Karaoke Forums

What was your biggest rotation at a regular show? 35 - It happened last week and that was not fun.

How many singers do you average at your regular shows? Around 15 - 20

As a singer, what would be your ideal rotation number? 8 - 10

As a host, what would be your ideal rotation number? Around 15


Last night I had about 30 in rotation. I got several complaints from new faces. We had a large group of ladies celebrating a birthday party for their friend. They were there at 8PM (my start time), but they drank and ate food for several hours watching all my regulars sing. One of them was smart enough to ask to sing a song around 9:30PM and she sung her song around 10:15. Finally around 10:45PM, they decide they are ready to sing. I put them all at the end of the rotation and told them they had many other singers ahead of them who were already on the list because by that time, I had several new people who had just got on the list as well. They said no problem.

At 11:15PM, they sent their leader up to give me a piece of her mind. She said she was tired of seeing other singers up there and said I needed to bump her and her group up immediately because they had been there since 8 and hadn't sung yet. I told her the problem was that she waited too late to get on the list. She waited until the bar was packed full with a full rotation. Had she got on the list earlier, like all my regulars did, they would have been singing by now. She said if I didn't call them up next, they were leaving. I said I am sorry you all feel that way, but this is how I run the rotation here and I am just trying to be fair to everyone, including all the other people who got here early and got on the list early. I told her it wouldn't be that much longer and showed her they would be up in about 15 minutes.

She went back to their table. About 5 minutes later, they left.

It does sadden me when people don't understand how hard it is being a kj on a very busy night when the place is packed tight and everybody wants to sing RIGHT NOW.

The way I look at it though, is like this. Yes, I may have pissed off that one group... but, I kept my regulars very happy. It's my regulars that support me EVERY WEEK. They keep me having a job there. They understand the rules. I am not going to piss them off just to please a group of people I have never seen at my show before and probably won't see again. So I'm good.

You can please most of the people most of the time, but can piss off some of the people all of the time. There are some people you can never make happy.....accept it and move on.

Biggest Rotation- 32 (with advertising venue)

Average Rotation- 9-14 (zero advertising)

As a Singer- 7-12 singers preferred

As a Host- 10-15 is perfect as long as they're spending.

depends on the venue

Family/kid shows

What was your biggest rotation at a regular show? 56 for the year as of today's date

How many singers do you average at your regular shows? 38 for the year as of today's date

As a host, what would be your ideal rotation number? 20-25

Regular Bar shows

What was your biggest rotation at a regular show? 42 for the year as of today's date

How many singers do you average at your regular shows? 32 for the year as of today's date

As a host, what would be your ideal rotation number? 17-21

Gay Club shows

What was your biggest rotation at a regular show? 69 for the year as of today's date

How many singers do you average at your regular shows? 32 for the year as of today's date

As a host, what would be your ideal rotation number? 17-20.

As a singer I prefer a rotation of 12-17 singers

In my opinion, you did the right thing. But, playing Devil's Advocate for a moment, by pissing off this group of people (and thus being the alleged reason they left), you have just lost (what could have been) some new Regulars. They might even tell their friends not to go to that particular Venue on Karaoke Night, thus causing lost business to the Venue. Maybe it's the first time you ever saw this group of people there, but it doesn't mean they haven't been there before. At least one of them must have been there or heard of this place before, because they had met there to celebrate their friend's birthday.

It's nice to have Regulars, but it's also nice to be able to expand on that. The more Regulars you have, the more packed the Venue (sometimes) becomes. I have been to shows where the only Singers there are the Regulars who "Follow" the KJ from show to show. They don't go to those Venues on any given night unless there is Karaoke there on that night. I have been to shows where the Regulars consisted of 15 to 25 people (1-2 hour Rotation), and I have also been to shows where there were only 6 Regulars (sometimes even less) there (25 minute Rotation).


Now, to answer the questions presented in the OP:
What was your biggest rotation at a regular show? I never really had a Regular Show, but when I was doing some shows, my biggest Rotation was about 27 people.

How many singers do you average at your regular shows? I can't really answer this one. Most of the shows I hosted consisted of a small attendance. My Rotations usually started off with 2 to 4 people, and sometimes that would last past the 1st hour of my show/s. Sometimes it would build up to about 10 to 14 people, and other times it would remain as a small intimate group of people waiting to sing.

As a singer, what would be your ideal rotation number? I would be happy to get in 3 songs in the night, but I'd say that my ideal number would be 12. That could work out to 4 or 5 songs in the night.

As a host, what would be your ideal rotation number? I'd say my ideal number would be 18. That could work out to between 3 or 4 songs per person in the night. And, I have never had a problem with extending my "Shutdown" time (on my dime) to finish off a Rotation.

My largest rotation: A few years ago, I had 52 at a very busy restaurant/bar. Owner weren't happy either, because they deemed the customers were not spending enough money. I averaged at this place around 36. Most nights you only sang 2 songs if you were there early, and one if you got there late.

However, I did have a show once that I had about 90 song slips from 90 different people who wanted to sing. This was a college activity, and it was meant as a "contest". Winner got their books paid for that semester. I actually only was able to get in about 50 of the singers,,, and never made it to end of the first rotation. The next year we did the same thing at the school, but we had them pre-register, and kept it to 25 entrants. The school put the activity together (I wasn't involved in the organizing of the event),, and ruined the entire concept by bringing out the "gong",, yep,,, a real gong,, and humiliated students.. I never did that event again.

Right now at my shows, I only average about 12-15 in rotation at the 2 bars I am doing now. (down from about 17-20 in the good ol' days)

As a singer, I like a rotation of about 12-14 singers.. I like that number as a host as well, as long as there are enough listeners to fill the tills with the almighty dollar.

Kudos to you for following your own rotation policy but let me play devil's advocate here too.

Maybe these people had never been to a karaoke show before and didn't know how a rotation worked. Maybe they thought the usual way it worked was someone handed in a slip and sang right away. If it was obvious that they had been truly there since 8:00 and hadn't sung yet; I might have made an exception and slipped them in to the rotation. If another customer questioned me about it, I would have just said that they had given me their slips earlier and told me that they didn't want to sing right away because they needed to get a few drinks in them because they had never done karaoke before. (YES I WOULD HAVE told a little white lie in an attempt to keep the peace)

Now, on the other hand this could have turned out to be a real mess if there were 10 of these people and they all wanted to sing on each other's turns so it looked like they were singing 10 songs in a row. On the other hand, they may have all sung solos and you might have garnered yourself 10 new regulars and they would have, at some point, brought even more of their friends in the future.

Having 10 people walk out in anger is never a good thing. At least one of them probabaly called the establishment the next day to complain about the way they were treated and they are likely to embellish their story after a day to think about what they are going to say. The fact that they decided to have their party at that location may mean that they are regulars at that particular place or one of the group may know the owner well or may even be related to him or someone that he knows well.

Hope it all works out in the end.

The tightrope act we hosts have to perform on super busy nights, when large groups come in, or people show up late at night are some of the things that differentiate the really good hosts from the......not so good.

Just like a great many things in hosting, we all have our own way of dealing with sticky situations. In many cases there isn't necessarily a right or a wrong way. More often than not it becomes situational.

I have done exactly what Vince described several times in just the past few years. Sometimes I have smoothed things over, sometimes I haven't. It happens and it is a risk we have to take to ensure the integrity of the rotation, finish on time, and try to keep as many folks happy at the same time.

I am sure most of us try to explain things as best as we can in the 3.5 minutes we have while someone is singing. We won't make everyone happy all of the time, but we can make most of them happy most of the time (to reiterate what mrmarog said). I will take the latter over the stress of trying to (impossibly) accomplish the former any night of the week.

-Chris

_________________
-Chris

After reading this thread, I am embarassed to post the numbers, but I will anyway

I am no longer hosting but the bigest crowd I've managed to attact at a regular gig I've done myself is six people.

now I did do one private party that was for 20 people, but that was a one time deal.

ideal rotation as a host - around 12 people. When i was a co-host this was the speed i was most comfortable at

ideal rotation as a singer - 10 people. Enough of an audience to listen without having to wait 2 hours to sing, which can be difficult


-James

My biggest is in the vicinity of 50. One of my weekly gigs is starting to average that on a regular basis, which seems to me cause to tack on an extra night, as the regulars are great fun and, I fear, starting to get the shaft as the show picks up steam.

This is, of course, as it pertains to weekly shows -- once a year, I work a local private school's reunion. Each year, they combine that year's 5, 10, 15, and 20th reunions and give them an open bar. It's absolute pandemonium and without fail I witness something ridiculously decadent, usually drug or nudity related, but they compensate me well. Point being that there are hundreds of attendees at these things, and they all seem to want to sing. Which is a bit of an extenuating circumstance, so I don't want to make it seem like I just attract 200-person rotations casually. You'd all call BS on that anyway.

For the record, I had a very similar situation to the one that's been commented on -- I was taken to task by a group of ladies who put their song in at 11:30 on a particularly busy night. Their defense was that they'd been there since 9:30, which seems immaterial when they waited 2 hours to decide to even crack a book. They then accused me of some sort of ageism, which seemed like they were actively trying to play the victim, since they were late 30s at their oldest. (Not my fault a series of twentysomethings had been dutifully putting their songs in for hours.) I guess when someone of a different age/race/gender than you sings before you, I become some sort of heartless bigot. Sigh.

Oh, and as a singer, I think a 7-8 singer rotation with the bar near capacity is my ideal. I mean, if I get to choose.