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My wife often goes with me and doesn't sing the first one or two rotations. But we have talked to the host beforehand, and she puts in the equivalent of an "empty slip" when she arrives. That give her a place in the rotation, so when she does decide to sing she comes right before or after me.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

A few weeks back a new member, Lisah, had what I thought was "the answer" in a different thread on the same subject. I probably embraced her suggestion too quickly; now I wonder? If closely scrutinized, I am sure it has it's flaws, as well.

I am now guessing that if there is an "ideal" solution it would likely combine several different models and could and would take into account the specific circumstances at the moment when a person enters the rotation. I am sure that a mathematician could devise a computer model, but the mechanism would likely be so cumbersome that it would be impossible to implement "on the fly" during a show.

The biggest potential downside of any new model, like the "Theme Park", is that it is likely to be so radically DIFFERENT (not improper) from what people ARE NOW USED TO that it could cause a strong backlash under certain unique circumstances, such as I noted in my previous post. And keeping the singers happy is the prime objective; not riling them up!

Oh, well, back to the drawing board??? Nope; not for me. I have things that need tending to and can't get bogged down on trying to re-invent the wheel to no avail!

Though disappointed, the valuable lesson I learned is just how near impossible it would be, as Jian implied, to find the "fair" solution.

I guess anything that works for BFFL is fair and anything to the contrary is not?

I guess if BFFL ever goes to karaoke with a friend he will always makes sure to slip his slip in ahead of his friend just in case a bunch of singers show up while BFFL is singing. So his friend snoozed and losed/lost? Naw, it's just that BFFL wasn't being much of a friend!

It was mentioned by somebody just of late on this thread that those who "snooze lose". I don't know where that's written, but if the immediate goal of having a "fair" rotations is to be fair, a "you snooze and lose" policy could be very contrary to said purpose under some circumstances. So, for example, I don't question for one moment that Mcky57's wife has every right to sing (for the first time) right next to him whenever SHE decides she is ready. To me that's only fair, although she chose to "snooze" temporarily! And Jam's suggesting he'd try to slip someone's first slip in who has been sitting around all night before calling up some new arrivals is exactly what I would do!

And, as I discussed in a previous post with less specificity, I don't believe that the person who comes to a 9 o'clock show and hands in a slip at 9:02 should ever receive any SIGNIFICANT preference in a rotation over the person who shows up at 8:55, goes to the bar to order a drink, and then hands in a slip at 9:10, or at 9:15. If a person waits until an hour passes by, well that's a little silly and a different circumstance altogether, IMHO!

And while most people realize that there is some downside when they delay entering a slip... nobody, but nobody, who goes to karaoke regularly expects the consequences that might be experienced using the Theme Park model.

And, in some ways the downside to the Theme Park model resembles the "Weave" model I so hate. The "Weave" intermixes newly arriving singers with old singers as the show is drawing nearer its end in order to give everyone a chance to sing!


Original Rotation: 1,2,3,4,5,6,

Second Rotation: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,

Later In The Evening Rotation (new singers are weaved in)

1,A,2,B,3,C,4,D,5,E,6,F,7,8,9,10,11,12

SO... while singers numbered 1-6 won't "suffer" much, the other earlier arriving singers who are in the latter part of the queue will have quite a different experience! In fact, they may not get to sing again while singers 1-6 will likely do so! And, true, that maybe justified if singers 1-6 arrived much earlier than 7-12! But maybe they didn't!

And, from my experience with the "Weaving" model, the last arriving singers who are immediately "Weaved" in have often come from another show that they left because they know they'll not have another turn at bat.

Just more food for thought! No, I am not a naysayer.... just pointing problems I haven't figured out how to deal with. I am sure anyone who has a method that ahs been working "well" isn't going to change it much if at all. Anyone who is convinced one of these "new schemes" is better, will probably try it.

Me... I am still stumbling around with this challenge.

PERSONALLY I would have no problem with that ..but I can see situations when the cranky rotation watching singer gets upset ...

I've had regulars ask me to put them in the rotation, yet not hand me a request slip, as they still were looking for somthing to sing. In many ways, this is almost cheating, yet they DID hand me a slip for rotation purposes... I know back in the day when we had lasers, I hated having a request slip handed in at the last minute, because those suckers took FOREVER to load (30 seconds if at the track 14.

I called up one guy who wasn't ready, so I skipped him and reinserted him later.

Normally I don't like to do things like that. To me, you hand in the slip when you're ready to sing.

MIGHT is the key word ...I think normally there is no RUSH of 20 slips at one time from newcomers..and in UNUSUAL situations the KJ just might have to make some tweaks and adjustments to the singer/singers in thos cases. ON THE OTHER hand as a KJ you have to be constantly ANNOUNCING to potential singers to get you slips in. Fair is Fair ..But what is fair .WON'T PLEASE EVERYONE

agreed....

and on your busier nights, yes, I've seen 12 singers hand in WHILE a singer was singing... told the audience, "we just went from 25 singers to almost forty..."

They knew what that meant.

with computerized shows these days, the "Name Only" slip is very common. And from that point forward you're in the rotation and get called without additional slips.

And...FURTHERMORE, there are the KJ's with no slips who want your request as you approach the "stage". There are KJ's who don't even put out books and will ask what you want as you're walking up and will actually stop the show, slightly, while you decide

Oh, Jam, I have found that sometimes looking at things in the "extreme" helps to identify a problem that would otherwise go unnoticed. And... I don't think 6 people coming in together and handing slips in at the same time is that unusual and would not be enjoyed, in my example by singer #5 who came with singer #4 . And if I used 6 new singers as the example nobody would question that for a moment. We all have had such groups arrives at our shows. Right!

BTW I am not the one who came up with a figure of 20 new singers. If that's in fact what it turned out to be, I was simply using BFFL's example!

Well, actually, I do! And I way prefer the "Theme Park" model. But then, I guess I'm a singer, not a KJ and so I'm a nobody!

I totally understand BFFL's "Theme Park" rotation system and to me it seems like a much fairer system that the "concrete" system. But then I am one who usually arrives early and spends at the bar in order to help support the karaoke.

Unfortunately, the KJ where I prefer to go in NYC uses the "concrete" system and on more than a few occasions there has been the situation whereby a large group came in late and handed in a heap of slips... thereby pushing the singer who's turn would have been up in a few minutes (right after the current singer) back an hour or two! More often than not, these "new" singers had arrived drunk from having been spending their money at a different bar and would all leave as soon as the last of their group had sung, having spent little, if anything in this bar.

No, I don't like the "concrete" system at all, but that doesn't stop me going to that bar, because the KJ runs a show which is better than others in the area in so many other ways.



No, #5 would sing right after #4.... the first of the 10 new singers would not sing until after #3 (ie just before #4's turn would be, had #4 not left already).

I'm pretty cranky, but if I saw someone sitting there all night even I wouldn't have a problem with it. In fact, that has happened many many times and I never gave it a thought.

_________________
[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

Actually Eric, in re-reading your posts, it seems you don't understand the "Theme Park" model at all.... either that or it's me that's got it all fass about ace.

If, as in BFFL's example, a group of 10 enter the bar while singer #5 is singing, that group has no idea about who already in the bar has sung or not sung... they don't know that #1 to #4 have already sung. So it's probable they won't get upset if anyone already in the bar before them gets to sing before them... they have no idea of what point the rotation is at.

On the contrary, the people already in the bar DO know what point the rotation is at. In the "concrete" model, if the penultimate singer of a rotation is singing, then the first singer of the rotation knows that they will be up after the next singer... and that's good because they've been patiently waiting their turn for the whole rotation..... ooops, 10 people just walked into the bar.... now the singers already in the bar, having waited so long for their turn will now have to wait even longer because the "new" singers will be slotted in ahead of them... that will peeve them!

Mur... that's why I like the "line" method... to me, it's imagining us singers just standing in a long line that twists around the bar! ! You finish singing, go to the end of the line! New singers don't "butt in", but go to the end.

Wow, this is getting complicated! I am going to need a graphing calculator to give a fair rotation at my next show!

Of course, I could go back to the old whiteboard first in first out routine, but that would be so..... primitive....

At one place I used to frequent in NZ, the KJ used a blackboard... singers would put their name on the board with their song (only one at a time)... while a singer was singing, their name was erased and the KJ re-wrote it at the end of the list on the board. Any new singers were added to the end of the list.

A bonus to that system was that all the singers could see at a glance how many singers were in the list... it was a simple matter to count the names and work out approximately how long till they got to sing.

Mur,

If you really read and studied my post, I don't know where I voiced any concern whatsoever with the thinking of any of the people who was included in the group of 10 that put their slips in "simultaneously" after the rotation was "fully" in progress.

To the contrary, my major concern is with those who would like to sing and arrived before the "clump" of singers arrived... even if the clump numbered but 6!

And, even though I haven't said all that much about it in this thread, one might be able to infer from what I HAVE said herein and elsewhere, that I am always concerned about fairness regarding those that make it a point to come early, rather than those who come it towards the end of the show.

And Mur, if you actually studied BFFL's example of what happens to singer 6 and also understood what I was getting at, my point was that two singers could come together and get separated in the "Theme Park" rotation by a significant number of new slips. Perhaps I should have used singer 5& 6 rather than 4&5 in my example. So what?

Lastly, and this ticks me off to no-end. Any singer who thinks that any KJ who is trying to run a successful business has objectives that contradict those of singers when it comes to the rotation has their head up their arse. We KJ's are trying to determine if there might be one way that is fairest and, therefore the best (FOR SINGERS). Does anyone think that the name of this thread is actually "What is a fair rotation for KJ'S"?

So, we don't need to hear statements like "my opinion as a singer", or "if I am allowed to voice an opinion as a singer" or "I am a singer, not a KJ so I am nobody!

PS: The "Theme Park" model was not introduced by BFFL, who also said he preferred Lisah's model. I believe Knightshow kinda first introduced it?

Eric is beginning to remind me of the little kid that just says the word WHY after every explanation you give him. It's been explained. He doesn't get it and probably never will. His Loss.

If singer's 4 & 5 have to sing back to back, then singer 4 can wait until singer 5 is finished singing and they can hand in their slips together. Then they can both be behind singers A-J and live happily ever after.......or singer 4 can hand in a duet and sing it with singer 5 which then causes singer 5 to give up his spot after singers A-J and when singers 4 & 5 are done with their duet, they can hand in their next song slips and go to the end of THE LINE AGAIN, side by side.

Oh ERIC. Please ask Matt where, and from whom, he first heard about the Theme Park Rotation style.

Well, BFFL, I've learned two new things:

While you predetermine a song list at home and rush in to a show with it, you are cavalier about the experience of those who are not so serious, and therefore, not so organized as you.

If they meander about at all before handing in a slip, as you say, "you snooze you loose".

If two friends who came together and put their slips in together get separated by this "Theme Park" model, well AS YOU EXPLAIN... there are several EASY solutions:

1) they both can leave before one gets that extra turn
2) they can do a duet with singer 5 giving up his/her turn.

PLEASE NOTE: For for someone who is so specific about what you want to sing BFFL, you're awful fast to decide what others should sing. What makes you think the two of them would like to or are capable of doing a duet?

3) or one can volunteer to join the other further back in the queue, both have now missed a turn do to the Theme Park model (one by convention, one by choice), and both wait an extra 45mins to and hour to sing again
4) or they can get a machine gun and spray the place with bullets until there's no one singers left but them (yeah, that's the ticket)

But most significantly, most significantly I have learned that when an ideas is yours BFFL (as you say this "Theme Park" model is) no one could ever confuse you with any facts. You'll go to your grave defending it. Well, Bruce, I hate to inform you that YOUR model is no better (and probably no worse) than all of the other problematic models that we're all used to working with.

The difference between you and most of the rest of us is that we realize we have a challenge when we run our rotations as the night goes on and they get larger. And.. we, unlike you, are still looking for better WAYS... cause surely any completely inflexible rotation scheme is not going to serve anyone well!

As someone who I infer arrives early to Karaoke, you of course would prefer the Theme Park model because, as you were quick to point out to me, it favors the earliest slips. Would any of them be yours, by any chance?

I heard it from BFFL. I used that method, but he was the first to eloquently describe it. I was saying to myself, "SELF, that's what I do!"

Boy, has this raised some eyebrows!
I've been doing this for almost 4yrs now, been doing singing at different places for over 10. I know....just starting out by some of the elders here. I've said this before. I use a mixture of all these methods. It's called the 'adapt' method and try to make it as fair as possible. Sometimes it's rewarding 'regulars', sometimes it's rewarding 'newcomers'. I don't do anything 'canned', I don't use 'playlists'. I go by feel and that may change during the night. I don't have the 30-40 people rotations, don't really want them either. Give me a 5-15 people rotation, with everyone having a good time and actively making plans to come back next week, that's the type party crowd I want. I play in small towns and small places. Example, the other weekend. I had actively said, "last karaoke song of the night", we were already a few minutes past. I had a guy come up that had been coming for a few weeks and been very loyal. He said, "I guess I don't get to sing my last song, it's ok...I'll see you next week" See now, he had been waiting patiently for his last song and about 4 singers jumped in late and we 'ran out of time'. I made a exception for him...he got to sing the song, but I told the other 3 people that were begging for just one more song...No, sorry we're done....MrD

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Q: If singer "A" arrives early and submits a slip right away, while singer D decided to get a beer and smoke a cigarette before handing in a slip all the while the group of 1,2,3,4,5, come in from the bachorlette party how do you know what song will be sung by the redhead in the corner?