Karaoke Forums

It is all a matter of training your singers.

Yes, it is. And I am a beloved papaw.

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My comment was more directed toward Jims statement
* Does the KJ properly select bumper music?
What does 'properly select' mean? I guess if you are going for an all pop genre crowd then play no rock or country. Or all country crowd then play not rock or pop, or. I go for whatever crowd walks through our door & the music that is in between singers can vary from 40's big band to todays rap.

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And I am a mighty quercus ilex.

That's definitely a possibility, but you can bet whatever it is, it will involve a binding contract somewhere down the line.

And recurring fees.

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I guess the next "Program" for PEP will be to just ask KJs to open a joint account so they don't have to bother waiting for the check.

I think many of the experienced KJs will just pass on this. If you were going to make a free program that gets people actual jobs, you can audition all you like, no one would say boo... but to pay money and then be told, sorry no jobs for you sounds horrible.

BTW, everyone "Discounts" off list price, no one I know pays list, even at mom and pop stores.

Who knows, maybe PEP will add on that a KJ needs to be part of Prime in their next bunch of settlements.

I have an excellent idea... Make some karaoke tracks... i know its a strange concept, but that just might work.

I look at it this way: There's really nothing PEP can do as far as competition is concerned. They certainly can't take any of my gigs and if they go after a pirate gig offering a host and equipment from a venue in exchange for not being sued, then that's not "competition" it's something else.

If they think they will be able to secure a national chain like Applebee's: they can have it. I've not found a national chain that doesn't want the lowest, bottom-of-the-barrel pricing and they're welcome to it.... take their cut off the top and the KJ's working for less than peanuts.

What they will find out the hard way is that;
(1) it's not the library that gets a gig
(2) it's not "the company" that gets a gig
(3) it's not the "equipment" that keeps a gig
(4) 99.999% of the venues will not sign a contract (because they don't want to be stuck with a host that sucks) and when it gets right down to it,
(5) venues hire "people" and not "companies."

How often do you hear of a KJ that worked for someone else, got their own equipment and library and simply took over gig? It happens all the time because the venue likes, wants and supports "the host" and not "the company."

The decent hosts know that they're worth more than the leftovers or that it's just plain stupid to buy a membership for $349/yr with no guarantee that you'll ever get booked and all and they get hired now based on their own good reputations.

It's nothing more than a false promise to elicit a membership payment. This happens quite frequently in the voice-over world too: Unknowing "newbies" think if they sign up at Voices.com or Voices123.com that voice-over jobs will just come pouring in with every audition they send out..... And a year later, they finally realize that if they got any jobs at all, it didn't pay the membership fee they shelled out in the first place. Those sites are biased and funnel jobs to their favorites by simply delaying public auditions. By the time the newbie even gets a notice of a job, the client already has 30 auditions of the best talent on the site. They auditioned all right.... LOTS of auditions.... with no guarantees and ultimately, zero jobs.

Pep can try this all they like. If it was profitable, it would have already been done at some point over the last 20 years. It will be about as productive as KAPA: collect fees and do nothing.

Tell me what you think would happen if -by some miracle - they did secure a national chain.... and there were no "subscribing" KJ's in a town? Are they going train someone in a week? Do they think they'll get a quality host for a cut-of-a-cut? It will be over before it ever begins, because right now, there's nothing. No nothing. No training, no equipment, no nothing. It's nothing more than a place for unknowing KJ's to send money with no guarantee of anything. All they can offer to any KJ right now is a "1 year help license" in exchange for their payment.... which means they don't have to lift a finger and the KJ is a sucker.

Jim, that wasn't quite the type of answer I was looking for. The questions was geared more towards what PEP would have to offer the KJ I described with relationship to the Prime and Platinum programs... OR, does the hobbyist (one who is not an acting KJ running a business (one who does a show one or two days a week for "Mad Money")) even qualify for those programs?

OMG! (My head is on my desk). Attention PEP? Stop wasting time and dollars rehashing ideas that have failed in the past from other labels.

We are here for you but sheesh listen to your customers!

Location, location, location is one thing but... it boils down to Production, production, production.

Your company is at it's "Prime" and at the top of the mountain right now... offering services and discounts "for a monthly fee" is like jumping of that mountain with no "Chute"

Produce some limited edition stuff, Stay updated with today's technologies. (Go to Shenzhen, China and manufacture PEP Top HD Karaoke Media Boxes for approx $15.00 each, Load the Gem set on them and market them for 1000% above cost) hint hint!

I will gladly Send $300/monthly for your services offering an actual "Product"

We are here for you PEP but lets get real!!!

PRIME and PRIME PLATINUM are not directed toward hobbyist KJs who have no interest in growing their businesses.

However, anyone who is in good standing with us regarding SC and CB is eligible to join these programs.

Just because someone is a hobbyist KJ without any interest in growing his/her business, doesn't mean they can't get some benefit from the programs. In particular, the music and equipment discounts might well be worth the cost of the program. The training benefits might be useful as well.

That being said, I'm not going to encourage hobbyists to join PRIME or PRIME PLATINUM unless they have a desire to grow their KJ business.

In English, the answer is: "No Cueball, we're not interested in you."
But you can still send them money, they won't turn it down. (Psst: you're also "eligible" to send me money too.)
But.. the "discounts" are not guaranteed... and they haven't actually developed any training yet.... but you can still send them money....

So Cueball your "incentive" here is to send them $349 and hope you can get that much in discounts for equipment... maybe.... if the retailer is in the mood... Or, you can get some not-yet-invented-training about how to run equipment and host..... from who and when again?

In my opinion, this is all a crock as far as I'm concerned.

I have an update on the status of the Phoenix PRIME program. We had expected to have the application online today, but because of delays with our developer, the application isn't quite ready.

We have put the entire Program Description and Agreement online at https://pep.rocks/prime.php (PDF link at the top of the page) so that you can see exactly what the parameters of the program are and glean a bit more detail. Thanks for your patience. We expect to have the application online no later than Wednesday, although it might be available as soon as tomorrow morning.

SNAFU and nothing new.

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That's kind of a dick way to put it. We're interested in him as a customer, and we're happy to have him participate in our programs. Not everything we offer is appropriate for every customer.



Actually, the language you're keying on does not say what you're implying.

First of all, the music discounts ARE guaranteed, because those are discounts on products that are in our direct control. For example, if you're looking at licensing a GEM series, the current pay-in-full price is $4250. If you join PRIME PLATINUM, the first year's fee is $349, but you get a 10% discount on the GEM Series, saving you $425--more than the price of the program--plus you get all the other benefits of the program.

As for equipment discounts, here's what it actually says:

Equipment discounts are subject to retailer participation and are not guaranteed on any particular item.

All that means is that we can't guarantee that every conceivable item will be available at a discount through our program.

Every effort will be made to publish sample prices for discounted items on a regular basis, but the honoring of discounts under this program is in the sole discretion of the retailer.

Well, duh. Retailers change prices frequently. They won't necessarily honor a given price forever. It's up to the retailer whether they will honor any particular price.

We may also elect to offer discounts through coordinated group purchases, as well as rebates on purchases made through us or through our affiliated companies.

Because of another project we're working on, we're planning to make a significant purchase of equipment in the next 2-3 weeks. PRIME and PRIME PLATINUM members who have a need for equipment can join in that purchase and get the benefit of bulk pricing. We plan to do this with some regularity (~once a month).

We also have relationships with various equipment dealers that pay us a commission on referred sales, or that drop-ship equipment for us. In those situations, we will offer rebates.



We have already developed some training materials and will be constantly working on developing others. These are materials that we are developing to train our employees and contractors as we ramp up our direct services operation. PRIME and PRIME PLATINUM members will get access to those materials as well--even if the member doesn't find them useful for his own operations, they will at least be available to help train up a new hire, for example. This will eventually be built out into a big resource. Will it all be available on Day 1? No, it won't. And if that bothers you, don't sign up until it's ready to your liking.

By the way, we are going to be offering an extended first term, 3 extra months at no additional charge, for a total of 15 months, for people who sign up by April 15.



No one is surprised by your obsessive negativity. But judging from the interest we've already received, not everyone shares your view.

Sometimes people get sick, especially during flu season. Can't be helped.

And if you don't have anyone who is a PEP PRIME or PEP PLATINUM member for a given area, will you seek out any KJ (including known Hobbyists) who are listed as a Licensed GEM owner or who are listed as being Certified to fill in a Hosting spot that you may have acquired?

Yes, of course.

Just to give you an example, we're in the process of booking our first show for the new operation. The show is in a remote area where we don't have any licensees at all, so we are recruiting a KJ and setting up our own equipment and music for the location. We'll train the KJ at our training operation in Texas, then the KJ will start working. That's an extreme example, but the process would easily work for an area where we have licensees but no PRIME PLATINUM members.

It's not necessary to become a PRIME PLATINUM member to get hired as part of our new operation, but we will definitely be focusing our sales efforts on areas where we have vetted PRIME PLATINUM members to fill slots. We will consider hobbyists to fill those slots, provided they have the skills and equipment to do so, but to the extent that doing so requires us to expend resources to make the KJ ready to operate to our standards, we're less inclined to use someone who isn't interested in working for us more than one or two days a week if we have alternatives.

I'm sorry I can't be more clear about this. A lot of it depends on the business circumstances of particular gigs. We are happy to do business on terms that allow us to profit, even if they don't fit a particular mold. We intend to be flexible while giving preference to those who join with us in this project.

Just curious what kind of equipment?

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I second that question.

I remember when I first put my hat in the ring (back in 2000), many KJs who I knew, used (what I referred to as) a "Standard Issue" set of equipment (consisted of the VocoPro 2000 Amp/Mixer, a CDG player, Speakers and Corded Mics). There were some out there that used cheapie "Radio Shack" equipment (the cheapest they could buy).

Most of us (at least on this Forum) don't use cheap equipment (including me (even as a Hobbyist, I made the choice to get better equipment than just "Standard")). What we use varies from KJ to KJ.