[Wayne White]

The recent post here caused me to read this thread. Somehow I missed it in the past. In our town, other KJs start shows but, we usually end up getting called to do the shows once the initial crowd dies down. Our attendance gets better with time instead of dying off because customers are fed up with the KJ letting his friends sing all night. I don't solicite clubs that have a KJ already working there, but many people kill their own shows by inconsistency in the rotation, wanting to be 'the show' & favoritism. I read people in this thread saying they don't play favorites, but, then saying it depends on who it is that comes in late & what their reason is (just got off work etc.). If they don't get in, oh well. When you don't come into a club until an hour prior to closing, the reason doesn't matter. Unless a lot of singers go home early, you are probably not going to sing.

The front page of my books, has my advertisement on it, as well as where we are every night (10 regular weekly gigs currently).

The back of this page contains stuff like how to act at Karaoke shows. Turning in requests (we prefer Sing 1 - Bring 1). I don't think anything works better. You should just have to put the request on the bottom of the next rotation. We also explain how our rotation works. Everyone knows! We get asked to move people up & no excuse is good enough. I have read people who have implied it's only Karaoke, don't take it so serious. I don't know where all of you work, but, when the booze is flowing. it is serious. I tell people to rest assured that I am not moving anybody ahead of them either.

Sorry to be so long winded here. How we work a rotation is the same no matter which KJ is working, my phone # is on the books & the request slips. When I start getting calls from more than an occasional disgruntled singer, I discuss rotation with the KJ and they usually remember the night & we probably had 40+ singers & everyone was upset because they didn't get to sing as much as they thought they should - there is no fix for this - we have tried and everything we tried caused more problems that the original problem.

At the start of the night, we will add singers until it looks like it is going to get busy, no magic #, but we never start a new round if we never get down to less than 8 singers left in the rotation. In some clubs, we have had 1 round for the entire night. When we do start the second round, new singers that turn in requests are inserted in the round a minimum of 8 singers down, then we alternate new/old through the existing singers & everyone else ends up at the end of the first round singers. When we get to a third round, we do the same thing. This would put no more than 1 person between you and the person you sang after in the previous round.

We play a couple of dance tunes between rounds later in the evening (if we get requests for it). We do not play music between songs. Prior to Hoster (which is fantastic), we always used the DKK 5 disk carasel players. We also usually announce the 'on deck' singer so they can be making their way up (if they are paying attention). We usually have the microphone in the next singers hand before the outro of the previous song is finished. If not, we start their song anyway. If they didn't hear their name, hearing their song should get their attention. We re-start it when they get the microphone, if necessary.

Wayne White