Karaoke Forums

Mightywiz....no problem I am sure we have all "fallen for" BS told to us by someone we felt was honorable at one point or another.

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Problem is the bar can actually get into trouble with this kind of a$$hole if they aren't paying these fees and believing that the dj is covering them.

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

Why would ANYONE try to pay their own Pro fees?? It's not the KJ's responsibility. I swear, some people just don't like to make any money. They would rather spend their earnings on fees. Amazing.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I think the idea of paying the fees by a kj\dj is to make certain they are legal. No one WANTS to throw money at fees but they don't want someone coming back and smacking your hand either. Tis why a bunch of KJs are pissed at getting their hand bitten after feeding the dog as it is today. The worry is, who is next in line to try to take a bite if they are doing gigs in places where the fees aren't being covered. I think the chances of gigging in a place where fees should be paid but aren't are minimal. In my mind, doing a wedding in a private hall is just that, private. IMO the places that are truely public where fees could be required but maybe aren't are State fairs, festivals outside events and the like. My guess is even most of those do pay event fees.

In my mind, they keep telling us its not our deal to worry about, so I don't. I rarely do weddings\private parties anyway.

I made a deal with club years ago to contribute to "a portion" of their ASCAP fees.... and it came with a BIG string: In exchange for this, I was the "exclusive" KJ for them for every year that I paid my portion. And we ran Karaoke 2 nights a week, Wednesdays and Fridays.

They paid the yearly fee and I paid one-half of the portion of the fees that related to karaoke entertainment only. They paid the full fee for the bands and other entertainment.

Worked out nice for over 6 years.

Why would you want to do that Chip? Seems silly!

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

Because my portion worked out to barely over $100/yr total and insured an income of $7,800.00/yr without concern of undercutters no matter whether they were good or not and the regulars there had consistency for the entire time.

here in my little part of the world a fair number of bars do not pay...I know of 1 KJ that had her equipment locked inside a chained bar (due to defaulting on ASCAP fees) for over 10 weeks...put her almost out of business. We always check now.....I know of at least 12 bars VERY local that will not pay pro-fees and at least 10 others that are now out of business after not paying(I'm sure it was not the entire reason however).

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Chip, unless I screwed something up ( divide 7800 by 2, then divide the answer by 52) that works out to $75 per night. I can't imagine you would run into an undercutting problem at that rate, and assuming that you are good at what you do, I think you were pretty safe anyway. I can understand why you contributed, but I really don't think it was needed to ensure security.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

Now, not taking into account that you are hosting shows at other Venues, and that you also (probably) have other KJs working for you and Julie, unless the $7,800 you quoted is just your net profit for the year at that one specific venue, I have to agree with Joe's math here.

$150 per night * 2 nights per week = $300

$300 * 52 weeks = $15,600.00/ per year

My mistake.... I counted only ONE night in the mix, not two... we did Wednesday and Friday. Saturdays were done by live bands.