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I was thrilled to get a new Sunday night show at a bar/restaurant attached to an upscale downtown Seattle hotel a few weeks ago. But after the third week, it appears no one is coming in for the show other than those staying at the hotel despite being promoted with posters, table tents, the restaurant's website and, I'm told, some ads they run.

From the start, my thinking was how many locals would come downtown on a Sunday night for karaoke? There's not much going on except the occasional tourist, and there's really not that much foot traffic downtown that late on a Sunday.

I have an option to bail after Week 4.

If I continue our contract, I have to stay for 9 more weeks. I don't think I could take 9 more weeks of echoes! And I'm not sure things would get much better.

Should I just chalk this one up to right place, wrong time?

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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]

They’re cool to pay you for nine more weeks, regardless if anyone shows up?

I’ve never had to handle being paid to be bored, but I for some reason I think I could handle it.

Unless of course you have an alternative gig for Sunday nights.

Interesting dilemma, for sure.

I guess it’s your call.

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

Dan, believe it or not the management there have some brains. They understand that it takes time to build a clientele. Our best gigs have started slow, and one took quite a while to get going and now it's one of our busiest nights, a Tuesday at that.

Have you told your regulars at your other venues on your new night? If not, do so. Don't give up, it's too early.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

How long to give a new show a chance?
That's up to the MANAGEMNET ?

I agree if they are willing to pay you and you're doing your BEST to build a show
take the money and bring a deck of cards

How long to give a new show a chance?
That's up to the MANAGEMNET ?

I agree if they are willing to pay you and you're doing your BEST to build a show
take the money and bring a deck of cards

Yeah, i would definately stay with it if you can use the money and have the patience to watch it build up. (hopefully)

I would also suggest cover your backside by having lots of filler music, music videos, and other sorts of entertainment if it's painfully S-L-O-W as you wait for other singers to arrive. More than a few songs by a host, no matter how good they are, gets old for the people working there. IMO.

And speak to all the employees and managers and find out if they have requests that you could sing for them, or have them sing to pass the time away. If you don't keep your servers or bartenders happy, you lose a tremendous amount of support in extending your contract further down the line, and securing a raise.

When/ IF it becomes BUSY, then 100% karaoke- until then, show off your other skills of entertainment and make sure YOUR MULTIPLE-SOLO-performances of karaoke don't leave a bad taste for everyone else. Find out what the crowd/workers want to hear and sing those songs and keep them happy. I would also avoid slow songs that would kill any good upbeat vibe, but that's just me.

-just my .002

The BEST of Luck to you Dan! Aloha J.R.

I would like to put this out there:

One of the reasons that a show can fail is that it's not given time to succeed.

The promotion of it needs to be relentless. And as a hot/KJ/whatever - do you not have a little loyal fanbase that will follow you?

I give a new show minimum 8 weeks to get going - provided management agrees! Like Tim said, this one sounds like he is going to give a chance & knows that nothing is going to happen overnight.
After that if you don't have a decent crowd coming in, then drop it.

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

Dangerous Dan I believe that you said that you've been at this Sun. gig three weeks. I agree that's really not long enough to tell yet. My home room took three months to get established. I had a very patient owner for sure.

Had I gone with straight karaoke and not experimented with various formats combined with karaoke at the start I might have been able to shave a month off that, but still... yeah I agree with Lonnie... eight weeks sounds good.

However I also remember a bit about what downtown Seattle looks like on a Sunday night. If they're not downtown already I think it would be hard to get singers to bother driving downtown just for karaoke.

Sooo.... with that in mind what's the business in the hotel like? Those people may always be the largest portion of your room.

Let me add this to the mix.

This week I'm starting a F/T marketing position with "the world's largest software company" which pays more than I could ever earn as a KJ, plus benefits. I will continue my Wednesday night KJ show at another venue which gets 200-300 people in the door. What's more, that venue has just retained me for an additional Monday night show. With that many more people, the night moves much more quickly, I have a much better time, probably get an additional 20% of my pay in tips. I also get ancillary income from this venue as their webmaster and designer of their ads and flyers).

So that's already 2 weekdays I won't be in bed before 3 am, yet will also be working a regular 9-6 gig. There's only so much Dan McKay to go around! Not to mention the usual Saturdays I do DJ gigs such as corporate events and weddings.

Had the F/T position not come up, I probably would think twice about sticking it out. Even though the hotel does great business (last week I was told they were 100% full) there were maybe 20 people in the bar. Management might just be fighting a losing battle.

My thought now is to suggest to the bar (not actually owned by the hotel, but located on their ground floor) that I can continue to manage and promote Sunday nights for them, but send other talent to do the show. Or I can just recommend another company with whom they can contract directly.

I'm certainly not a "quitter" but it seems that it's going to be difficult to get anyone other than those staying in the hotel in there. And who's staying at a downtown hotel on a Sunday night? Most business travelers arrive Mondays; tourists usually check out on Sunday afternoon.

Thanks so much for everyone's insight and opinions!

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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 know some people in the Seattle area. I will let them know about your show. I linked your webbie to some friends there.

VERY VERY IMPORTANT to show off your OTHER DJ/MC skills----this could lead to other HIGH-PAYING banquet, business convention type DJ bookings for other hotel events. Keep the gig until they cant do it anymore and ask them to have u as thier DJ for thier other events.

As to in house advertising-----ask the MGMT if you could have them dedicate a video tv channel to your karaoke show and services---hook up a dvd player and have a continuous 24hr "KARAOKE CHANNEL" of your show, the bar, the hotel, your signs, song lists---pics from the bar, etc etc---anything eles you can think of to add --a bio of you, stuff from your website, song lists, ----give them your website for the hotels guests to go visit your site on broadband.

YOu have a very unique opportunity with a downtown hotel room---be creative and make the most of it with any and all kinds of ideas to present to the management. Dont just sit on your butt and wait for custies----be cretive and outragous in your promos-----invite the staff and all thier freinds----make the old INDUSTRY NIGHT.


YOU KNOW HOW TO DO ALL THIS-----MAKE IT THE SHOWCASE OF DOWNTOWN SUNDAY NIGHT ENTERTAINMENT!!

Really cool gigs like this dont come around very often--especially with patient management.

Dont squander 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

It's gonna be pretty tough to get those $100 "TIPS" to let somebody sing next when there's no one there to sing in the first place, huh? You get betwen 200 and 300 at one gig and next to nobody at a new gig. That is some loyal following you got that you can't get even 20% of them to support your new gig. Hey! Can you get Bill Gates to bring back Windows XP and trash all of those versions of VISTA?

That's not a very nice thing to say... Why so crabby?

This guy brags about how his show is so busy that people are waving hundred dollar bills in his face to sing next and that it's no big deal to take the money and push every other singer back "a bit" for his $100 "tip" and in the next breath, he's complaining that he can't get people to his newest show. Can you spell Karma?

And I've read a few threads where you attack others without due cause.
So back at you.....
Karma?

P.S. It realy was a snotty thing to say and was uncalled for.

Yikes, BruceFan! Tell me how you REALLY feel!

I do believe that host loyalty can get SOME people in the door for a new show. But those venues have to be somewhat on a par.

My other show touts $1 wells, $2 beers and $3 shots. It primarily attracts young party people who come more to dance, get rowdy and make the scene than to sing. Don't get me wrong, we have a lot of great singers. But it's more a party spot than a "singers' room". And certainly not the same kind of people who would go downtown to a 4-star hotel pub/restaurant late on a Sunday night.

Heck, it costs $6 just to PARK there!

My other gig also had a great reputation with a longtime host (who was an actual musician) who left to concentrate on gigging with his country band. The person they got to replace him decimated the crowds, but I was able to build it back up within a couple of months to make it the bar's highest grossing night of the week. Prior to that, I built another club's Monday nights out of nothing to a packed house.

The point is the venues are not equal in caliber or location. I never expected that very many - if any - would "follow" me to the other show.

I knew from the get go that this Sunday show would be a challenge not only because of the day of the week, but the venue. Both me and the venue have done promotion for the night. I pretty well knew we were going to be limited to those already staying downtown for an audience; again, I can't see any locals driving somewhere to pay to park and sing in a bar when there are so many other karaoke venues out there.

I'd like to have the superego I'm being accused of and assert that I can attract a crowd in any venue, any day, any time but I'm a realist. There are many more factors to getting a crowd for a karaoke show than just the KJ. If the venue wants to continue, I'll put another one of my hosts in there. But I think it's not the right place for me.

Just because someone wants to pay me doesn't make them the right client for my show.

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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]

1) First, the "How long" question. I require 6 weeks minimum ( weekly, same night each week) from any venue when I start. The fact that you have 9 weeks is terrific, and you should make the most of that time.

You mentioned what the venue has done to promote you, which is more than many will. You haven't mentioned what YOU HAVE DONE. Do you have an e-mail list of regulars, or even better, a text list? Have you been reminding them? If you don't, or haven't, why not?

If you have a 9 week commitment, you can afford to take a decent ad out in the local entertainment mag ( maybe listing your other venues as well..).

I know that karaokelistings.com has a site that lists (for free) karaoke venues for every state, is very active, and always up to date, because the Karaoke Hosts do it themselves. Have you logged on and listed the venue on line- there and on other free sites? If not, why?

You can't - in ANY business- just hang out and hope for the best. WORKING toward success is a good thing.


2) " From the start my thinking was....blah blah" so why should it work? That's like going to the prom and attempting to ask someone to dance " um, you don't want to dance with me, do you?"

If you didn't think you could make it successful, why did you take it on?


3) Should you just pack this one in? Well, you could. Then of course, why not just back in the business? I mean, if it's too much work for you. BTW, do you quit a game if you're not winning midway through? Just curious.


Alright, enough butt kicking. Make sure YOU do EVERYTHING that you can POSSIBLY think of to promote the night. Pretend the venue is doing nothing. It's up to you.

Lose the defeatist attitude. People can read it, and it makes things worse.

Give it EVERYTHING YOU HAVE for THE FULL 9 WEEKS, smiling and happy through every show whether you feel like it or not. FINISH what you start, or make it successful, keep it going, and feel good about your accomplisment.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

There is always a cause that brings about an effect. Some folks just read what they want to read and don't trace it back far enough. Everyone is entitled to their opinions, including me. I'm not going to apologize for not liking everything or everybody.

If you already have two weeknight steadies and just started an important day job give it up without hesitation after this weekend (which is week 4 and your last committed week if I'm counting right).

You are not a quitter. You are a realist.