Karaoke Forums

How do you deal with drunken a%$%holes who try to be the karaoke king and try to sing every damn songs that you play for other people. They literally hold on to the mic and wont give it, there were no damn security guard at the place too.

Also how do you turn people away from your desk as they keep on coming to you working area trying to negotiate for another turn or to sing first , do you do it in a polite way or just straight to their face "No mate , you have to wait" ??

Thank you and I appreciate all of your ideas.

[quote="klkaraokepro"]So I've done my very first 2 wedding karaoke parties last Sat & Sun nights. First one was a bit disappointed due to lack of preparation and some unforseen incidents. I have to admit it's definitely my fault, it was a big smash of my confidence . I was really down and couldn't sleep for the whole night. So I made myself to focus and study the mistakes and learn something from it ,which lead to Sunday's party to be a very successful night.

I sent my very sincere apology to the Saturday night couple the next day and told them it was an unexpected accident ( hard drive went nuts and would not play all the songs so some of the guests were very upset because they can't sing their requests) .That then leads me to a very stressful/panic state and could not provide great vocal mix like I normally do (trust me ,though I made mistake this time but i really do know exactly what I'm doing)

I know an apology is not enough and they are probably still very upset which cause a bad image of my service. I had some moments of doubts , fear (of judgement) , sadness ... I didn't want to let those feeling to dominate so i forced myself to stand up , do everything necessary to give it my best shot on the next day (Sunday party ) which turns it in an excellent night. People were lining up to request, my HDD works perfectly fine this time after fixing and had almost 8/10 songs requested, filled the dance floor with people and the sound system was amazing. Which somehow regain my confidence a bit.

1. So i just want to know if any of you experienced folks whose have been in the industry for years to share whether you had these kinds od moments at your beginning and how you picked yourselves up ?

2.How do you deal with drunken a%$%holes who try to be the karaoke king and try to sing every damn songs that you play. They literally hold on the mic and wont give it, there were no damn security guard at the place too.

Thank you and I appreciate all of your sincere ideas and great thoughts every time i posted questions in this forum , you guys are like a professionally wise family to me to turn to when i had issues with karaoke business. Thank you again![/quote]

I'm not a professional. But just want to say that you are off to a good start. You know how to learn from mistakes, intentional or not, picking yourself up from a disaster is the most difficult thing to accomplish in almost anything in life.

With regards to drunk wannabes I think it would be best if you always have a spare mic and play along and not get frustrated, chances are someone in charge of hosting the party will get rid of that person for you. But I assume that you'd have to have a number of experience to be able to tell when to play along or when to intervene. Anyway, good job and good luck.

I run on a first come, first serve basis, until I get 20 singers. Then I will salt the rotation with the extras. I will tell anyone who comes up to me asking about their spot in rotation. I will show them where they are, and how many songs til they are up. If they insist on being a nuisance about being bumped up, I tell them that EVERYONE is waiting their turn, and if I do it for him, I would have to do it for everyone, and they would STILL be waiting their turn.

If they offer money, I will tell them, in no uncertain terms, that I will be glad to take their money, but I won't bump them up. I just don't do that kind of thing.

I have had people leave because I wouldn't bump them up. Oh well. They go to the next guy's show, whop DOES bump them up, and his people get fed up, and end up at my shows. It's a win win!!

And those mic hogs, that think they should sing every song, get a muted mic, for their trouble. I have a couple of young guys at one of my shows that like to sing on each others' songs together, all the time. If I am slow, I will let it slide for a while. Once I get busy, I tell them that they can't do that. It's just not fair or right. If they keep it up, the one who's turn it isn't gets the muted mic, or I just threaten to cut them off for the night. That seems to send a message. And I do it very nicely.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

You literally have to let everyone know that when it comes to your equipment and your show, you are in charge. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile!

I have people at least once a night come up and try to start grabbing the mic from someone while they are singing. You just have to have the confidence to walk straight up to them and tell them to knock it off. I always then follow up with basically "I wouldn't let someone else do that on your turn, and won't let you do it on their turn." I also make it clear that my show policy is that whoever is on the request is who is going to sing. No more, no less. This avoids those groups that try to sneak in extra singers so that they can manipulate the system and sing over and over again, and also lets me know that if someone wanders up during the song and tries to start singing with the proper singer, I need to run them off.

Good luck. It's really all about making policies clear, then confidently enforcing those policies.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

This is one of the reasons I personally don't take tips. People want to give me a couple of bucks to jump a 2 hour line! I have a "Donations" cup out for my friends family, but that doesn't give anyone a pass to be bumped.

For the truly unruly singers... I've been known to stop the show dead in its tracks. Nothing like a bar full of icy stares to put you in your place or make you leave.

Annoying idiots get the muted mic, and if they keep it up, they get skipped over there turn because hey they sung!

I also get pretty annoyed by people who use multiple names (John, "The Crooner", etc.) try to to get past the once per rotation thing. If I catch them, I ask them nicely what name do they want to go under for the night. If I miss them, I will stop them dead in their tracks go to the next singer and put them back in their spot.

In the case of groups, I don't mind... usually you'll get something like X & Y, Y & Z, Z & X. I try to make it so they get 2 or the 3 in rotation, but give it space so others get up in between and it doesnt become a group show. If one of the singers in a group is the "Star" ( Say a birthday girl on every slip plus another's name) I try to break that up too, if its ridiculous, I will group them under the "star" and ask that person what song they want to sing.

Overall, it works well, but no rotation is ever perfect. Most of my singers are good enough to deal with the ebb and flow and know I try to be as fair as I can be. Those singers that come early tend to sing more as beginning and end of the night are slower.

Truthfully, the only way you can handle large rotations is to be strict about things, no exceptions! Stick with whats fair and what works!

It's really quite simple to handle drunks/idiots. If they are somewhat polite and want to be moved up in rotation I explain to them about rotation and waiting there turn. If they continue to harass me I point out their place in rotation on the screen and tell them unless someone before them leaves this is their spot. It's not up for negotiation and no amount of money will change it. This usually does the trick and either they walk away or I put them on ignore and start playing with knobs or standing out front listening to singers.

If a really drunk person comes up and either demands to sing or tries taking a mic to sing along with someone I mute the mic, go to that person and tell them to hand me over the mic now. I don't yell or scream. After I get the mic I always escort the person off stage and tell them this isnt allowed. If this person seems very drunk or becomes belligerent, I tell the manger/bouncer that this person is no longer able to sing on my equipment for fear of it being jeopardized.

Sure there have been instances where this drunk idiot is screaming or yelling obscenities at me from across the room but usually not for long. At that point he is either led out of the venue or told by the manager that if he continues to scream he's gone!!

Oh the joys of hosting karaoke!!
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Sound Choice and Chartbuster Certified

have the bartender or owner of the bar hire a bouncer to stand around and keep the peace
that's what my friend & ex-boss used to do
and if the owner don't want to do it tell him or her this way what would you rather pay for my
karaoke equipment if it gets broke by these drunken aholes or a bouncer to keep them in their place

Boy am I ever glad that I am in a sleepy "Oldies" environment. I honestly have never had 1 single incident like you guys are rambling on about. I've been doing gigs for 15 years and I would have quit long ago if I had put up with this type of crap.

Like some have said the mic mute or fader solves a lot of problems, and politely requesting someone to leave the stage because they were not invited should be all that is needed...... until the alcohol kicks in. Listening to Hank Williams and Doris Day is way better than drunks and destruction. I don't know how you do it!

BTW I'm usually home having a cold one by 10:45.

I have a pretty young crowd (avg 21-40ish) and haven't experienced most of these either. I do have one group that try to circumvent the duet policy by putting their names up individually on single slips then sing as a group (or duet) on each others songs. I finally told them the other day either write down who is going to be singing on the slip or I will lump you all together as one entity - whether you were planning on singing solo or not!

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

Drunken "A-holes" are easy. Do your best to make them sound like crap. Turn down their mics, or throw some crazy effect on their mic channel. I used to use Reaper and an EMU1820m sound card for mixing. I found throwing a pitch change on their mic channel and leaving the effect as 100% wet was pretty effective.

Shift the octave on their voice up by 8 or so, so they start sounding like a chipmunk. They grab the other mic? Switch the effect to the other channel. Eventually they get the idea that sitting on the controls, you have more ability to make a mockery out of them.

The other piece of advice I can give you is.. Get software that limits your decisions on rotation and singer placement. My software had a concept called "Sellout time" where it would stop taking new requests once there was enough songs in the playlist to last till closing. It also limited how many songs people could have in the queue at once.

"I want another song!"
"Sorry, software has me locked out, we're done for the night"

and that's really all you have to say.

I think if I was in this situation, I'd just tell Timberlea to sit down and shut up....

But that's just me....

Ah, drunken a-holes. The scourge of the business. The a-hole part, not the drunk part.

I have a few things going for me in this regard. One, I'm a pretty likable dude, so most people are pretty open to reason when I have to explain things to them. Two, I'm a pretty big guy, so people who don't know that I'm essentially a human teddy bear probably don't want to risk shoving me around. All that said, sometimes people get problematic or belligerent, and only one thing works long-term: BE FIRM.

Have your rotation rules clearly defined, and follow them to the letter. When you stop taking songs, that's it. No one gets bumped. You can be gentle with a lot of people, but when they turn on you, it's time to be stern and tell them to knock it off. Most people who want to sing that urgently don't want to risk being barred from the venue, and to my knowledge most KJs have the power to enforce that if they feel threatened or harassed.

That's what I think works about the way I run things: no special treatment, not now not ever. My closest and dearest friends don't get special treatment. Once my wife tried getting me to bump her song up and I refused; later, when someone got uppity with me about wanting to be bumped, I was able to pull that card and say "hey, my own WIFE didn't get any special treatment, and SHE has sex with me!" The logic's bulletproof when you have the consistency.