Karaoke Forums

After many years of having an established night for karaoke, my bar is adding a second night. There are already some other shows in the area so I want to kick off their new night with a big splash.

I've read varying things about singing competitions; how they encourage some but keep others away. I'd say most of our crowd aren't "serious singers" but get up there for fun so I'd like to try to do something fun and inclusive. I can probably get a moderate budget for giveaways or prizes.

Any thoughts?

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Don't start up a contest. What you can try is a random Raffle held at the last hour of the night. If you sing at all during the night, your name goes into a hat (for the drawing later on). If the Bar is willing to put up, you can offer 1st prize of a $25 Bar Tab, 2nd prize of a $10 Bar Tab. You must be present to win. These prizes must be used the following week (on Karaoke Night). This encourages the people to stay for most of the show, and it also encourages the people to come back the next week.

I don't know how this works in washington but in michigan we have beer distributers.They have tons of swag to promote their product,mirrors,hats,shirts ect ect. If you can get one of the distributers that your venue uses to sponser this new night and give their swag away or raffle it off.

The trick is to find a distributer that is interested, our local 3 distributers were'nt interested but we had some gigs on the west shoreline of michigan and this distributer was the greatest, he brought shirts for all the bar staff and some to give away had signs made with his product and our band name,mugs,mirrors,hats,coolers ect. ect.Your bar could drop the price on that distributers products for the evening .

If you have a local kj outlet they may donate to have their business represented at a popular venue.

I would not make this a contest, it causes to much BS.Everybody that walks in gets a ticket,ever time you sing you get a ticket, first one to sing gets 5 tickets.Have a ticket challenge, first one to produce an out of state drivers license, or answer a musical question,hey here's a good one 5 tickets if they sing the song without the lyrics on the monitor or a sing a gender bender,guy singing a chick song or a chick singing a guy song.Make it up, its your show.

If you get enough prizes I find it helps to give/raffle something every hour and yes saving the best prize for last.

Well there's something to think about, if my band ever slows down enough to get my kj rig out into the real world I'll try some of these things, and let you know, but they work with the band and don't know why it wouldn't work for a kj.

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SERVING THE COMMUNITY SINCE LAST TUESDAY

WE run one night a raffle for anyone in the bar. $25 gas card is the main prize, tshirts & drink coupons are also included. I have 20 envelopes with a prize inside ranging from all above - only 1 main. Everyone in the bar gets 1 raffle ticket. Every half hour we draw a number, the winner of the draw gets to choose an envelope - all laid out on a wall board. Whatever the pick is theirs! The tshirts are usually liquor distributors giveaways. The people stick around for that gas card and it may not even get picked for the night - it used to be a $25 gift card to a major dept. store, but tried the gas card when the prices spiked & it's now the only prize & people WILL stick around to try & win it.
Just an idea!

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I agree with Lonnie. Random ticket pulls like raffles or even song slips in a hat drawn out once an hour and then the grand finale'... THOSE are much more fair than a general applause or song favortism thing for getting the public into it!

I've seen drawings for meals at the bar's restaurant at a couple of KJ shows that seemed to work somewhat. At least it doesn't cost you anything as long as the place goes along.

But the best thing that's worked for me is to just lean on the regulars, letting them know that their support that first night will go a long way towards getting it established. That tactic was what made the addition of a second night a big success at my current home room.

Here in the UK, karaoke goes hand in hand with drinking - a lot of singers won't even sing until they have overcome their shyness (and as a result are usually worse). Anyhow, point being that a free drink for the first 5 singers and a prize such as the raffles mentioned above work really well here!

Only problem with that, Nlouch, is that in this state a bar can't give away alcohol. You have to be very creative about how you do it....maybe a 2-fer or something, but they can't actually GIVE it away.

Yeah nothing flies like free booze. I've seen absolutely spectacular results from promotions involving free drinks in Montana. Unbelievable participation! Incredible!!!!

But you can't do it in Oregon either.

You could do a raffle and give away the trinkets as door prizes.

Put up some fliers telling about the same. Maybe have your beer distributor make a banner for the outside of the building saying: "Karaoke Door Prize Raffle Every Wendesday Night" or something to that effect.

Certainly a couple posters inside the club and a stack of fliers by the door or at your DJ station or in those little tabletop plastic sign holders could be useful. Anything really is better than nothing.

Maybe an ad/sign page inside the songbooks.

All those things are INEXPENSIVE to make.

If you want to get fancy make some PHOTOSHOP signs of different colors and styles, put them on a disc, hook up a DVD player to your video with a switch and have them as a scrolling ad display on your TV's between songs. Its limitless what you can do with this one and very eyecatching and creative and unusual. I did one at the place I KJ/DJ at and it runs everynight 7 nights a week 365 a year and has everything you can imagine on it.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Here in Wisconsin, we get beer and wine samples in the grocery stores...YAY us!!! Anyway, I would contact those good folks over in Tumwater to see if they would give up some shirts, caps, glasses, mirror signs...etc. What is your crowd into, otherwise? If you have a biker crowd, the local Harley shop would be a good source of swag in the form of shirts and caps. If they are a college crowd, perhaps the local sports shops would give you some shirts and caps from the teams in your area in exchange for some ad time or signage. I do this kind of thing for my cruise night with free food coupons and car washes, and caps from some of the car magazines.

Hey DD, I hear your new night is Monday - Monday is almost the toughest night of the week. You have to go after the younguns who don't care that they're just going home at 2 a.m. and have to be up at 5:30....we've been doing a Monday night show for three years and it continues to amaze me that these kids can go home drunk at that time and function the next day (well, at least I think they do ).

Your CL ad on the events page is colorful and eye catching - maybe print out something like that for the venue as well. I don't think a contest is a good thing - seems like with the contest that happened at the local fair just recently, the talent was really not very good at all, and it would seem that the real good singers aren't participating in contests like they used to.

I'm not much for using "tricks" to get people in - if they like your show, they'll maybe at first attend both nights, then maybe come on the first night instead of the second, and then maybe go back and forth, but eventually you'll probably get people who can ONLY go out on a Monday night (we have a few of those).

Sounds like they've really done a great renovation on your place - use that as a draw. At one of our gigs, I did laminated pages on cardstock that listed ALL activities that went on at the place - including band nights, etc. Those were left on the tables and every person who sad down read them. You just have to keep them up nicely. (I bought a laminating machine and it was one of the best investment's I've made. - the products look "professional" when they're laminated, or more professional for some reason.. and they don't get thrashed by spilled drinks.)

CL is such a great way to advertise a show - your ads are great but I'd focus less on the drink prices and more on the karaoke. By all means announce drink specials, but I think people who are looking for great karaoke don't really care that much about the drink prices ?? Am I wrong there? We have drink specials all night, and unless it is half-price shots, most people don't care.

Seriously, I'm going to try and pop down on a Wed night to catch your show. I'm curious to see how they've spiffed the place up. It was on its last legs before ...

When my place raised the drink prices 50c I was totally surprised when practically nobody noticed. They are mostly out for a good time and pay with plastic. Good karaoke is what counts.

The few that did say something are the penny pinchers who only buy one or two and complain about everything. They aren't the ones who keep the doors open if you know what I'm talking about.

Karen how much does a laminating machine cost? Maybe something to look into.

Hey all...thanks for all the great advice so far...keep 'em coming!

As I understand it with the beer/liquor companies, in the city of Seattle it's against the regulations for them to just GIVE you promotional items. But they can SELL them to you at cost. It seems like there might be some consideration they could show either with a product discount or maybe sending the "Jaeger Girls" or some other promo team out.

Karen, Monday is indeed my new night at this venue. The day of the week doesn't scare me because I did about 3 years of Monday nights at a U-District bar and built it from nothing to a huge crowd of regulars. My place also gets its share of college kids, and perhaps we can attract the "industry" crowd (Monday nights many bar/restaurant/hospitatlity people have off). I like the idea of choosing envelopes from a board as having only 25 of them would encourage people to come early to sing. We could also do that in conjunction with raffle tickets so that non-singers would have a chance too.

I agree that having gift certificates for food/drink would have a lower hard cost and more value.

And certainly having signage and table tents/flyers about the new night is a must. As the date gets closer, I'll be mentioning the new night more on my regular night as well.

By the way, as for a laminating machine...you can do that at Kinkos. If you buy the plastic from them, you can use their self-serve laminator.

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[font=Lucida Console]DangerousKaraoke.com[/font]
[font=Lucida Console]"Sing for the day, sing for the moment, sing for the time of your life!"[/font]

I was doing so much laminating that it really would have been a pain to go to Kinko's every time I needed to do it. I picked a machine at Staples for around $100. I also manage to find the laminating sheets on really good sales occasionally. This is very much a multi-use kind of machine - I've used it for other things besides karaoke, as well. I think they're worth the investment, especially if you have other uses. I'm quite a distance from Kinko's so that'd never work for me.

k

Wow, never knew that - your drinking laws seem a lot stricter than the UK!

Gift certificates to the bar as prizes works great. They come back the next time and spend more money.

Just remember to advertise you're doing something special that night. You have to get them there first.

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I found that if you can get the cooperation of the bar on this one, if you hand out "buy one get one free" certificates (which you can make yourself) good only for the Monday night show, these have worked well for me in the past. You can kind of keep track, too, of how many people from the original Wed night show are coming in on Mondays. I wouldn't continue it too long after about the first month, but that would give the attendance a boost to begin with. I made several dozen of those, went around to the businesses in the area immediately surrounding the establishment - hair salons (where women tend to go out after work for a few), restaurants (going along with the industry night thing), doctor offices (again, women tend to go out for a few after work), etc. Always get permission to do this, but most businesses are pretty receptive to that kind of thing. It is a little labor intensive (making the certificates and then going out and distributing them) but consider you could also put on in your ad on CL and they could print it out and bring it in (may have to check on Cl rules about that one). You COULD, however, put it on your website without fear of repercussions. Put the usual, "limit one per customer per visit," etc. Good only at the Monday night show until things get going. Also, if they offer food at your venue, see if you could do the same for food - buy one, get one free or buy one, get second of equal or lesser value for half price.