Karaoke Forums

I started running a contest on Friday. It runs through the end of March. We had a pretty good turn out for the first night even though the tempurature was -10 degrees. This is my first time running a contest, after many years of running karaoke. The people liked the new portable screen, but the one problem was that the singers tended to look at the big screen instead of the singers screen, and then were facing away from the audience...gonna have to think about that.

Here's some pictures:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/22794316@N03/

So why are you running a contest? And what is/are the prize(s)?

k

Put the screen off to the side in front of the singer, big screens are easier to read & yes the singers will tend to look at the bigger screen whether it's behind them or in front or off to the side.  We used to have that problem with a 19" behind the singer (for the audience), they would always turn around, even though I had 2 13" monitors in each corner of the stage.

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

Lonny,

The big screen is mounted to my table though  :shock:

Winter in Minnesota. It's harder to get the people out to sing when it's -10 and/or snowing in Northern Minnesota. A little incentive is some prizes. If you go to the link I put in my first post, the sign in the pictures shows the prizes.

Personally, I didn't plan on doing the contest. The owner thought it would bring in more people. This is a new place for me, as I normally only do karaoke up north in the summer.

I understand the incentive thing. Lonman knows what I'm talking about when I ask, though - the area we are in is so saturated with places offering varying types of karaoke that most will resort to contests to attract people. In my experience, contests do nothing but temporarily bring in people who want to win something, who will come in and drink water, sing their song, either qualify or not, and never come back. Many owners believe a contest is the answer; it may be temporarily but in the end, it offers only a minor 'swell' in the number of people attending the show...at least that's the way it is here. It takes a while to build up a loyal clientele who come in because the karaoke is great - owners need to remember that.

Best of luck, hope you can prove me wrong!

K

Tell you during the very first Country Idol they had (winner received $1000 plus was the opening act for Diamond Rio), we were in that & the draw was HUGE!  We had run contests in the past & saw alot of the 'hoppers' that go from contest to contest.  We gained some regulars out of it though, not as many as we'd have liked.  Cool thing was everyone thought it was a pretty fair show & our finalist went on to take the grand prize out of the rest of the bars in the state.

Judging is going to be key, try not to use in house judges that know everyone or at the very least if you have to, make sure they aren't with contestants.  Don't use audience response as a judging criteria - never helps to have 1 so so singer with 100 friends not applaud the BEST singer with a couple friends (extreme scenerio but have seen it happen).  If you can get judges that have some kind of musical background - this is especially true for largeer scale contests.  We've used local radio talent both collage & mainstream (harder to get), local musicians/band members, vocal instructors.

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

Yup, those first big idol contests did draw - I had the same experience with the Aquafast Idol up here (i organized it and actually ran the contest, i.e. got judges, etc., during Lake Stevens Aquafest for 3 years).

Lon makes a VERY important re: judging. That will make or break your contest. Judging criteria have to be very specific and detailed or you run the risk of having tie after tie after tie - I created an adjudication sheet that measured singers out of 150 points or so...no ties!  And getting professionals to judge can be a real challenge as most of them look at karaoke as a joke. However, once you prove to them that the talent is worthy of note, it gets easier. I am fortunate to be connected to a lot of pro musicians in the area and they are always happy to do me a favor for some reason.  :oh yeah:

Wish you the best on your contest.
k

The qualifying is being done by a single judge. We are qualifying for 8 weeks and will have semi and finals. The judges for the finals will use 50 point system.

The club where the contest is, used to run contests during summer concerts that they had. They would have big name bands, and over the past few years have done a Country Music Festival. They had a huge turn out for the karaoke contest when connected with the concerts. We'll see how it goes. Most of the singers Friday were locals, who did not know that I did shows in the area. They all liked my presentation, sound and music, and said that they would be bringing friends out next week. Again we'll see. Seem to hear that one a lot...doesn't always happen.

It was really fun loading up my stuff at 1:30 in the morning when it was -15 degrees. I got there 2 hours early, to let everything thaw out before I powered it up. Then, Saturday it was back to my regular karaoke job 120 miles away...

1 single judge for qualifying?  I can hear the 'rigged' statements already!  He didn't like me personally, or he didn't like the kind of music I was singing, or......I would still have at least 3 judges for qualifying as well.  Contests have a terrible reputation to begin with, you want to keep it as fair as possible to keep eventual heat you will get down to a minimum.  At least with a few people, the contestants are a little more prone to be ok with the decision (although not always) & with one only, man look out!

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

As a professional all my singers are good and I would never pit  them against each other.

_________________
Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!

I didn't make the decision. I don't even know who the judge is. I am given the selections at the end of the night and announce them. It's like a silent judge. None of the singers know either. "don't think anything of that man behind the screen..." The best singers were selected (at least I thought so), on the first night, so we'll see. I think it will be fine as long as the number of contestants doesn't get too large. The area we are doing this isn't a cut throat contest area. Most of the people are singing for fun, and think it's great that they might win a prize. If word get's around and the regular contest singers show up...then I'll worry. Honestly, I didn't want to do the contest in the first place...it was sort of thrown in my lap after I was asked to talk to them about doing karaoke. I came back with the contract, and the owner said he decided to do a contest as long as I was doing karaoke. I told him that my price didn't include contests, because it required more work, to set up the contest and run it. He said that his people would take care of the contest and I would just run the karaoke and annoucements. Not the way I would want it to be done...actually a bad way to start a new business relationship in my opinion. I know all these people really well though, so I am trusting them a little more than I normally would.

Karen,

I understand totally what your saying. My normal summer gig in the same area, has been running for seven years. Just in the last three years have we seen decent growth in the crowds and the regulars. We always had a "captive" audience, in that it is a resort, where people live during the summer and families come year after year for vacation.

My job In the city is only in it's second year, and we are struggling to keep a decent crowd from week to week. I keep telling the owner, that it takes time. One week we will be packed, the next is slow. We have 3 bars within a few miles doing karaoke though.

I've been pushing more towards private parties and weddings. I have had a lot of fun running music and karaoke at private parties, and made much more money doing them. Right now I have six parties booked over the next two months.

I honestly don't like the contest idea to build a crowd. So, I pretty much agree with you on this one.

CAN I GET A AMEN!!!!!?!?!?!?!

You sure can get an AMEN from me, Anthony.

The REAL problem with using contests to "bring the people in" is that the people that you DO attract don't get the opportunity to see a TYPICAL karaoke show where people are simply having FUN.  They get to see a show where people are competing against each other, a show where you can't dance because the judges have to observe "stage presence", and where the people often leave grumbling, griping and whining about the outcome of the contest.  The "karaoke party" is what attracted me initially to karaoke.  FUN is what attracts a regular clientele to a karaoke venue.  

Karen K is absolutely correct that it takes TIME for a karaoke venue to develop a regular clientele.  In the 15 years I've been doing karaoke I've seen venue after venue after venue hold contests to "bring the people in" only to find that once the contest is over the business drops back down to where it was before or even LOWER.

We are running the preliminary's like open karaoke, so that people who don't want to be in the contest can sing, and enjoy it. The performer's are asked to designate the performance song, and when they want to do it. It's not a "regemented judging program" until the semi and final nights. On those nights we hope to have enough singer's qualified to fill the time slot.

One unknown judge????  :O  :shock:


Get your flack jacket on, because you are going to come under heavy attack before and after this thing is over.

You as the KJ will get the most blame for running an unfair contest.  You will feel the heavy consequence.

It's coming...get ready for it.

Yup, it is interesting how the KJ will catch flack for everything and anything - "Hey, the bathroom is dirty here! Can't you do something about it?"  "Hey, our server SUCKS! Can you get someone else to wait on us?"  "Hey, it's too COLD/HOT in here...Can you get them to adjust the temperature?" "Hey, they carded me! I've never been carded! What's up with that?"   "This drink has no alcohol in it! Can't you tell the bartender to pour better drinks?"

And contests bring the WORST as far as I'm concerned...the rest can be shoved off onto the management but as the KJ, we're the ones playing the music.  IT JUST AIN'T FAIR, I TELL YA!

I just hope it doesn't come to a "shoot the KJ" scene.

Friday I treated everybody the same (the way I always do), which is to compliment them on their songs, ask if they would like anything different in the settings, and smile. I really didn't get many questions on the judging, or the contest for that matter. What I got were a bunch of people that came from the downtown area (small town downtown), and had been doing karaoke at one of the bars there. They didn't like the set-up downtown, but told me they liked mine, and would bring more singers next Friday....like I said before, we'll see.

Most of them just sang open karaoke, and had a good time.

Wait till it gets closer to the end.

Get ready.