Karaoke Forums

Oh I believe it Topher!

When I started out, I was at a show that was 7 nights a week. Started right at 9pm... went to 2:45AM, and I tell ya, there were nights when we did 70 singers!

SOME of the karaoke classics are 2:30 to 3:00, and that DOES help alot in the amount of singers an hour. I averaged 14-15 usually...

until they came up and wanted to do Bohemian Rhapsody, or Stairway! ! "One Bourbon" would kill it. Okay, we're at 9 singers this ROTATION! !

I've done plenty of karaoke clubs though where you sing and people dance to your song. That is probably how it should be done.

Fill music does not interfere with time between singers.

My show thrives on about 75% karaoke and about 25% dance music. I work in one of those bars where it is a young crowd, about 21-26 on average, and I feel it is my job to entertain the WHOLE bar and not just the karaoke singers. On any given Saturday, there are 150-200 people in the bar and about 20-30 singers. Any given singer that shows up when I start at 9:00 is going to get to sing about 4 times if they stay the whole night, and many do.

In between singers, I play about 30-45 seconds of dance music. If the dance floor fills up, I let it roll about 2 minutes, which happens about 6-8 songs a night. Even the singers say that they are glad there is some excitement while they are waiting for thier song to come up. My 1-1.5 hour rotation would be like 45 min - 1 hour if I skipped on the filler music, but 90% of the crowd would rather wait the extra 15 minutes and be entertained when they are not singing instead of getting up 1-2 more times a night.

Here is the everlasting cycle of karaoke:

A good KJ starts at a new bar. He/she soon gets a nice base of regulars. These regulars come in because the karaoke night is pretty slow and they get to sing 6-8 times a night with a good KJ. Soon the show gets more and more popular and soon they only get to sing 2-3 times a night, so they stop being regulars and go to another bar where they can sing 6-8 times a night. The karaoke night slows down because some of the regulars left, and new regulars take their place to start the whole cycle over again.

At my bar, this cycle seems to repeat itself about every 3-4 months.

The "loyal" regulars that come in for karaoke only and want to sing as many times as possible will abandon you and drop you THE SECOND your show becomes popular. You know what, though? The ones that come in for the good dance music keep right on coming!! I have regulars that have been showing up every Saturday for 2 years just for my filler music. They understand that in most cases I am only going to play 30-45 seconds of a song, but that energy stays high all night, even if the karaoke singers sing 3-4 ballads in a row.

And say what you will, but I have a very attractive female clientale that come to shake their a** weekly, and where there are girls dancing, the guys follow. My job is to fill that bar with people NOT to make sure everyone gets to sing a certain number of times, and I do my job week in and week out.

SO, I guess what I am saying is that your generalizations are not universally true. Sure, many KJs may abuse the filler and not know what they are doing as far as reading a crowd, but there are also some of us that integrate it flawlessly and create a really good product that is MORE than just karaoke, and as long as my show is putting 200 butts in the seats, it is better than any show putting 50 butts in the seats where you get to sing 8 times a night BY A LONGSHOT.

If you want to see it done right, come on down to FL one Saturday and I'll change your mind!!

I'll accept HYPERBOLE as the only correct answer here.

Again, there is not a line of singers that start IMMEDIATELY after the other one ends. You have to allow 30-45 seconds for each singer to come up. Even at 80 songs, that is about 40-50 minutes during the 6 hour show that it takes just for the singers to come up. That leaves a little over 5 hours to fit in 80 songs, meaning each song would have to average exactly 3:45 for you to get that many singers in. At 100 singers, each song would have to average 3:00 each. I'm still not buying the 100 songs a night, or even 90, or even 80!!!

Count how many actual slips you take next show and let me know!! I bet it is closer to the 12 or so an hour the rest of us pull off, not 17 an hour. I just don't think it is physically possible!!

The reason why Bigdog insisted that there is almost no gap between singers is that his singers sing from the table. there is no time wasted walking to the stage and there is no cattle call. before the song finish the 2nd mic is already with the next singer.

This is the bigest advantage of singing from the table/floor.