Karaoke Forums

So, I started a new gig Fri & Sat Night...both nights started off slow, but were packed up pretty good by 11ish and good till close. Got rave reivews and secured the gig for the next few weeks minimum. The only real issue, turned out to be quite strange..."too much karaoke after midnight" Well 1st off, I do run a mixed show...because that is more often than not, that is what is expected around this area. I can easily switch up and cater to whatever is needed. This however, caught me a little by surprise. I was all but ordered to only have a few karaoke songs after midnight...

My response was simple: Hey...I'm catering to the crowd and I'm doing my best to keep it switched up. We had plenty of singers & dancers. We did both & with success! So that's all I can do...Tried to come off firm, but without too much brass, "Let Me Do My Job & I will decide what to play & when!" Which after all, is what I'm getting paid to do!

So after the marching orders on Friday...Saturday was then much of the same, but there were more dancers to the Karaoke, so I think that calmed the temper a bit. This could turn out to be a sticking point. I tried to nail home the point that p-ing off the Karoke singers, isn't a good idea either.

MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

Can't please all the people all the time, including owners and patrons. I don't like to pixx off the karaoke singers for sure and my shows are pretty well all karaoke but I do also maintain a complete selection of dance tunes that will get everybody up on the floor. I do this after midnight usually if it starts to grind down a little and everybody is wondering what to sing next - with long rotations I continue the singing, but there are serious singers who love to get up and do the Cupid Shuffle.

This is really crowd dependent I would say - you know what you're doing, the owner made it clear what his preferences were, but in the end, it is the patrons who will decide. You can always pass it off to the manager if people don't care for too much of one or the other. Every venue is different, every crowd is different. Nice to be famous for offering both I guess...but again, the fine line involved in keeping everyone happy.

Karaoke crowds are stable, DJ crowds are fickle. I would tell him that running too much DJ is risky. It might work sometimes, but long term it peters out. If DJs could grab and hold crowds, you'd see lots of long-running DJ shows. Maybe you do see lots of them in your area, but they don't exist around here. Or the two other areas I am extremely familiar with.

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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.

Mr. D
Only you know the correct answer. It's always a case of the squeeky wheel getting the grease. "PROBABLY" some regular got a hold of the owner and complained about TO MUCH karaoke. My advice is to keep doing what you're doing and mix it up to cater to the majority of the crowd. There are many unknowns to make a proper suggestion. Age of Crowd after 12 ? Do you have too many ballad singers boring everyone ? ... Just keep mixing it up!!!

Either way you will lose some one ... the whiney singer who won't stand for filler/dance tunes on karaoke night or the people who are karaoke haters.
The plan is to keep everyone in between SATISFIED !!!!

Jam...

You are right, except I think the only complaining party...was the owner. Actually, it wasn't even ballad hell. There was everything from Carrie Underwood to Metallica to Prince to Pantera....It seems there is a mis-conception that Karaoke before midnight and only hardcore Dance after will keep people happy and buying alcohol. I surely contend that this IS NOT the truth, but it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks...as they say! This much is true...MrD will keep doing what he thinks is best and the rest will handle itself, one way or the other..

Thanks..MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

There always seem to be a few people, who can't or won't sing, who pester the DJ or THE OWNER for dance music during a karaoke show. Maybe the owner wouldn't try to cater to the dancing Queen if all of the singers stayed away on karaoke night because they felt that there wasn't enough karaoke on karaoke night?

I have never brought my karaoke tracks to a disco and bugged the DJ or THE OWNER to let me sing some songs.

Oh...& another thing, one of the people I let sing several times...Cornered the owner & the end of the night and tried to pursuade...to let his (2) piece band, not karaoke, not live thing....take over for me....RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME, while I was cleaning up. ..the nerve of some people!

MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

I've always felt that "Karaoke Night" never meant KARAOKE ONLY all others stay away. To me Karaoke Night just means .... Hey we have karaoke tonight if you want to sing. I've always tailored my show to the crowd that night ..sometimes it's 95% karaoke other times it maybe 10% ...sometimes it's 100% at one time and then 0% at other times of the night. Singers take prioity ..meaning if they are waiting to sing I do karaoke until they get to sing at least 1 song.

You need to ask the owner what type of show they want and are they willing to lose some singers who insist on MORE karaoke

Venue managers / owners who hate karaoke should either figure out a way to make money without having karaoke, or stay out of its way if that's what they decide to book as entertainment.

My show is mixed, too; and when there are a large number of dancers AND singers it is not easy to decide which group to cater to. I did two years of Saturdays with 50+ singers and dozens of dancers. For years I told the singers, hey, Saturday is what it is, you probably won't get to sing more than once no matter what, so if you want to sing come back on a different night. Eventually they did all learn this and my Saturdays pretty much never had a repeat crowd (for singers); but that day is what built up the other nights.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

The CROWD DICTATES dance or Karaoke. If there randomly happens a full dance floor for a fill-song.............then give them a second song. By the middle of the THIRD dance song they will tire and drift off............at which time you say, " ALRIGHT WE'RE GONNA GET BACK TO SOME KARAOKE NOW"............call up the next singer to the stage............have the karaoke song cued up ready to go..............fade the dance tune and start the Karaoke song.

THAT's HOW YOU DO IT and keep everything balanced and both groups happy.

If the crowd wants to dance they will do it spontaneously to a fill-song or karaoke song, add two more dance songs, fade back to Karaoke and away you go!

No muss, no fuss and everyone's happy. TRIED and TRUE TECHNIQUE...been doing it that way for years now!!

Got to have dancing.............so they get all SWEATY AND HOT AND GO BACK TO THE BAR AND BUY MORE DRINKS!!

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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

I've said it before and I'll say it again, you have to play to the crowd that's in the bar but you have to be careful you don't take it too far. For me I'll add in dance music when I feel it's appropriate but I still prioritize the Karaoke over the DJ music. However if I'm having a slow night with the same 5 or 6 singers coming up over and over again, I'll announce that I'm going to give them a break to let their voices recover and play a song or two for people to dance to. I also encourage those that haven't sung to take that time to find a song and bring up a slip, sometimes it works.

I look at it this way, I'm hired to provide Karaoke, but I do need to keep people coming back. If the Karaoke isn't particularly exciting or entertaining that night, then yeah I want to do something to stir it up a bit and get people moving. But in the end, I'm true to Karaoke. Bands usually bring in music to play on breaks, but you don't see a band take an extra long break and play requests of DJ music just because some of the people in the bar want to hear a different genre of music. I see it much the same with Karaoke.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Swingcat & Letitrip...

Thanks for the input & funny, that is exactly how I feel and try to move the show along. This was the first real time when I've been "told"...we have to do this...for this reason! I will do my best to appease, but still going to use my judgement on how and what to play and when. I'm not a jukebox and I'm not a robot. The crowd of people certainly helps shape how the night will flow. I guess I can't see drawing or bringing a singing crowd....then saying, yes I'm still playing...but you can't sing now. Don't make sense...the singers are customers too!

MrD

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[highlight=midnightblue]MrD - KJ/DJ Specialist
Visit MrD on facebook - mrdsentertainment
& on myspace - larrynance[/highlight]

First of all, if it's karaoke, it's karaoke. If that's what was advertised, that's what the top priority should be. If it is karaoke/DJ (as most of my gigs are) then 3 words,,,,Read The Crowd. Put an upbeat song up there,,, who's dancing? Who's watching, who's tapping their feet. Who's paying attention? My last karaoke/dj gig started out karaoke for about 2 hours, then a little of both, then for about the last 1.5 hours, it was almost all dancing except for 2 songs. In the end, happy customers will equate to a successful night.

By the way, just landed my first wedding karaoke gig. Should be interesting!

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

i agree

All my shows are mixed shows, and what I play is what suits the crowd we have in the bar at the time.. but that's generally a largely dance crowd after midnight.

It's a tough call sometimes.. especially when the majority of the crowd wants to do upbeat dance music and some guy comes in and puts something like "He Stopped Loving Her Today" in on a karaoke request slip.

In those situations, when someone slides in a sleeper like that i'll mention it to them, that i'll try to get 'em in, but they might want to re-consider their selection.. perhaps replace it with something a little more up beat.

I've actually replaced quite a few KJ's that were hard core karaoke, and they'd let the half dozen singers they had in the club take priority over the other 40 'dance' people in the club.

It's all about playing to the room.. but the guy paying you really has the final say.

And that's usually the mix of the crowd----5-10 singers vs 30-40 non-singers that would really like to get up and dance and just party at some point. Do the math.

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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

If you can DJ at will, ignoring your singers, more power to you. Those types of shows seem to do OK around here for a while, then die out. But then again, this is very stable crowd with not a lot of flux. If you have a lot more transience or a bigger pool of people to work with, I am sure that might be a better solution.

But not every bar can do that crowd in our area. It goes one place, and it's fickle. It will go gangbusters for a while, then "Sayonara!" The karaoke shows seem to be stable, if perhaps not as wildly successful.

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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.

Given that different things work in different areas and for different crowds, I don't begrudge anyone running their show by what works. But I do get confused on the karaoke vs dance music thing because karaoke IS dance music. I understand the "He Stopped Loving Her Today," thing because we used to get that song 3 times a night. But many of our singers like the thrill of filling the dance floor and they have caught on to choosing dance songs to get people going once the party mode kicks in. The boyfriend may also jump in at the top of the rotation and sing a dance song if no one has gotten the hint, yet. People have come to accept he will do a cha cha song once a night for a couple of regulars who come to dance only. The bartendress will also tell us when drink sales are lagging and we need to "Get them thirsty" which means, get them dancing.

We have regulars that we are on good enough terms with that we can explain the situation and ask them to pull out their most rousing numbers and they get it and do it on their own now. So can't you take care of the dancers with karaoke?

Bottom line: Is the venue making money with your show? If so you need to politely, but firmly, let them know your job is to keep the bar busy and you'll do whatever is going to keep the customers in the bar. Some nights it'll be more of one or the other but your goal is to have the bar keep ringing drinks. The bottom line is always what the owners are going to listen to.

I had a discussion with my venue owners recently where the owners complained about the music folks selected to sing. We had a couple of nights with a lot of soul and several Spanish songs and they asked me to not allow the singers to sing that type of music since they're predominately rock/country. I went and got register receipt totals for those nights from the bartender and asked them if they were sure I wanted to prohibit that music.

Once they saw we were doing 15 or 20% above average those nights they told me to just keep doing my job.

I agree total with your take on it.
However, if I was the bar owner, I would immediately fire the bartender that gave you the till tapes.