Karaoke Forums

I guess this is for singers too, if they've seen / participated.

Something hit me a little bit back and I was wondering if anyone has ever tried this, and how / if it worked out.

I would think this would work best for someone who has a gig at the same joint, once or more a week. Once or bimonthly gigs, I can't see it working.

Has anyone tried to have a theme night? I don't think a weekend night would work as well as the middle of the week where you'd find your regulars who'd be more willing to do this, as opposed to your casual weekend warrior. What I'm meaning is kinda like, the first Tuesday (or whenever) of each month a music type is picked and you stay with that theme all night. You know, like the first time could be 70's music, or rock songs, or country, ballads (could end up a snoozer night with all slow songs though), funny songs, classics ect....

My thought is, it may get people to try a song style that they'd normally wouldn't try. I enjoy listening to everyone. Good or bad. To me generally the worse you are at singing, the more stage presence you seem to have and have more fun with the mic.

I also realize some regulars may not show because of this. I'm pretty sure one in my group wouldn't be to fond of this and would be a 50/50 on showing up.

Anyway, sounds fun and different to me, after years of singing.

Stupid? Whatcha think?

I've glance to see if this was repeat post, but couldn't find anything.

Wouldn't do a ballad night -
Theme nights can be fun. We've done disco, 70's, 80's, 50/60's, etc. Some people really got into it while others just went along or didn't want to participate at all & sing what they normally sing. Even though it's a theme, you can't omit the other people singing that do not want to participate. Make it lucrative, give raffle tickets to the participants & give some stuff away throughout the night. See if the bar can chip in, small karaoke machines for home use are great for grand prizes & relatively cheap. Maybe even have side contests (no not singing) for most enthusiastic or best costume or etc.you get the idea.

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We just did an Island theme night. People wore Hawaiian shirts and leis. We did beach like music and the cook made up a menu of island foods. It was fun to try something different. You always have some party poopers though that will complain they're not going to join in. That's fine.

I can remember in the past doing theme nights unplanned. Like on the anniversary of Elvis's death everyone sang Elvis songs or another night we all sang a round or two of disco songs.

Some people are limited to what they can sing, so I have to be careful not to alienate them.

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Went to a 50's theme night once. Everyone was supposed sing 50's songs and wear their poodle skirts and there were prizes for best costumes. I have wondered about doing that as we are in close proximity to Hot August Nights where people parade their classy cars. A few of our singers have restored cars and having them park outside the bar might bring in some people.

On the other hand, 50's songs are pretty much the norm at this place so there wouldn't be much novelty. I think I'll steal the Island Night idea, however. Thanks.

We do them every once in a while, although they are not really planned out-more of a spur of the moment happening and only for those that wish to participate, those that don't want to participate just sing whatever they want.
We do Artist themes (dead or alive), songs with a particular word in the title themes, decade themes etc.
We have tried planned theme nights but found the unplanned ones turn out to be a whole lot more fun. The theme of a particular word in a song title can be especially fun...oh yeah also gender bender nights are a blast too.

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I'm stealing your idea. We are having a huge car show take place across the street from the bar in the train station parking lot. This is a huge deal every year. I love the 50's theme night idea.

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Wow, you have a ready made opportunity there, Babs.

Others that come to mind: Our competition down the road does a once a month Birthday Night for anyone who has a birthday that month. You wouldn't want to be stuck singing all birthday songs but it would be a good excuse to have a cake and special food, etc. as a get em in the door enticement.

There are the obvious like Cinco de Mayo and Mardi Gras. We tried Mardi Gras and I even made 2 King Cakes and sent to a Halloween place for fake foam breasts to flash. Gave away Jambalaya Mix and Mayor Nagin Chocolate City Candy Bars and Beaudreau and Tibideaux jokes but my demented sense of humor was too obscure for our locale. Won't be doing that again.

Some places I've been to were hit and miss. It was good for an hour or two but by the third hour I'm like "WE GET IT!!!! ENOUGH ALREADY!!!" I could only hear enough Michael Jackson songs. There's only so much disco songs out there.

We had a blast tonight doing MTV Video hits from the 80s. A lot of people pulled out some stuff they'd never do otherwise, and some found some new stuff.

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Couple of "themes" I tried and have done pretty good with are Gender Bender and Kamikaze Karaoke. Gender Bender is where you pick a song from the opposite sex, i.e. males sing a female song and vice versa. Everyone had a great time with that. When my gay friend went up to sing "It's raining man", those of us who knew him just about die laughing.

Kamikaze Karaoke is where the audience randomly pick a song for the singer to sing. I have done this two ways. One is where a someone else pick a song, as long as the singer is willing to participate. This works better rather than total random. For the total random, I ask for a random page from the book, then random number of order on the page, then pick that song to sing. Sometimes people don't know the song and fake through it but some people can improvise that makes it interesting.

A couple of ideas.

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When I do Kamikaze Karaoke I use the kamikaze button in Sax N Dotty to pick a song at random, I will click it 5 times bringing up 5 songs at random and let the singer choose which one...the thought of having to be able to pick from 5 different titles is a little less frightening to the singer and ensures more participation, anyway it works for me.

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I've done some theme nights and kamikazes, we even came with what I called "Tag Team Karaoke." I knew almost everyone in the place, so I had everyone who wanted to participate line up. Then I put on a longer song, such as "American Pie."
I'd sing the first two lines to get it started, then hand off the mic to the next singer to do a line or two then hand it off again. The singers just looped back into the line for the duration of the song. I kept it going, urging the singers to hand off the mic quicker and quicker.
Sometimes when we did it, we'd have 20 to 30 people in line, including folks who don't normally sing but can easily handle one or two lines done like this, for a gag.

I wouldn't do it all the time, and never more than once a night.

I like "eben" 's gender bender. That night seems funny, especially if they try the song as the opposite sexes voice.

Whichever theme you choose , try and stipulate that it's not mandatory so the "partypoopers" won't feel alienanated from the crowd and there fore not particiapte or even show up.

You should have seen me do "I will survive" without changing the key.

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I cheated, I sung Cake's version to "I will survive" And somehow the girls singing mens songs are not really funny compared to men singing the womens tunes.

For the Kamikaze, I prefer the preselected songs in a jar. The songs picked from flipping pages isn't a good thing, whats funny of singing a song that's a dud in the first place.