Karaoke Forums

I love the insert method because I love bar hoping yes hoping
Hoping that the kj will insert me toward the head of the line when I get there

I just hope I never have to bring a note from my babysitter as to why i am so late

My GENERAL rule is that people who are turning in their first slip are put ahead of people who've already had a turn.

HOWEVER, it can become a problem if someone sang an hour and a half ago and has been waiting patiently for their turn only to be bumped by a huge group of people who just walked in and decided they all wanted to sing. In the case of big rotations with long waits, I alternate old and new based on my own judgement.

Good question.

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"K-Jay"
www.kjayskaraoke.8m.com

My GENERAL rule is that people who are turning in their first slip are put ahead of people who've already had a turn.

HOWEVER, it can become a problem if someone sang an hour and a half ago and has been waiting patiently for their turn only to be bumped by a huge group of people who just walked in and decided they all wanted to sing. In the case of big rotations with long waits, I alternate old and new based on my own judgement.

Good question.

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"K-Jay"
www.kjayskaraoke.8m.com

Hey, new to forum, but not to the biz.


For those making Assessments on what works and doesn't try crunching the Numbers, this is what I came up with as an average of one of my shows. I then used the same people with the Rotation where when you stop getting New Singers to add to the Back of the line then you start a new rotation, boy let me tell you heads would roll. After doing the two I decided I know that if I tell people 45 mins it is cool but if you tell them 90 mins they curse you and leave. The best method is to give every person the same treatment if possible. same wait time for New and Old. Which for me when I get a full house is between 40 to 65 mins. Stay in the zone. If you can find a program that computes all the different scenarios, because we all know every day is different let me know, otherwise I might have to come up with it myself .

[pre][font=Courier]
Typical Friday Evening.

9:00 PM
People arrive and are having a beverage and finally decide
to look through the book. Usually people who are kind of scared
to they just keep on flipping. I typically will have a party mix
on in the meantime, Maybe sing something for them. Then after they
are done filling slips They usually turn them in during the first
song one of them sings.

01 02 03 04
05 06 07 08
Singer# 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
(When New singer Turns in Slip)

9:30 PM 10:00 PM
Slot# 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
(Timeline - 4 min Approx per slot)

Method1 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13|01 14
(Old singer, New singer, Insertion)

Method2 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
(Standard Rotation)

Real2 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15
(Realistic Standard Rotation)
People leave when waiting 90 Min.

First 45 Min no change.
Generally about 45 percent actually put in another slip, and usually right before
they are up to sing. (I find comedy in those who fill out 5 slips on a busy night)

Singer# 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28
10:30 PM 11:00 PM
Slot# 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Method1 02 15 04 16 06 17 08 18 09 19 11 20 13 21 15
Method2 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28|01 02
Real2 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28|15 16

Singer# 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37
11:30 PM 12:00 AM
Slot# 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45
Method1 22 16 23 18 24 25 20 26 27 21 28 29 23 30 24
Method2 04 06 08 09 11 13 15 16 18 20 21 22 23 25 27
Real2 18 20 21 23 25 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

You Will notice on Method1 at about 12:00 AM we
had to start inserting new singers to space out
the time of wait for the second song because it would
have continued to shrink. This way we also get more New singers up.
If you are sure you are not going to get more new singers then
you could also start a new rotation and add the few straglers
Who stuck it out the entire time. I typically get about 10 New Singers per hour with slips, and base it off of that.


Singer# 38 39 40 41 42 43
12:30 AM 1:00 AM 1:30 AM
Slot # 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60
Method1 31 25 32 26 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
Method2 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43
Real2 37 38 39 40 41 42 43|30 32 34 35 37 39 41 42

Here is a Break down if you can't already do the Calculations of
the total time a singer has to wait from the time they turned in
a slip till the time they are up to sing. Also the total time they
stayed or would have to stay at the bar.


Method1 Method2 Real2
Wait Time Min Wait time Min Wait time Min
Singer# #1 #2 Total #1 #2 Total #1 #2 Total
01 - - 00 52 = 082 | 00 112 = 142 | 00 -- = 30
02 - - 04 56 = 090 | 04 112 = 146 | 04 -- = 34
03 - - 08 -- = 038 | 08 --- = 038 | 08 -- = 38
04 - - 12 56 = 098 | 12 108 = 150 | 12 -- = 42
05 - - 16 -- = 031 | 16 --- = 031 | 16 -- = 31
06 - - 20 56 = 091 | 20 104 = 139 | 20 -- = 35
07 - - 24 -- = 034 | 24 --- = 034 | 24 -- = 34
08 - - 28 56 = 094 | 28 100 = 138 | 28 -- = 38
09 - - 32 60 = 102 | 32 100 = 142 | 32 -- = 42
10 - - 32 -- = 042 | 32 --- = 042 | 32 -- = 42
11 - - 28 60 = 098 | 28 096 = 134 | 28 -- = 38
12 - - 28 -- = 038 | 28 --- = 038 | 28 -- = 38
13 - - 28 60 = 098 | 28 092 = 130 | 28 -- = 28
14 - - 28 -- = 038 | 24 --- = 034 | 24 -- = 34
15 - - 32 52 = 094 | 24 088 = 122 | 24 56 = 90
16 - - 32 48 = 090 | 24 088 = 122 | 24 56 = 90
17 - - 36 -- = 046 | 24 --- = 034 | 24 -- = 34
18 - - 40 44 = 094 | 20 084 = 114 | 20 52 = 82
19 - - 40 -- = 050 | 20 --- = 030 | 20 -- = 30
20 - - 44 40 = 094 | 16 080 = 106 | 16 48 = 74
21 - - 48 44 = 102 | 16 080 = 106 | 16 48 = 74
22 - - 52 -- = 062 | 16 --- = 026 | 16 -- = 26
23 - - 52 40 = 102 | 12 080 = 102 | 12 44 = 66
24 - - 56 40 = 106 | 12 076 = 098 | 12 -- = 22
25 - - 52 44 = 106 | 08 076 = 094 | 08 40 = 58
26 - - 56 44 = 110 | 08 --- = 018 | 08 -- = 18
27 - - 52 -- = 062 | 04 072 = 086 | 04 36 = 50
28 - - 52 -- = 062 | 00 --- = 010 | 00 36 = 46
29 - - 44 -- = 054 | 60 --- = 070 | 28 -- = 38
30 - - 48 -- = 058 | 56 --- = 066 | 28 56 = 94
31 - - 48 -- = 058 | 56 --- = 066 | 24 -- = 34
32 - - 52 -- = 062 | 52 --- = 052 | 24 52 = 86
33 - - 52 -- = 062 | 48 --- = 058 | 20 -- = 30
34 - - 48 -- = 058 | 48 --- = 058 | 16 48 = 74
35 - - 48 -- = 058 | 48 --- = 058 | 16 48 = 74
36 - - 44 -- = 054 | 44 --- = 054 | 12 -- = 22
37 - - 40 -- = 050 | 40 --- = 050 | 08 44 = 62
38 - - 36 -- = 046 | 36 --- = 046 | 04 -- = 14
39 - - 36 -- = 046 | 36 --- = 046 | 04 40 = 54
40 - - 36 -- = 046 | 36 --- = 046 | 04 -- = 14
41 - - 36 -- = 046 | 32 --- = 042 | 00 36 = 46
42 - - 32 -- = 042 | 32 --- = 042 | 00 36 = 46
43 - - 32 -- = 042 | 32 --- = 042 | 00 -- = 10
============== ============= =============
=2936 min Not Very =1962 min
97 Beers sold approx Real 65 Beers
$388 profit $261 profit
43 happy Customers 26 happy cusomers
Who tell thier 9 Unhappy & Left
Friends this is 8 Angry & Left
A great bar Who tell their
friends don't come
[/font][/pre]


With all said and done if you are fair to your earlier clients you will insert them within the new singers. Otherwise if you make them wait till the end of the next rotation they will go home not just unhappy, but really Upset you would do that to them when the other bar got them to sing every 50 min. and maybe 75 min wait on a third song if willing. Not 110 min. for the second song, wouldn't you go to another bar and never come back too.

Remember its not inserting the new singers within the round they are already in line.
The better way to think about it is that you are inserting the older singers within the round.
"Its not that you have to do it, You get to do it"

Well, if nobody buys anything, the karaoke stops, and the bars hosting the karaoke go out of business, where would you sing?

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Dave's not here.

Someone doesn't have to drink to enjoy karaoke in a bar, they should however spend something - beit virgin drinks, food, etc. If not, then you are trespassing & should be asked to leave by the management!

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

I don't do the insert mehod because the rotation is on the screen. Now I cap the screen's rotation at 5 so only the first five plus the singer up at the time is displayed. If I wanted to I could insert the new sing at spot number six because it's off screen, but I don't. I believe in the first come first served method. Singers get inserted at the end of the rotation in front of the marker singer that marks the start of a new rotation.

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

That isn't fair either, in my opinion. If you have 15 people in your rotation and I walk in when singer 14 is singing, I'm going to sing in less than 10 minutes. If I come in ten minutes later when singer #1 is singing, I'm going to have to wait about an hour to sing. Luck shouldn't determine how long it will take to get to sing a song. If there are 15 people in the rotation, or any number for that matter, the new singer should get the spot right before the person who is singing when the new singer hands in his or her song slip. That way EVERYONE waits the same amount of time. If someone who just got done singing has to wait an entire rotation to sing; so should someone who just walked in the door and handed in a song slip....in my opinion. I hate it when new singers get put into the rotation ahead of me when they should be behind me. The end of the night rolls around and these people who came to the bar and hour or more after me are now ahead of me in the rotation and they will possibly get to sing the last few songs of the night instead of people that got there way before them. It just doesn't seem fair to me.

Another situation that occurs is singer number 14 is singing and singers 1-4 think that they are going to be up very soon so they decide to order another round of drinks. As soon as they put their order in, 6 or 7 people come in and all hand in a song before the end of the rotation and now singers 1-4 have to wait at least an additional half hour to get to sing their next songs. If they knew that was going to happen, they may have decided to just call it a night if they knew they would have to wait that long to get up again. Inserting new singers willy nilly is really bad but adding all of the new singers to the end of the rotation can also cause problems when they happen to show up very close to the end of the rotation.

There is an option in CompuHost to pick the number of singers that appear on the scrolling bar. I changed this option so that only the next 2 singers appear. Since I'm never going to bump one of the next two singers unless the rotation is really small, this eliminates the problem of the 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. being able to see themselves being bumped!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

So the goal is to bump(screw) people without them knowing it, right???? Good Grief!

Sounds like the government's immigration plan.

No, no....

The original poster said that he hated that CompuHost would scroll the next 4 singers, because if he put a new singer in the middle, those that had been on the 4 person scroll might see themselves get bumped for one of the new singers.

I do the same thing - new singers go in the middle. If it were a 8 person rotation, and a new singer comes in, I'd put them 4th. If you are scrolling the next 4 on CompuHost, then whoever was 4th is now 5th.

I was telling that guy that there is an option in CompuHost where you can change how many slots scroll on the "Next Up" bar. I changed mines so that it only shows who is next. That way, if a new singer comes in, and they go into the middle, and the middle is slot 4, then the person in slot 4 doesn't see on the big screen that they just dropped a spot, and everyone is happy!!

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C Mc
KJ, FL

I'm so glad this topic was started. I have the most trouble with rotation lately, deciding which is the best way to do it. Last week-end was so frustrating. I've read some posts where it seems KJs do it similar to the way I do. When I was trained, I was taught to add new singer to the end of the rotation, no matter how far down on the rotation you were. In other words, 20 singers are on the list, #18 is singing, and #21 just put his slip in. He sings in 10 minutes. I didn't like that. I find that my early singers are usually our regulars that keep our bar going in the winter. My show is in a tourist area (at the beach), and the summer is packed with visitors. I don't want our regular locals having to wait for 15 new people at the end of an already 20 singer rotation. I started cutting it off earlier in the rotation. If we are a few singers from the end, the new singers go in at the end of the next rotation. It usually works out fine, but last week-end, the new people were having to wait 2 hours or more to sing!! It was ridiculous. I thought about doing an insert method, but not with my new singers. I would insert my early singers between every couple of newcomers. The newcomers don't know rotation order, and the early singers would just be happy to sing again and not have to wait for all of them.

I usually have a cut off point in the night also, where I quit taking new singers. This is always late, like around 1. By this time, if I put them in, it's singers from the bars next door. (We are in a strip of bars.) When they stop karaoke at 1, I get flooded with people that have been there all night. We are already packed. I do not let them sing, because I can't do so without my early singers not getting any more turns. I don't want them to leave. It just gets hard sometimes.

And I always get the "I'll rock the house...put me in, no one else will know..." crap. I get so mad. I tell them they need to go back and rock the other house they've been in all night, cause ours has been rocking since 9.

On another discussion I had read how other KJs dealt with bribes, and someone had said that they told the person it would cost $XXX, enough to buy shots for everyone in the bar, and I must say it works well. I gave that to someone this past week-end and I was . They just said "Never mind..." It certainly lightened my mood...Thanks whoever it was.

Lots of good ideas here. You guys are great. We are all at different venues, and different things work well. I will never check receipts. I don't have time, but I used to get constantly annoyed with a singer who'd put his name in at my show, leave and go next door, because that KJ would put him in fast. (They don't do real karaoke there....they just appease a few customers with it. They mostly DJ.) Then, he'd come back and sing. He wasn't buying anything. I pissed him off so bad he quit coming. He would go next door and end up not being there when I called him. I didn't put him back in the rotation. He had to wait until his turn on the next round, and he pouted about it for a while. The thing people have to understand is that karaoke is not just about others enjoying your singing. It's also about enjoying theirs. My other singers would get irritated, because they felt like if they had to listen to him, he should be courteous enough to listen to them too. Makes sense to me.

One thing I do is the line method, but it becomes VERY apparent to everyone that nobdy is bumped up... as I use a whiteboard. The customers sign up, so when the current singer signs up after he's done, he's the bottom of the singing list!

Missbipbip - That's the thing everyone's venues are different and you are figuring out what works for you. You find a rotation that works for you and stick with it. The secret is stay consistant no matter how you do it. Your patrons just want to be treated fairly. If no one gets special treatment and is treated the same, you shouldn't have a problem. Okay except for the random untrained regular that whines to sing more than everyone else.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

Unfortunately, most KJ's would rather appease the late comers because they feel that the early birds are addicted to karaoke and they will come back even if you mistreat them. The people who show up late seem to have a "take it or leave it" mentality when it comes to karaoke so the KJ's feel they have to please the late comers at the expense of the regular customers. It really is a shame that a business person would treat a customer who spends 4 or 5 hours at your business worse than someone who is only there for an hour or two.

And then the bar owner complains when the early birds stop showing up or start showing up later and later so they too, can get treated like they are special instead of being taken for granted.

I hate that situation Bruce. Most of the time it works out for me, so I don't have to tell the latecomers they won't get a song in. But sometimes there is just no way they're going to sing. I just tell them it isn't fair to the people who have waited 2 hours to sing that next time they'll have to come in earlier. To the latecomers it can be deceiving because at the end of the night most people will sing what they think is their last song and leave, so the bar could look pretty empty. I had one guy pitch a fit because of this. He came back and has apologized since now he can see how things are.

I do try and get the latecomers in, but it depends on how long the rotation has been all night. If it's a slow night and everyone has sung a ton of times I'll put one or 2 of them in right before I close. But I let them know there is no guarentee it will happen. They can't expect it will happen that way all the time. Most people are pretty aware they can't expect it and will ask if there is a chance they'll even get in before handing in a slip.

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[shadow=pink][glow=deepskyblue]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[updown]~*~ MONKEY BUSINESS KARAOKE~*~ [/shadow][/updown][/glow]

A latecomer may not get to sing at all if I have my cutoff in effect. So even if a latecomer gets in under that point, they will get at least one song while the rest that have been there will have at least 3-4 most likely, also most likely one more coming up in the last round. Just because someone comes in late doesn't mean they aren't as important as someone that happened to be able to be there all night. I've said this before, i'm not going punish someone that works late & we have LOTS of people that get off work late around here. Often times they spend just as much if not more than someone who has been there all night as they are trying to catch up to the party. But again, once cutoff has been announced, no slips - new singers or old will be allowed in. If you already have a slip up, then you can change your last song.

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

There's an old saying: "You can't please everyone all the time" ((followed shortly by "you can't tell a KJ how to run his show!" !))

I personally believe not to cater to the latecomers OVER those that have supported my show. If they get it, great. I treat everyone the same exact way. The bar's certainly not going to stay open longer, the kitchen will rarely extend it's hours unless you pay them more... why should those customers of mine sit and have to wait longer because someone came in late. My heart goes out to the 2nd shift workers, but then again, I've done that shift myself. I've worked nights, and partied on my days off... that's just what you do! You make allowances for your work shift, and I wouldn't expect favoritism to ring it's ugly head in a bar situation.

When you bump up someone over others, in my humble opinion, it sends a message that CAN be easily misunderstood to those that have been supporting your show.

To me, I'd rather have the longer rotation because everyone feels fairly treated. I've been there and done that (working for someone else) when I tried to adjust the rotation... the singers I had all saw it, and complained bitterly. I'm glad those of you that do the insertion method can get away with it. But in the market I was in, and in the current one now, the singers prefer the sign up method! Even crappy shows flourish when using that technique, much to my dismay...

I'm still waiting for someone to give me a verified bar hopping issue with even one singer. Everyone imagines it but no one seems to be able to find this person who does this. Now I see they're traveling in packs, a new behavior to me. One of those things I only read about on the internet but have yet to meet someone who has this as a real problem.

Unless it's a slow night, 12 or fewer singers, I stop taking new singers 1 hour before a shut down and song requests for returning singers 30 minutes before. Its rare to have fewer than 12 before shutdown so that's more or less how I end a show.

Grf, I've mentioned time and time again regs of mine that would come in packs, leaving one place as it got too busy, and expecting to come into my show and get bumped up. Every time, I put them at the end of the current singing solution, and they sat and waited.

It may not happen to you, but in Portland, and here in KC, it DOES happen. I was at a bud's show tonight and had a bunch of people show up right when we left (as my wife has to work in the morning)... all drunk from another bar that suddenly got too busy and the rotation grew longer.