Karaoke Forums

Just returned to Toronto a few days ago from a 7 day cruise covering Sicily, Athens Greece, Ephesus Turkey, and Crete.

The ship had karaoke two nights, the first and last nights. I had to get up too early the following day after the first night so I didn't attend. I went the last night which happened to be the last thing I did on the ship other than breakfast the day we left.

It was pathetic. I wrote to them yesterday and explained my experience. If you don't want to hear about the other parts of the cruise, just skip the first paragraph.



Hello, I just returned last night from cruising on the Navigator and I hope to come back and I would recommend this cruise to anyone. We had a bit of issue getting to the ship but obviously, not an issue of yours. The dining experiences were outstanding including the food and the service (Riche & Kevon). The servicing of our stateroom (Tony) was second to none I've experienced. The entertainment was phenomenal including the stages, lighting, sound and of course the acts. We got our money's worth and more.

The only major glitch I experienced was the karaoke. I should tell you I am a professional karaoke host and DJ in the states (about to move to the Toronto Ontario region) and my experience with your show was subpar. The song offerings in the book only totaled maybe 500 songs or so (not one Beatles song) and the versions of the songs left some to be desired. The sound mixing appeared to be nonexistent (including a rap version by the guy who won the Sexiest Man contest that should have had no reverb)and it didn't appear that the sound person was able to EQ the vocals for the singers. The songs were stored on a CAVs machine (1990s technology) and the potential singers had to write their requests on a clipboard up near the stage. The TV (lyrics monitor) appeared to be produced in 2000 or 2001. Several songs had to be restarted because they stopped during the performance. One performer had to wait as the wrong song was cued up the first time. The song I chose was not a very high quality version and the lyrics were about 7 seconds ahead of the audio. The host was very good and outgoing. The mics were Shure SM58s and I applaud you for that, very nice choice. The host was a bit late for some reason and the sound person was a bit panicked at the start as she couldn't get the lyrics to appear on the monitor.

My suggestions? Get a flat panel monitor for your stage, it looks so much more modern and in line with your other stages and shows. Get rid of the Cavs machine, use a laptop and download a good karaoke software program. Compuhost for a couple hundred bucks and it is so easy to use and allows for singer rotation onscreen as well as special effects. Buy a professional mixing board. I personally use a Yamaha MGG245X which can be bought for $300 US and allows for the host or sound person to EQ each singer's vocals to get maximum sound out of their voice. Get rid of the books! Karaoke books are passé and get beat up by the customers (just a natural thing) and are a pain to update if you get new music. How to get rid of the books? There are karaoke kiosks to replace the books. Again, I use Compuhost's version. I have a separate laptop on a stand for customers to view my song library and wirelessly send their requests to my show laptop. I do this by using a very economical Belkin wireless router that I store inside my rack that holds my laptop, mixer, wireless mics, and driverack. You do not need to have the internet to use the router. This makes it easier on the customer and the host/sound person to keep track of the songs, no more issues of shaky handwriting or a song being wrote down that isn't in the library. Buy some songs! I have a small legal library of about 15,000 songs. I can say with a great deal of certainty that your library is the smallest I have ever seen. You will have to spend some money to get to a decent size library. You can buy large lots of CDGs on eBay. There are now legal download sites. Please don't buy a pirated loaded hard drive. This makes it hard for the karaoke song manufacturers to make a living and affects the quality of new songs coming out.

Buy some lights, make the singers feel like a star on stage!

Last but not least, increase the time of your show. I've never seen a one hour show before. I've seen 3 hour shows, but most are 4 to 5 hours. I know there were many people in the room who wanted to sing but an hour only allows for 15 songs and part of that was eaten up by the fact that the show did NOT start until 10 minutes after it was supposed to. Also with the host talking before and after each singer, I think only about 9 guests got the pleasure of singing.

Well that's it for me. You can contact me if you want some more advice. I hang out at a karaoke forum online called http://www.karaokescene.com where I learned my craft from other pro hosts from around the globe. Hopefully this won't take away from the fact that I had a wonderful time on your ship.

Sincerely,
Bob Beeding


Doubt I will hear from them but considering every other show we went to looked like a million dollar production and karaoke looked like a last minute thing that hasn't been updated since the ship starting sailing (in 2001 I believe), it took away from the glamour of the ship and the entertainment. Last ship I sailed on in 2006 had a great show, 4 hours long and I don't think anyone sang more than once. Highlight of the karaoke show last week was a 94 year old former teacher taking the stage to sing.

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

...on my last cruise (Carnival), the lady that ran the karaoke was primarily on the ship as the costume designer for the ship's other live shows. Everything they did was a subpar as well, but I wasn't too concerned about it. I wasn't really on a Carribean cruise to find great karaoke.

I am fairly certain that most of the ships don't employ a professional KJ. They just have simple equipment and a button pusher.

I was offered a KJ/DJ job on a major cruise ship about 6 years agao, and they were willing to pay me about $18,000 a year (plus all room and board, free meals while one the ship, it was probably legitimately a $30,000+ package) for three weeks on, one week off for a 52 week contract. That's 273 karaoke shows and over 273 DJ shows (I would have been running the board at events day and night) at about $65.00 a day + room and board and food. I heard that most of the employees came home after their contract with nothing, just the experience, really. It's that one week a month in St. Thomas that gets ya

Anyway. that's how serious the cruise industry is about karaoke.

I wouldn't worry too much about it.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Interesting. Not worried about it, just pointing out what I found. 18 grand a year wouldn't do it for me, free food and fun or not. I'd have to give up my other job and for that kind of money, ain't gonna happen!

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

At least the captain stayed far enough from the shore l......

When breaking things down by cost to them, maybe you should have trivialized the impact of this statement (above) by saying, "For the cost of maybe 6 passengers out of hundreds on just one of your 9 day cruises, you could purchase large lots of CDGs on e-Bay and Legal download sites to be used for future Karaoke Shows aboard that one ship. This one-time investment could then be multiplied by the number of ships in your fleet, and then could be setup properly aboard your other ships."

This might have required a little more explanation, since, as you described, it sounds like they didn't know what they were doing with regard to even having Karaoke on their ship/s.

I would be curious to hear of any response (if they do respond back) that they give you.

PS: I'm going on my first cruise at the end of September with Carnival. I've heard various things about Karaoke on Cruise Ships (in general), and the things I've heard have mostly been less than stellar, so I'm not getting my hopes up. I believe that the cruise I am going on will have a Karaoke Night. I'm not planning my cruise stay around this, so if I'm in the mood, I'll attend, and (if I remember it well enough), I'll write something about it.

The cruise lines are "All About The Bottom Line = ($$$) "

I'm positive nothing will change..

Karaoke on a ship requires too much of the cruise lines time/resources/staff to allow them to upgrade the service.

The stage shows are preset and require little oversight.

Witness the karaoke one hour time slot.. and two workers..

And yes, I'm pleased the captain steered away from shore..

I tried to give them just enough info to peak their curiosity without totally overwhelming them. They can contact me if they are interested, so far I've only gotten the automated reply.

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

I could tell they put an immense amount of time and effort into their other shows JD, they were phenomenal. Plenty of light and sound personnel on hand, I kept my eyes open for all that. They just need to embrace the idea that they can make the singer feel like they have that same stage and pizazz. It was a nice lounge with dance floor and seating for a couple hundred guests. At $6.90 a drink minimum (12 oz beer), they could bring in more money and help cruisers go home with one more thing to rave about. This isn't one of the bottom tier cruise ships, big and beautiful with multiple shows going on in multiple venues at the same time every night. Shame to have everything at a high level of quality and the tail (karaoke) dragging along behind.

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

And nothing caught on fire and left you stranded....

Yup. Karaoke is generally handled by cruise staff on ships, not a dedicated KJ. So you get amateur hour with the same crappy songs.

I posted on another thread about my recent experience on a cruise - also in the Med. I was on MSC Cruises Divina and the experience was the exact opposite of yours.... The player software as designed to be easy to operate...https://www.facebook.com/pages/KSF-Prof ... 5791165263 The host told me he never did karaoke shows before. So he was a member of the cruise staff designated to run it. But the user interface was so easy to grasp (he likened it to picking up an ipad for the first time) that he had no difficulty in working with it. They had around 8000 songs with 5 languages and the clientele appreciated it as I heard songs I have never heard before... The esongbook set up with ipads in dedicated mounted stands to browse and submit songs was SO NICE to me but was practically expected from the passengers. It was like they just expected this type of experience on this ship. It was a first class cruise and first class karaoke experience....

What was the name of the ship Brad?

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

Figured that was the name of the cruise line, I see now.

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

Looks like some are trying to get it right.


http://abcnews.go.com/Travel/cruise-shi ... d=11384214


Poll could be skewed but ,,,,,, http://travel.usatoday.com/cruises/post ... s-/98400/1

Found this interesting ,,,, http://www.leavingworkbehind.com/what-c ... t-success/

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

Rip... you do realize that those articles are from 2010 and 2011?

Sure did know, saw newer ones but especially the first one caught my attention. Did they follow thru with this glorious plan? I don't know.

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

Karaoke on cruise ship are generally given as much attention and forethought as the "Hairiest Chest Contest" or the "Break-dancing Contest". Often less.

I finally went on my very first cruise 3 weeks ago. They did have Karaoke on board, and I actually had a great time. The KJ was from the UK, and she was very sweet. She actually ran her show with the use of CDGs. She actually had a nicely rounded collection too, and she allowed the use of personal discs. The Karaoke was run every night except for the last night. The sound system wasn't the greatest, but it wasn't bad either. I would label it as being average. The only complaint I really had was in regard to her Key Changer. The KJ said that she was using some older antiquated system, and her Key Changer only worked in full steps (not half steps), so I just stuck with songs that I knew I didn't require the use of the Key Changer for (because most of the songs I alter, are by a 1/2 step).

Hey Que, a cruise ship? What are things coming too?