tips on getting bars to play in..

Markleikin · Post by **Markleikin** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:00 pm

I have been working on my karaoke system for past couple months, and I think Im finally there. My next step is finding bars to hire me ( probably hardest part of the endevour) .

Any tips on goods ways to approach this? I live in Florida and do not need a business license I do not think.. I have a business cards.

Couldnt of done any of this without these site and everyones help, thank you so much guys

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:25 pm

let me get back to you on the business license as I have a friend doing karaoke and I believe they have one. Could be wrong though.

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Thu Sep 20, 2012 10:35 pm

Okay some counties in Fla require a license but not all of them. Also if your library has Sound Choice in it be sure to get an audit or you'll run into legal problems.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 12:13 am

You might have some luck getting started in a vacation spot.
Right now I'm working for less money than I got 20 years ago. Just to keep the jobs.

The entertainment dollars are drying up. 25 people in the bar is a good night now...with 15-20 of them being singers.

And it's not just karaoke, DJs and bands are having the same trouble getting people to come. Bars can't even charge a $5 cover charge for bands because nobody wants to pay it. They reason they could buy 2 drinks with that money. Very popular local bands are only getting 1/3 of the crowds they would normally draw.

If you plan on targeting bars that have never had karaoke...you might have to offer a bargin price....and if and when you do get a crowd...good luck trying to get a raise...it's never your fault if the bar is busy....it's only your fault when it's dead...

The business has been steadily dropping since the economy crapped and I don't see it ending anytime soon.

More people even when they come out spend less money or drink water...

I'm not better off than I was 4 years ago.... I'm losing my ass.

There have been many nights I left jobs early without even starting because nobody was there. And these used to be busy nights...over the last 3 years it's been a very noticeable downward trend...less and less singers and less and less listeners.

It could be different for you with the winter vacation season. You have to find bar owners that don't expect instant success and are willing to give it some time for the news to get around. I've been playing in places for 5 years and I still get people coming in saying they didn't know this bar had karaoke.

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Fri Sep 21, 2012 6:17 pm

Piracy and recovery which owns the CB (Chartbuster) trademark are in Fla right now doing sweeps to get the pirates of their brand into becoming legal or quit.

Markleikin · Post by **Markleikin** » Sun Sep 23, 2012 10:43 pm

Well I have been KJing for a friends business for a while, I have seen what its all about and I believe my area, south palm beach county is not to saturated, and people are craving karaoke. I am not to worried about the legal situation as I will be using karaoke cloud pro.

I was thinking of even offering free nights to start.

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 12:31 pm

Good luck with that as it seems that The cloud may have not looked onto whether their service is legal to begin with.

Markleikin · Post by **Markleikin** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 1:48 pm

Hahaha wow well if the cloud is illegal then thats just rediculous.... They claim it is. Johny law jus cant make it easy in life huh.

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 3:42 pm

two out of three music producers have been stated on another forum as to whether or not downloads or streaming karaoke is allowed under licensing has stated that the only medium allowed is disc based or format shifted. so unless your have the discs to go along with the cloud service which hasn't taken off by the way, who knows when that will happen, then you're running illegally according to the music producers.

Post by **wiseguy** » Mon Sep 24, 2012 6:42 pm

Why don't they just go with a Media Pro type system? It's much better than the cloud idea in my opinion. No internet connection needed and you actually get to buy songs instead of just renting them.

DanG2006 · Post by **DanG2006** » Tue Sep 25, 2012 12:34 pm

I agree with you wiseguy. The only internet connection needed would be to add songs and add credits to the offline system.

askinakhan · Post by **askinakhan** » Tue Oct 16, 2012 6:43 pm

None of you have really answered the guys question. You have all talked about legalities which is great but after that i think the guy wants a bit of advice rather than de-motivation.

Anyway. Firstly, taking from BigDog's points above that there has been a downward trend and not many people come to Karaoke nights anymore, the first thing to do would be to start an audience. I would follow these steps:

1. Find a pub/bar near you that is your style.
2. Get a sheet of paper saying "Karaoke customer list" with 3 columns - Name - Interested? Y/N - Day of the week
3. Go round your neighborhood, the houses near the pub/bar and to your friends asking them to write their names down if they would be interested in such a night and which day would be most suitable for them which would go under the "Day of the week" column.
4. Pick the most popular day of the week.
5. After you get about 20-30 names approach the pub/bar that you found near you and ask them whether they would appreciate such an idea if you provided 20-30 extra customers a night showing them the paper with the names on it. They are very likely to say yes if they don't have anything else on on this day of the week as they will get more custom.

You're going to find that with karaoke an aggressive stance is much more effective than advertising your services and waiting for pubs/bars to come to you because the chances of this happening is unlikely.

Give it a shot! Good luck!

Post by **wiseguy** » Wed Oct 17, 2012 1:52 am

askinakhan wrote:None of you have really answered the guys question. You have all talked about legalities which is great but after that i think the guy wants a bit of advice rather than de-motivation.

Anyway. Firstly, taking from BigDog's points above that there has been a downward trend and not many people come to Karaoke nights anymore, the first thing to do would be to start an audience. I would follow these steps:

1. Find a pub/bar near you that is your style.
2. Get a sheet of paper saying "Karaoke customer list" with 3 columns - Name - Interested? Y/N - Day of the week
3. Go round your neighborhood, the houses near the pub/bar and to your friends asking them to write their names down if they would be interested in such a night and which day would be most suitable for them which would go under the "Day of the week" column.
4. Pick the most popular day of the week.
5. After you get about 20-30 names approach the pub/bar that you found near you and ask them whether they would appreciate such an idea if you provided 20-30 extra customers a night showing them the paper with the names on it. They are very likely to say yes if they don't have anything else on on this day of the week as they will get more custom.

You're going to find that with karaoke an aggressive stance is much more effective than advertising your services and waiting for pubs/bars to come to you because the chances of this happening is unlikely.

Give it a shot! Good luck!

You might attempt this if you live in some small village where people are in walking distance of bars. This is rarely the case in the United States where most bars are located in business districts where few people actually reside. And going door to door asking people if they would attend karaoke is just silly. Most people really hate this sort of solicitation. You're more likely to get a boot up your ass than a signature.

To get gigs you must visit the bars, talk to the person who makes the entertainment decisions, and persuade them to give you a shot at bringing in a karaoke crowd. Many will want guarantees which is impossible and this usually leads to discounted prices being offered. You can only hope that the bar will help in advertising you. If you're new to the business, and have yet to develop a following, you're going to have a rough time at first.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Thu Oct 18, 2012 7:59 pm

Gathering a list of names doesn't guarantee anything but having a list of names.

I have saved the song slips from over 700 different singers that have been to my shows in the last 5 years...

Do you know what I have?

The song slips for over 700 singers that have been to my shows in the last 5 years.....

Do you know what it means?

It's a list of over 700 singers that could be coming to my shows that are not coming to my shows...

I just heard of another KJ that is starting a new karaoke night on a wednesday night...There are already a number of shows on Wednesday night. There are currently not enough singers for the Wednesday night shows now. So adding another one will mean all the shows will be suffering more from lack of participants.

It's the ECONOMY STUPID .....

Unless you have a way to bail out the country from our current depression mode....good luck.

At the present rate of decline in participation...I predict next year I'll be sitting home every night or working for free....

Sure everyone wants to work 3 minutes from their house. But look at the rest of your local competition. What nights are they doing karaoke.? You need to pick a different night and hope someone comes.

I just heard about a KJ that buys the first round of drinks....

So he already is taking a pay cut to be there. Just to keep the job. Maybe I should buy the drinks all night long and I could get a crowd. I'll go home broke but boy wasn't it fun...

Trying to compete against 20 other KJs that already have shows on all the nights you want...will be very hard. You will be giving away your time for free to build a decent crowd and that could take months. If it happens at all.

I have more nights failing now than doing good. These were nights that were considered very good. Any KJ would have loved to have these jobs. I can't even buy a decent karaoke night now.

All the attendance has been dropping since 2008...it's not getting better it is still getting worse. And that is for bands and Djs too.

There will shortly be no weekday night karaoke shows. Weekends will be the best shot at a job and that will be a long shot. Because now you'll be competeing against all theKJs, bands and DJs that want the weekend work too.

So what's the answer? Put 25 million people back to work. Karaoke isn't going to do that.

djBe · Post by **djBe** » Thu Dec 20, 2012 9:10 pm

My suggestion to anyone wanting to get into the karaoke business is DON'T! Lol...if you still aren't dissuaded, then go to ebay or karaoke online retailers and buy some karaoke discs and build up your hard-drive the LEGAL way. Discs are sooooo cheap now, being closed-out by so many distributors. You can get complete sets of 50s to early 2000s music that will comprise the majority of your requests until you die. Tne just update as needed. When some of the oldtimers on here got started, they were paying $1 a song. Whem I got started I was paying a quarter a song. Now you can get music for a nickel a song. Just don't expect to make $300 a night!