Karaoke Forums

We do a costume contest every year. About four people are brought up on stage at a time. Then a winner is picked from that group by applause. The winners from all the groupings are then asked to do the same thing until only 3 are left. Money awards are given out to the top three for 1st, 2nd and 3rd prize. I do not do the contest although I am the planner/organizer. I have one of my long time regulars handle the on stage judging. He has done it for 4 yrs. He loves it and is very good at doing it. I try to stay as impartial as possible by taking a break outside while it is going on. I don't need the back lash from unhappy winners blaming karaoke for them not winning the contest.

My question is - Is there a better way then just applause to run this contest. Unfortunately I always have unhappy people who did not win. I want to be as fair as possible, but have not found a better way of running the contest. Any ideas?

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

Last year the owner picked 4 people to be the panel of judges who also took applause into account. But there were still a lot of upset people. A person in a rented costume came in just for the contest, won the money and left. A regular who created a costume from scratch should have been the winner in many people's opinions.

SO--this year there are going to be categories with criteria spelled out before the contest. There will be a seperate category for creativity and one for store-bought/rented. The other thing we are doing is giving out drawing tickets each time a person buys a drink and there will be drawings throughout the night. That way people who stay get more chances at winning something. Prizes are being collected from local merchants and we are donating a stack of drink tokens, etc.

use a decibel meter for the applause....they can blame the meter

Have anyone interested in competing in the "Contest" register their name and assign them a NUMBER and a ID TAG.

Give all the customers a voting card and have them evalute th costumes during the night ..write the number they like best --put in a box ...one with the largest number of votes wins ... If it can select the President it should work for a Halloween Contest

PEOPLE ARE UPSET EVEN AFTER AN ELECTION TOO

I like this idea. I looked them up on the internet and the cheapest I can find is around $50 at radio shack. I really don't want to spend the money, so I'm wondering if the LED level meter on my amp will work instead. I'm going to test it out tonight. I'm hoping if the mic is held out towards the crowd it will pick up enough sound to work. It can be explained to the crowd an applause meter is being used that way it will seem more fair.

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

I think no matter how fair you try to be, people are always going to be upset if they don't win. Couple that with drinking alcohol, and it's just going to be more hassle than it's worth.

Why can't the establishment have a Halloween party with karaoke, food and drink specials, without a costume contest?

Competition of any kind in bars is NEVER a good idea, in my opinion. If I had a nickel for every fight that broke out over a 50 cent pool game, I'd be able to vacation in Monte Carlo this winter!

just my .02

We thought of using the light levels on our mixer as a decibel meter but it would still be subjective depending on where the mic was and by how many friends a person had with them to cheer.

I like this idea. The only thing is that I would require all contestants to be there by a certain time to register, say 9:00, for example and have the judging (vote counting) at midnight. That way, you don't get the "costume whores" swooping in at the last second to steal the winnings.

I was wondering about that also. What if the front row of people all cheered for the same persson. They would be louder because they were closer to the mic. Aaarg!

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

Good point, but unfortunately costume contests bring in people and keep them there until the winner is announced. Most people who dress up for the occasion like to go to a bar that has a contest.

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

I've tried this approach with karaoke contests, maybe it would work with your costume contest as well...

Give all the contestants a sheet of paper
Instruct them to write their own name on the top of the sheet
Tell them that they are going to vote for the winners, but there is one catch - they can NOT vote for themselves. If they do, their ballot will be thrown out.

Have them vote for 1st, 2nd and 3rd.
Gather up the sheets and randomly select some crowd members to count up the votes

5 points for 1st
3 points for 2nd
2 Point for 3rd

Award the prizes to the people with the 3 highest point totals.

I like that way of doing it big jer.

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

All I have to say is "Good Luck" and try to distance yourself from the whole thing as much as possible.

My experience with these tells me to keep it simple. The more you try to make it fair and put all sorts of "objective" voting processes in place, the more people expect it to be "fair". The higher their expectations of fairness, the more likely they are to find reason to be upset and claim it wasn't run fair.

Keep it simple, by applause, no judges and people pretty much realize that it's just for fun and accept that it may not be truly "fair". And if you're not the one judging who got the loudest applause, then you're fine as far as anyone that could possibly claim any wrong doing.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

Not that this is a bad idea, but I just don't have the time to do such an elaborate tallying. Figuring out 60 plus slips for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place takes time. Not to mention making sure all slips are valid. I'll be running the show by myself. The owner and manager will not even be there. I can't tell everyone karaoke is at a stand still until I can tally all the votes.

What Tony said makes sense to me. Keeping it simple and doing it like we've done all the past yrs might be the only way to go. I actually do believe it has been a fair contest in the past. I'm was just looking to see if maybe there was a a better way of doing it so the patrons when they lose think it was fair. An applause meter takes the human decision out of it, so that made sense. But it actually might make it less fair. Aaaarg!

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

Well see, I don't do the tallying. I let the people I picked out tally the vote while I launch back into show mode. When they're done they bring me the sheets with the final score.

Halloween Costume Contest.

Ha ha ha.
I am going to win it this year.
I win it every year.
Come to think of it I win it every day of the year.
And I don't even wear a costume.

Oh...
Does that mean...

My personal philosophy is that karaoke is all about having fun and making music with your friends, so it should be inclusive and encouraging, not "I'm better than you". So I generally shy away from any type of contests.

For this Saturday's show I'll certainly encourage costumes, and those that come with costumes will certainly be recognized, maybe even given a prize, but there will be no losers at my show.

That's a pretty good philosophy. Most of the KJs I've talked to don't like contestants very much.

I agree I'm not a big fan of contests either.

It seems as if it's almost expected at Halloween though. If we didn't have one I know everyone would be asking, why not? And then blaming it on the owner that he's a cheap-scape for not having one.

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