how well you sing. Might as just buy a lottery ticket and stay home. Sounds like communism to me.

One way to end a contest so that no one loses is to invite all participants back to the stage to sing Everyone's a Winner by Hot Chocolate. Maybe a consolation prize can be given away at the same time.

[schild=1 fontcolor=000000 shadowcolor=FFFFFF shieldshadow=1]Everyone's a winner baby that's the truth![/schild]

I love the idea. Karaoke for me is about having fun, and contests should be judged on how good of a show you put on and how entertaining you are. Screw vocal talent. You want to hear pretty voices, go to a piano bar.

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Wam bam thank you m'am.

This I agree with. I can't sing very well but I always dance a round a bit, look at the people, smile, point at them when the songs fits, etc. Always goes over well. Gotta be an up beat song as well. Blues shuffles work best for me...

Mark

and I thought that contests were for people that were good at something??? Why don't they just have a contest for being the biggest court jester then and don't call it a karaoke contest. A KARAOKE CONTEST should be about people performing KARAOKE which means to sing songs. When they have a CHILI COOK OFF, they don't give the prize money to the guy who made the best hot dogs.

Jerry I'm not sure if this helps, but this seems to work for a bar out here.

They have karaoke once a week and every week they give away $50 to the best singer. You can only win once in a month. Nobody knows who makes the decision of who the winner is. You actually never even see the KJ. He is in a both behind a heavy tinted window. It is a large sports bar that has a flux of new people coming and going. They don't rely on regulars. This approach I can only guess would probably change the atmosphere of a bar that has karaoke regulars.

I wouldn't suggest doing what I did. I know the owner well and knew if I didn't make my point strongly he try to push me into something I knew was wrong. We respect each other and he knows I'd never be so bold if I wasn't absolutely sure it was the wrong decision.

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

WOW, back to you. One that hates contests as yourself, but me trying to suggest something that will encourage people coming to & supporting a karaoke show with a raffle drawing without having a singing type contest - man make up your mind??????

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If you want to run a lottery at the bar, run a lottery, but don't disguise it as a karaoke contest. Give every one a lottery ticket with every drink they buy and every food item they purchase. I don't like karaoke contests because they never seem to reward the best singers in the place. They always seem to reward the best looking girl(the one most dressed like a hooker) in the place or the person who brought in the most people(contests based on applause only) or someone related to the KJ or the bar owner or the bartender.

I really dont like contests for that reason.

Awards are given to regulars often because of the way they sang a few weeks ago, when they did an excellent job on a song. The award is sort of a life time achievement to them.

On the other hand the mercenaries that may be great singers and if they win but they will not become regulars unless they can win every time or most of the time and of course that is not worth it as a promotion.

It may help a bar that has a big attendance, and not many singers. If the bar is about the karaoke, and not watching good singers, and little else it really will not work.

If a bar is about attracting good enough singers to entertain a large mass of people who will not sing it could work, but probably hard to sustain unless the prize was pretty big. If the bar is full of people who are just there and not really watching the karaoke I see little benifit for it though.

Most karaoke singers are there to sing in public and get praise, and a prize is one form of praise, but it makes 1 singer happy and everyone else less so.

A lottery could help recruit more singers to sing in an already busy bar, and is far less likely to hurt feelings. I doubt it will really directly bring people into the bar for the contest, but could gradually change the flavor of the show by increasing the diversity and number of singers, eventually improving the show. It could also keep people around longer for the drawing. However it is a gimick and like any gimick it will not save a show that is not cutting it otherwise.

I have a Pavlovian reaction to the word CONTEST and it isn't a good one. Hate the word, hate the atmosphere they create (think about how many times everyone has had just a fantastic time at a contest...), hate the extra time I have to spend to create a great one, hate that the singers I've coddled along over the years to build up their self-esteem enough to get up and sing feel crushed by the talent that walks in the door and out again, never to be seen again. Oh yah, did I mention that I don't enjoy doing contests and will always stand toe to toe with an owner who thinks that a money-based contest might be a good idea?

I just held one (again) last weekend. It didn't go as well as the first two -- attendance was down comparatively, but there were competing events so it was not too surprising. It still was a financial win, though.

Now ours are 1) one-night contests which are 2) not held on our normal night.

This one was marred by a local hothead registering for a contest but assuming he knew how it would run without asking. He refused to list his song, saying "I'll just sing whatever" and then having him show up 10 minutes after the lineups and songs were set. I told him he was out since he wasn't there at start time, and he got all upset. He's a jerk. He sent over someone else to say "I'll talk to them and make sure they don't use you next time" (which would be great news for me, actually -- I don't want to do the darn thing). Then he showed up the next night and yelled at me.

But what it does for us, since we don't drive our regulars away by having it on the usual night, is cause some of the contest people to show up for our regular night. It is generally a positive, as much as I hate doing it I still have to admit it.

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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.

Someone last night told us they used to go to a place where part of the contest was the songs were drawn from a hat and the singers had to sing what they were given. I guess some of the regulars were so into the concept of being able to sing anything, they would bring their own books listing their "repertoire" and pass them around the audience for requests. It sounded a bit too intense for neighborhood type singers but wherever that place is must have had a pretty good pool of talent.

As far as us running contests, people are still talking about Halloween where a group of non-regulars went from venue to venue in rented costumes and won the prize money at each bar. One of our regulars who invented his own costume really should have won.

We sometimes do the "get a ticket for each song done and then an hourly drawing" thing but it serves more to reward the regulars rather than bring in anyone new.

This is about the venue making money and not a "Best Singer" contest. Just think, you might actually have a chance to win one like that!



Even in this day and age, Sex Sells. Try wearing a sexy dress next time Bruce. You never know.

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Kevin

If I can't win on my singing, then I don't deserve to win and I have never minded losing to a good singer. I do mind losing to a tone deaf singer who does a pseudo strip tease while she sings. Judging singers will always be a very subjective enterprise, which I understand, but when the winner can't carry a tune in a bucket; the venue loses more business in the long run than it will ever gain.

Bruce: I totally agree with you about most karaoke singing contests. Contests need impartial judges that are not tone deaf.

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Kevin

When it comes to the best singer Bruce, I am not too sure.
Would the best entertainer be an acceptable winner?

KJ's should look to hold 6 week contests at venues that normally do not have KARAOKE. This is a win win - The bar SHOULD get a big kick in profits and the KJ does not stand the chance of pissing any regulars off !!!!

It could be a nice little niche for a KJ who specializes in CONTESTS

hmmmmmm.. Could be interesting.

I like the RANDOM drawing thing as a way to make karaoke night a little interesting but --it's not a contest really. Except the more songs you sing the more chances you get to win

Whenever we hel final nights for large contests, we'd hold the finals on a Sunday about 3-4 hours before regular karaoke started. Lot's of dinner and food were sold during that time frame.

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