Karaoke Forums

Diafel

Excellent observations

Years ago we worked at a Mexican restaurant/club whose initial nut to crack at the beginning of every month was $10,000! They make most of their money in the restaurant but have DJ'ing and live bands as well on the weekends. They seem to have longevity - but then we know the cost of making Mexican food is very low (rice, beans, ground beef, tortillas, etc.)

That's ironic. A woman that works for me used to own a Mexican restaurant and had karaoke.

My favorite Mexican restaurant, which is quite a distance from me, has Karaoke every Sunday evening. I've never been there when the karaoke is in on.

As for the $67 a day cost for rent of the premises, that's what need to be taken in during opening hours. If the place is open from say 10am to midnight that's 14 hours and is in reality a cost of about $4.80 an hour or the price of less than two drinks. For a place with a rent of $8,000 it's about $20 an hour. Five to six drinks an hour will more than cover it.

Karaoke in bars is only about 4 hours a night of the total income. Most bars usually have kitchen to make money.

Dr Fred, if the bar you're at is only open for a few hours at night then the owner has no clue what he or she is doing. Mt guess is that by the time you come in, the bar has made enough to cover the necessities (rent, utilities, etc). You wind up being their gravy. I'd love to see the books and do an onsite audit.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I too am a member of the Jim Beam brotherhood of Burbon. This thread make me want a Jim Beam and sprite

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Life is Short Play Hard!!!!

There's alot more than just rent to factor in on the overhead. Water & Electricty, taxes, admin costs, labor, cost of goods sold, maintance and upkeep, cleaning, supplies, insurances, fees, advertising, phone, liscenses, inventory, depreciation, amortization, theres even a category for "KNOWN THEFT"-pilfering and internal theft of goods/products/supplies, and other accounting categories, etc etc. Just go look at a balance sheet and THEN calculate what the REAL overhead figure is they have to pay for each night. Quite a bit different than just rent. Rent may not even be the biggest expense they have. It may just be labor/salaries--althouth that is a primary controllable expense.

I wonder how many KJ services actually maintain business balance sheets and account for all the various things listed above as part of a regular business balance sheet statment and records for audit purposes, taxes and business statements?

ie...depreciation of new equipment, advertising expenses, goodwill, taxes, transportation, fuel, travel time, capital expenditures(new sound gear, upgrades, new computer, software, new music, microphones, new songbooks, consumables--pens, songslips etc etc), equipment maintenance and account for the REAL hourly labor times required to keep all these things up to date and maintained. And if so how does this ACTUALLY reflect on the business's TRUE profitabiliy both short-term and long-term?

Or is it mostly not paid attention too and just get paid and not really worry about actual business accounting??

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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

Eric,
I subscibe to the idealogy that drinking while working is unporfessional. I don't drink period, whether I am out or working. Don't need to. I get the same feeling of fun when I get up and sing.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Good for you, Danny

And what's your point?

Swingcat, I know there is a lot more than rent. My point was that karaoke is a minor expense. I think you would agree any bar grossing $200/day will not survive three months, if that. A bar owner to make a half decent living would have to make a net profit of $100-200 a day, depending on the area he or she lives in I think Dr Fred is being fed a line.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I also agree with timberlea, as I had stated much earlier in the thread, there is no WAY he's really as poverty-stricken as he says.
And I too, am well aware that there is much more to overhead than rent.
His biggest expense is probably labour, as I have seen time and time again in this industry.
His rent is probably peanuts in comparison.
Most people can identify with rent being due, as it's usually the average person's biggest expense and biggest headache, and the average person tends to assume it's theirs also.
Bar owners use "the rent is due" in order to garner sympathy from others precisely for that reason.

Getting back to the original postI'm sure you know that this metric alone can't make for an accurate prediction. If they're all ordering Cristal that might throw the numbers off.

You have to look at the venue's offerings and pricing. Do they push the drinks? Do they have specialty drinks? Do they have a large appetizer/munchie menu? Table service or you order at the bar?

Sometimes how much the bar makes has much to do with their own service staff and bill of fare. They have potential customers in their establishment. The bar has to be diligent about "working the crowd" as much as the KJ does...get them eating and drinking! Don't wait for them to order something...go SELL them some food and drinks!

You can bet that that most people nursing a drink or water who have a modicum of humanity or shame, upon being solicited by a waitress every 20 minutes is going to $#!+ or get off the pot...i.e. order something or be embarrassed and leave.

I also don't see a problem with a bar/restaurant during the times they offer entertainment to impose a $5-$10 minimum per person that's "selectively" enforced...i.e. if someone is obviously a freeloader, the staff can "invoke" that policy, "Sir, during the evening hours we have a $10 minimum. I've brought you a menu, let me know when you're ready to order." Then the waitress comes and stands over that person until they order.

35 singers doesn't tell you how many total people are in the bar. If each singer brings a non-singer, that's 70 people. Expecting $15 in food/drink per person isn't unreasonable but we as KJs can't take on thaqt burden ourselves.

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

I concur Timberlea. And like you say--that would have to be NET. Particulalry NET PROFIT AFTER BONUS. Not the GROSS or even the Z ring. And the Z ring that a karaoke person sees probly would only pertain to that time period of shift change from 9pm onwards and NOT include happy hour(6-9 pm) and dayshift. Which are typically counted at each separate register shift change. So he probly doenst have any real idea of what the bar/restaurant as a whole is binging in, and its profitabilty. Given that he would have absoluelty no access to look at the place's P & L statement and monthly balance sheet.

Barowner could and would tell him ANTYTHING he wants just to placate him and keep him motivated to perform for free and save him a little money each month.

I KNOW I WOULD.

Thats a SWEET DEAL for the barowner.

4 nights a month of FREE entertainment---given that lets say that a kj would cost 150$ a night.

Do the math----$150/night x 4 nights a month=$600/month in the BAROWNER's POCKET and NOT in FRED's TAKE HOME POCKET. Pretty sweet deal for the bar owner I'd say.

So EFFECTIVELY Fred is COSTING himself $600/month for the privelege of perfroming his hobby 4 times a month at this place for free. Sounds like 4 times a month PAY TO PLAY to me!

Pretty sweet Charity in the barowner's favor!!

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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

And then Dan there are the people who kind of mill around and never really sit anywhere. And those that come have a drink or two and leave after a short time. And those that could care less about karaoke and just hang all night around the bar and lounge. So there would be considerably more than just the Karaoke singers. Lots more biz going on in a place than just the devoted karaoke folk.

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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

And the gross sales are ALL ABOUT THE WAIT STAFF. How many times they keep rifilling you, do they offer the best profit items on the menu, do they offer suggestions and the specials of the night etc etc. If you have lousy unmotived staff sales reduce SIGNIFICANTLY. And if the place is UNDERSTAFFED----not ENOUGH waitstaff at right times of the day/night---BAR LOSES SALES.

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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