Karaoke Forums

Good one Lonman.  I thought about that after I had posted.  I didn't mean to get so long winded or up on my "soap box".  This has been one of those threads that I can't decide whether to just laugh it off or cuss!

Kelly

Up and down the East Coast (not sure of WC) we have EZ PASS for paying tolls
They charge you a nominal fee that provides a service on all major toll roads which allows you NOT TO WAIT IN LINE .  Personally I don't subscribe (MY CHOICE)
and I curse them every time I'm waiting in a long line...  Not a TIP or a Bribe
But a FEE for extra - special service...... If you make it available for everyone
**the ability to bump the rotation*** for a small fee  It loses its sleazy appeal
IT could work......  People pay $5 for 4 songs in  juke box  WHY NOT pay to sing ????
People go out and PAY $1 for EACH GAME OF POOL ...WHY NOT PAY TO SING

Tim has a point ...  IF the bars are not willing to pay the karaoke  host ....
Who are we providing the services TO?  The singers !   IF the industry was to change and charge a small nominal fee ...It could work ...THINK OUTSIDE THE BOX

So you tip your waiter before your dinner to ensure prompt service?  No, you tip after for a job well done or you don't if they didn't do a good job.  I seriously doubt that you bribe a waiter to get your food out faster to you, you wait until the end of the meal. 
It becomes a minimum wage job when that's what people start bidding for.  If that's what a company SETTLES on, then that's their problem & should not try to gouge someone elses wallet for not being smart enough to negotiate a higher wage & if the bar don't want to pay more...don't settle, FIND ANOTHER VENUE that will!    If it weren't for these types of companies, then karaoke prices would have actually went up over the years eliminating the need for the sleazy bribe.
The ones that take bribes & are making 50-75 per night are the major ones that are driving prices down for everyone else PLUS giving karaoke a bad reputation to boot by giving the impression that "That's the way it is"...it's not, only the greedy ones do this practice!

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

I'm really surprised that out of all these folks on this thread, maybe 2-3 are looking at it for what it really is and being honest about it.  Short of calling the rest of you LIARS I really doubt any of you are purely %100 honest about taking bribes.  

You can't compare rotation to waitressing.  Cooks cannot play favorites at all, they basically cook orders in which they were recieved.  Waitresses deliver them in the order recieved.  The only thing that gets them a gratituity in the end is how often they came back to refill my coke.

Karaoke rotation on the other hand is not a set, in the order recieved line.   When you have a rotation of 30 unique singers, and a group of 10 comes in at the beginning of rotation do you...

A. Force them to wait through 30 singers.  Avg 3 minutes a song, 1.5 hour wait time?
B. Bump them ahead of everyone else, so they feel taken care of and stick around to buy more drinks and songs?

Standard karaoke wheel would say A.  This isn't Japan though, and our crowds are not japanese, why am I bringing the Japanese into this?

Anyone who's ever been to Japan knows how it is.  There is no special deals, backdoor bribes/tips.  There are no happy meals at McDonalds.  Watching them board an aircraft is amazing, they all single file line quickly onto the aircraft and take their seats.  Everything is no frills, this is what you get when you pay for it.  It's embodied in their culture, work, and play ethics.

Compare this to Americans.  We think we're the best.  We demand to be treated like USA #1.  You don't want to give me a special deal?  You don't want to make it my way? Capitolism baby, i'll buy from someone else.  We're not some ant colony, every one of us is unique and wants to be treated special when we pay for it.

There is no "honor" or "logic" in an american bar filled with drunken patrons.  Just throw that right out the window.  

7 years ago when I started patronizing the Bamboo when it was purely a Japanese crowd.  I spent countless hours with my friends there getting drunk on saki and eating dried cuttlefish.  They were all very very polite to one another, tipping was a gentle "thank you" to the KJ, and everyone understood the "unspoken rules" of karaoke.  At the most we had maybe, 10-15 uniques per rotation.

Fast forward to today.  Japanese crowd have sort of moved on due to age or children (Japanese owners are still there)  The place is jammed packed every night.  Our rotations have 30+ uniques in them.  How do you deal with that?  How else can you make a fair system that everyone can appriciate when the minumum wait time using standard karaoke rules turns into 1.5 hours?  Bottom line is you can't.  You have to make exceptions to the rules.  

The crowds are getting younger every year.  They grew up knowing the best president we had in the whitehouse in recent memory dipped his cigar in his intern before smoking it.  They overlook that discretion because overall, he did an awesome job.

Hmm, neighbors honkin for me to hang out, bbl to finish this thought.

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Living my life as Robert Cortese, 162 E. Jackson St, San Jose CA.

It's like the difference between high and low budget toilet paper, it really doesn't matter in the end. -exweedfarmer

Which is smarter? Just sticking to making/selling karaoke, while people all over the world create software FOR FREE that helps you sell it, or trying to compete with them and keeping it a closed loop while you blow your money into an industry (software) that you(the karaoke manu) knows nothing about?
-me

Well I can tell you straight up if you ever tried pushing money in front of my nose to get you up sooner, you would still have your money by the time you left my booth.  I do not, have never & will not take a bribe - 100% honest!

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

Same here...  

Anyone can justify what they do, including me, and it's interesting to hear other thoughts and opinions.  I personally wouldn't stay where bribes/tips were taken and someone was "bumped" in front of me.

As for buying a drink for the person moved down in line; the bribe would have to be pretty big because one person bribing & bumping affected the other 30 in your rotation, not just the one whose "spot" was taken.

Just my opinion, no right or wrong except for what's right or wrong for me...
Susie

_________________
You do it in the shower,
you do it in the car,
Ccome do it with us,
and be a star!!!!

Karaoke with Full House Entertainment

[scroll]Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean...... [/scroll]

I'm sorry in what law book is it written a host can't take a tip.  Look at flying, we're on the same plane, if I pay more I'll get first class and better or personalized treatment.  Same thing here, you pay you play, it's capitalism what the good old U.S. of A. was founded on.

_________________
You can be strange but not a stranger

just a thought from me

I do tip waitresses /waiter's/ Bartenders in advance .And just about any other service that is rendered me.

Example : 2 years ago a  painter comes to my house and tell's me he will do the job for $250.00 I tell him if he can do it this weekend I'll pay him $300.00.
the job got done that weekend he even left all the extra paint for me which was enough to do the whole job again.

Last year I go to sears to get a new car battery I slip the guy $10.00 bill before the job my car was done and nothing missing ....with extra work done at no charge.

I go to a bar and the first drink I tip the bartender or barmaid $5.00 even if the bar is jam packed they find me and serve me a cold beer when I need one.

Tip= To insure promise of service

Try the 10% rule sometime.
I wont pay what your charging ...I'll pay you $$$ (add 10%) if you treat me as if I were Family

Tip= To insure promise of service

as this thread states at the header "reenventing the karaoke wheel" is actually a CRY for Ideas, a brainstorming disscussion.
Refocus..

my Idea would be this:
a show 4 times a year around each quartly holiday on a non Karaoke night.
say one is around Christmas. you get all or atleast some of your regulars to help you put on a special show ( no open Karaoke) a costume show featuring your singers as the stars they want to portray. each singer get's to do 5 or 6 songs that night.
either together at once or in some kind of rotatuion.
you can have a contest as to who get's to participate or figger that out another way.
these people will each bring in family and friends  to see them perform you will have a packed house. Ive done it in a smaller way but believe me when you give someone a chance to be part of a show like this,,,,it's like a kid being in a school play...they want everyone to see their part...

again just an Idea thats what this thread is about...is it not?

Michael

A "tip" is NOT the same thing.  A tip is just that, a thanks for good service...generally given AFTER something is completed...be it a meal, a drink, a show, etc., you don't generally TIP someone BEFORE the service is provided.  When I do private parties, people pay me AFTER the show is done & if they liked it...generally give me a tip.  
A bribe is something that someone gives to get preferential or special treatment over everyone else...NOT the same thing & if someone is bumped because of a "bribe" it may piss someone off that they will take their group away, giving the bar & kj a bad reputation.  Here is a quote from someone that accepts bribes

"[highlight=black]Upsetting one person in a group could mean they all walk out, giving you and your venue a bad reputation in the process. The concept of distributed fairness is sometimes forgotten by a lot of people."[/highlight]

Now this was something he wrote about duets, but this line is VERY applicable here.

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

Personlly, I don't think that hosts that take bribes/tips are dishonest, I just don't like going to a show where the host pushes people up because of it.  I also wonder what the servers, bar-backs and bartenders are losing each night because of it.  

We get what we feel is fair so we don't have to rely (by only charging $50-$75) on bribes/tips (to me the two words aren't interchangeable but oh well).

I'm not saying it's not tempting but we run our show as we would like it to be run when we are sitting on the other side of the player.  Apparently some singers, like toqer, don't mind paying to sing sooner, so a place that's run by someone with that mentality is a perfect fit...  That's what makes the world go round.

Susie

_________________
You do it in the shower,
you do it in the car,
Ccome do it with us,
and be a star!!!!

Karaoke with Full House Entertainment

[scroll]Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean...... [/scroll]

The whole point of what I was trying to get to before my neighbor called me over to  was for years american KJ's have been applying japanese rotational ethics and play to a completely different crowd.  Japan is unique, noplace else in the world do I see folks behaving so well, all fitting into a proper rotation line.  Things are pretty straightforward, black and white there.

Ask yourselves, am I trying to maintain a code of "Honor"? The simple fact all the replies that disagree with me have said "I once had this guy try and bribe me with <dollar amount>"  shows that at least some percentage of your crowd wants to be able to bribe you.  You are closing your minds off to the wants and needs of your customer.  Especially if you KJ in the USA.  

Everyone wants to be treated like "Las Vegas". There are low rollers, there are high rollers.  High rollers are your tippers, the guys that buy rounds of drinks, with the 10 gallon hats and gold nugget rings.  

People come to karaoke to either sing, or watch people sing.  

**mid post smoke break**

Ok I went outside and had a thought.  It's experiment time.

I'll let four of you run my show over the course of the next few weeks. Just the rotation mind you.  In fact, i'll let 2 folks that agree with me run it, and 2 folks that disagree with me run it.  AKDJ has a web based interface, so with a little training, I can have you running the rotation remotely.

We'll try out both sets of rules and ethics. You'll know how the customers like it because they will be able to interact with you live through the camera and mic, or they can hop on over to the chat machine and let you know.

Chat and webcam is not face to face interaction.  If they think you suck, they will tell you.

I don't think it would be fair of me to be the only one writing out the criteria for what determines the winner so feel free to add some, but I think a total score based on several factors would determine the winners in this contest. Scorecard would look something like this with each criteria being scored on a scale from 1 to 10.

Amount of ticket cancels/skips 10
Direct customer feedback        10
How early you fill the que up    10
---------------------------------------
total                                        30 cause im perfect.

Balls in your court gentlemen, i'm more than happy to open up the court for you if you're willing to play.  Courts open every thursday/friday/saturday night.

--toqer

_________________
Living my life as Robert Cortese, 162 E. Jackson St, San Jose CA.

It's like the difference between high and low budget toilet paper, it really doesn't matter in the end. -exweedfarmer

Which is smarter? Just sticking to making/selling karaoke, while people all over the world create software FOR FREE that helps you sell it, or trying to compete with them and keeping it a closed loop while you blow your money into an industry (software) that you(the karaoke manu) knows nothing about?
-me

How would that work?  Running YOUR show?  Of course the odds are going to favor YOUR method in YOUR show because YOUR crowd has already got the mentality that a karaoke host can be bought.
The only it would work is to go into a completely non-related area that isn't associated with anyone, go into a club the doesn't have karaoke & run one week without taking from the customer & another week by not.  Then it would be up to them to vote.
But since I don't have neither the time nor resources to go into an experiment like that, it's basically moot point!

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

I don't know about you but I grew up in America where I learned to take my turn.  



The fact that several of us run successful karaoke shows (knock wood) without taking bribes indicates that we are satisfying a high percentage of our crowd and meeting the needs of many/most of our customers.  A side benefit to this is I can say I truly enjoy our customers on an individual basis and enjoy the way they interact with each other (mutual respect, etc.).

Also, I agree with t-towntenor, your crowd is accustomed to your way of dealing with the "rotation"...

Susie

_________________
You do it in the shower,
you do it in the car,
Ccome do it with us,
and be a star!!!!

Karaoke with Full House Entertainment

[scroll]Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean...... [/scroll]

What if my crowd has been a captive audience to my ideals and disagree (much like yours might be) but have not been vocal for fear of rotation retribution?

I'm offering a fair challenge.  Not competing, due to lack of time/interest is clear indication you're not solid enough in your beliefs to stand by them.  Sure, there's many ways I could steer things my way, but I wont.  

I have a very open mind and I want to know, is what i'm doing wrong overall? The only way we're going to find out is with this, you shouldn't have such a closed mind.  

If you think i'm wrong, step up to the challenge and prove it, otherwise save me your ethics and whining on how you think it should be done for church.

_________________
Living my life as Robert Cortese, 162 E. Jackson St, San Jose CA.

It's like the difference between high and low budget toilet paper, it really doesn't matter in the end. -exweedfarmer

Which is smarter? Just sticking to making/selling karaoke, while people all over the world create software FOR FREE that helps you sell it, or trying to compete with them and keeping it a closed loop while you blow your money into an industry (software) that you(the karaoke manu) knows nothing about?
-me

I will not go to a place to sing if I know that the KJ is on the take. I am not saying that such practice is  wrong or right. There are other place where I can sing where you dont have to resort to such thing. I do tips KJs but not before a I sing or to jump the line. I tip for good mic QE and voc/music balance. And its never money but beers. And over here the KJ can exchange the beer for money at the bar.

Having said that there are places where you PAY to sing and everybody pay to sing not just those rich and bigspender. You pay when you send the song request slip and you will not get bump up even if you pay big. These places are normaly non alcoholic venue and the food and drinks are normal street price. The KJ are not paid by the ower of the outlet. This kind of place are very popular among the muslim and almost always they are open-air.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

Surely there are other karaoke places these singers can go, you're not the only one right?  If so, your crowd is not captive but likes the way you do it, or in our case the way we do it, or they would not return.


It didn't appear to me that t-towntenor's lack of time/interest was an indication of anything other than a lack of time/interest.  I am intrigued by the fact that you can keep 30+ singers when some are paying to sing so quickly.  By the way, do some of these people leave the bar after singing so soon?


You could run it as a strict rotation yourself and tell your customers what you are doing and why.  I personally have no reason to doubt your veracity and would be interested in the result.  

Very interesting,
Susie

_________________
You do it in the shower,
you do it in the car,
Ccome do it with us,
and be a star!!!!

Karaoke with Full House Entertainment

[scroll]Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean...... [/scroll]

No it's not a dream, it's a reality.  Focus less on novelty and more on community.  Like I said, register a domain name and setup a dynamic site for your venue.  Don't make yourself the center of attention, make the venue the center of attention.  <waits for webguru to pop in and say "hey I can hook it up for cheap">

You need to take a backstage approach.  Be the man behind the curtain at the emerald city.  

Giving your crowds control over the scene is what will make it exciting for them.  Not rubber chickens and propeller hats.  The tips will roll in and people will love your efforts.

And of course, have high roller service.  Attracting high rollers is good for every person at the venue, not just for what's made at the venue, but also because high rollers are usually well networked into the local press.

My regulars that i've known the 2 years I worked as doorman, and the 2 years i've worked as a KJ know why we're so popular.  We cater to everyone.  

I'm really stuck on why I think everyone disagreeing with bribes and high rollers is wrong.  I'm sorry if you're sick of hearing my banter on it but jeesh, I'm compelled to stick to my guns on this.  I must look like a missionary trying to convert a bunch of blood thirsty savages to christianity.

_________________
Living my life as Robert Cortese, 162 E. Jackson St, San Jose CA.

It's like the difference between high and low budget toilet paper, it really doesn't matter in the end. -exweedfarmer

Which is smarter? Just sticking to making/selling karaoke, while people all over the world create software FOR FREE that helps you sell it, or trying to compete with them and keeping it a closed loop while you blow your money into an industry (software) that you(the karaoke manu) knows nothing about?
-me

I personally do not take "bribes" however, I will not chastise someone who does.  Using the airplane analogy once again, I pay for first class am I not paying for preferential treatment, you're damn right I am.  Just as others shown at amusement parks, toll bridges/highways.  Karaoke is no different, it is a business and until there is a time where there is some sort of law on the books, I leave it at the discretion of the host.

_________________
You can be strange but not a stranger

Agreed!

Susie

_________________
You do it in the shower,
you do it in the car,
Ccome do it with us,
and be a star!!!!

Karaoke with Full House Entertainment

[scroll]Just because I have a short attention span doesn't mean...... [/scroll]

I'm getting ready to go lay down and watch TV for the day, but i'll answer this one question.


Justification for reverse rotation was explained to me by 64 year old Sayoko Umehara like this.
<Heavy japanese female accent>
"BOBBYSAN!  New customer comes up first because they get thirsty fast, Thirsty customer buys drink, we make it strong! They don't leave!"

I made my own observations based on her theory.  Customers that need liquid courage won't wait to buy a drink, they'll buy one as soon as they walk through the door.  They'll be pounding it on stage as they step up.  They'll have a beer in one hand, and a microphone in the other.

Even without tips/bribes that is the one difference Bamboo has always had, a reverse rotation.  No matter where in a rotation a new customer comes in, they can bump the next singer down.  New singers always next (unless otherwise bribed) 2nd -3rd timers have to wait till the noobs finish their firsts until they hit the max wait time (which we have set to 45 minutes in AKDJ)

_________________
Living my life as Robert Cortese, 162 E. Jackson St, San Jose CA.

It's like the difference between high and low budget toilet paper, it really doesn't matter in the end. -exweedfarmer

Which is smarter? Just sticking to making/selling karaoke, while people all over the world create software FOR FREE that helps you sell it, or trying to compete with them and keeping it a closed loop while you blow your money into an industry (software) that you(the karaoke manu) knows nothing about?
-me