Karaoke Forums

Long story short...first time write, semi-long time reader.

I have a venue that changed from karaoke, to dancing, to a hybrid. I tried to tell them this is/was a nightmare, but you know how it is.

What's happening now is the staff will say one dj is better than another, and they get the customers on par with this. Not professional at all. In addition, we don't really get a heavy rotation. In the last six months, we've broke 20 different singers maybe five/six times. We count singers, and then songs sung.

Sometimes, like tonight...on a FRIDAY night...we had three singers. Each sang twice. That's it.

Owners want us to encourage dancing as well, and you guessed it: singers vs. dancers and dancers vs. singers.

Worse? We'll get a decent dance crowd going, and then (happened few weeks ago), we'll finally get a slip. Slow slit-your-wrist type of song. We try to encourage the guest to pick something more upbeat, but get "this is my song, play my effing song". Fun.

Now, the question is: When we have zero singers, then get one or two that will put in five, six, even SEVEN slips...what do you do? Currently we space them out. They are getting pissed, then in turn whine to the staff, the staff craps on us and so on and so forth.

The time we space out is 10-20 mins. They take this and tell the staff we're telling them they can't sing. Yet, we really can't have one singer sing six damn songs in a row. If we have four singers, we'll rotate but still space it out.

We actually had a few guests say; 'this is why we come here, we know there is no rotation and we want to sing where no one else is and more often". That guy? Former dj. Told him to hang his head in shame and he should know better. "Dude, I'm drinking, not working".


fun.

Before I give the venue two weeks notice, what advice do you have?

You could promote it as "dance karaoke" and encourage they sing dance songs or take any of the slow ones out of the books. You would have to tell people that it is what the show is and have it posted so you can point it out when they complain. But as you have already noted, while there are shows that are successful integrating dance breaks into karaoke, I don't know of any that work integrating a few karaoke songs into dancing. Karaoke singers go out expecting to sing.

I could think of one crowd where it MIGHT work which is the younger scream and puke crowd that doesn't really care how many turns they get or how many people are singing with them. They don't always put up a song every round and it is sort of a spontaneous free for all. But those people had come out just to come out and not specifically to sing karaoke. I have had nights like that and it worked until you get an influx of traditional karaoke singers that want a set rotation and then it is impossible to keep both those type crowds happy at the same time. As you say, your boss is a bit crazy to think he can attract karaoke singers by not letting them sing. You would have to somehow cultivate a group of singers who were receptive to that format and I think they would be few and far between.

My opinion would be to try and find another venue and then politely tell your boss what an idiot they are.

A karaoke night is a karaoke night. The two don't usually mix. Either way, you're going to piss people off. People who came out to sing, don't want dance music; and people who want to dance, don't want to listen to someone singing.

With that said...

On occasion, you may have a slow night. Maybe only 4 or 5 singers. This is when it becomes necessary to play music in between.

In a case like this you may want to start with giving each singer two songs in a row and then after that play some music for about 15 minutes. Then, go back to the rotation. After each rotation, break with some music.

You're never going to pleas everyone but you also don't want to hear the same singers over and over every few minutes.

But in any case, you need to tell the owners that in order to be successful, karaoke/dance nights are usually destined to fail. They can do more harm than good and actually drive people away. It's either one or the other and promote it as such.

Good luck.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

From what I am understanding here, the focus of this show is predominantly on DJ-ing/Dance Music. What I am seeing from this scenario is the following:
Singer 1 gets up to sing, then you play between 3 to 6 regular songs for people to get up and dance to. Singer 2 now gets up to sing. You now play another 3 to 6 songs as part of the DJ Break, and Singer 3 finally gets up to sing (after all of that waiting). Not only has Singer 3 had to wait so long between his turn and the last singer, but he has had to really sit there and listen to (up to) 12 Non-Karaoke songs being played before he has gotten a chance to sing 1 song... Wash... Lather... Rinse.... Repeat.

As a Karaoke Regular, that would be totally unacceptable to me, and I would never return to that show again. I'm sure there are many other Karaoke Die-Hards that would feel the same.

The only suggestion I have (short of quitting), is if you (maybe) spaced out your singers by NO MORE THAN 2 regular (non-karaoke) songs, you might get a few more people tolerant of this.

You may be counting singers but the owner is counting dollars. Some places, entertainment just doesn't work. Obviously if you have 3 singers on a Friday night, it ain't working. People who want to dance don't want to go to hear karaoke just like karaoke singers don't want to hear dance music. The karaoke dance thing is tough. I ran a show for a while where we did karaoke from 8-11, then dance party from 11-2, worked well because singers came early and dancers came later. You may just need to move on and let those folks watch TV while they drink.

Rick, River probably lost several Karaoke singers when the place changed formats from Karaoke to Dancing, and they didn't bother coming back when the two were merged.

Cue is right. Like I said, mixing the two is never a good idea. In this case, it drove people away.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

i agree with Cue and Alan, karaoke singers hate one thing...change.
making more than one change....death.
the changes this bar has forced yo into have killed the karaoke crowd, and the dance crowd. i bet the dance crowd is also much smaller than it was.
something i tell the owners of my bars, your business is drinks, i won't pretend to know how to do that better than you because it is not my area of expertise. Entertainment is my area of expertise, so let me do what i do best, and i will let you do what you do best.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Appreciate the advice. Really I do. This has been a nightmare for me, and my team. I can't keep people in this venue to work. Owner decided not to do rotations as he feels having the same dj makes a big difference. Sometimes, sure...it can. Not here. I can count on fingers and one hand how many of the same faces I've seen. Same for the guy I put in place. The place just has so much different and diverse business it's not even funny.

Tonight was about six singers. A few put in multiple slips=17 songs sung from 9-2am. Lots of requests for dance music. Lots for videos we run. We made it as fair for all. Still, nightmare. You will always piss people off. You have to pick one or the other. Though, we did discuss going through the binder and making it straight dance karaoke. (which, we've had this idea for awhile as well).

We've decided to drop this account.

We had a guest tonight request a song. To hear, not see or sing. We played the song and about 40 mins later, another guest put in a ticket to sing that same song. We only repeat songs (musically) if it's super new. (i.e. want to want me, jason durelo). I informed the guest that someone else already picked to hear that song, and they can pick something from the same artist and we'll be happy to play it. She said cool and rode off into the sunset with the book. The server comes up and asks for the same song. We explain why, she does the same. Another server comes up and says how it's unprofessional (and a few other colorful words). I explained that we don't want to steal anyone's thunder. If someone does a karaoke song, we won't play it. And vice versa. "how would you feel to hear your song sung by karaoke, if you just heard the original you just requested?". It fell on deaf ears. "Just do it" because they say so is what's unprofessional. We lost a team member over this very attitude.

So a great night, with a LOT of tip money, and a diverse crowd with singers waiting 10-30 and no complaints is ruined due to one issue. Between boh and foh fights, owners that drink, we're done.

Background was they were straight karaoke before our company was hired. We did an emergency fill in. I had two singers that night, both AFTER 10pm. At 11pm, I had a packed dancefloor and pulled the books. Several requests, compliments, and fun times had by most. They hired the company to do dancing, and then we hit the slow months. They freaked, and said go back to karaoke, but do both. (they liked the videos). I advised about changing too fast, and to give it time. (about six months). They said no. So weeks in we changed again. As business has picked up? You guessed it. We piss people off. Singers v. Dancers.

The problem is: If we go straight karaoke, it makes zero sense. When my other accounts do 25 different singers a night, on WEEK nights...and this one doesn't...something is wrong. It's too diverse a crowd, and the natural draw changes too much. This has been going on for years at this place. Read a yelp review about the former dj " 4 songs in 90 minutes with a rotation of five". Yep. That's not karaoke, that's crap.

Too bad too. Great sized dancefloor. We redid their lights, audio, and visual system: free. Then they went and bought soundchoice which forced us to lower our price for the night. Which, we will never do again. Soundchoice or not. Karaoke or not. Vj or not.


However, we still have no answer for a singer that is really really weak, then puts up several slips. ! The staff gets pissed if we put the singer up more than once if they "suck". We don't judge (our motto), but sometimes...oh, god. Karaoke is like a car wreck sometimes. We all watch it.


Lots of lessons learned.

The hybrid style can work, but the demographic needs to be younger..

The hottest club in Los Angeles is "Cafe Brass Monkey" on Wilshire Blvd..

Tons of upscale twenties to forties, movie stars, seven nights non stop..

Dance floor right in front of the mic, every fast song the crowd just dances.

The KJ carries mostly upbeat stuff, so that's part of it..

Worth a visit to see how it works..

Last year, they were voted Best Karaoke..



And, they advertise quite a bit.. Always something going on..

https://www.facebook.com/BrassMonkeyKar ... &sk=photos

I don't understand this statement:

"Then they went and bought soundchoice which forced us to lower our price for the night."

How does the brand influence your rate one way or the other?

Did they cut your rate because they are supplying you with karaoke tracks?

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Never the same show twice!

When we did the install, we gave them our discount from Guitar Center. (mistake 1).

After nearly 6k, they purchased their own soundchoice catalog (4/5k). (without telling us).

After the owner complained about business, I mentioned that he should've used that 4/5k and put it to marketing for the venue. That's when I cut the rate $25 a night to ease said pain, and show I'm in it as a team player for the long haul.

We should've left months ago after we were told to not bring back an employee the owner didn't care for.

We no longer will work with venues that display foh/boh issues. Nor seeing owners/managers drinking.

OK... what is FOH and BOH?

Front of house, Back of house.

Still don't get it. What do you mean by Front Of House/Back Of House issues?

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Good Lord, have you folks never worked a show at a bar? FOH is customer/vendor relations/issues, BOH is employees relations/issues.

FOH= Front of house

BOH= Back of house.


Front of house are your: Servers/Bartenders/Managers/dj/kj/barback/etc.

Back of house are your: Cooks/lines/chefs/prep/expedite/dishwasher/etc.

You get serious problems when boh and foh fight, swear, etc. When foh complains verbally, and within earshot about boh issues (heath violations, food prep, bad food, wrong slip, etc.) it causes customers to not want to return.

Worse problems are when boh get wind of this or they fight directly.

Not a good atmosphere to party, let alone spend your money in.

Good lord!!!! Is this your main source of income? If not, leave !!! You're welcome !