Contests ... Good or Bad?

[Wayne White]

One Bar we KJ at every Wednesday night doesn't have a contest. The bar gives away $100 (maybe).

All Karaoke Request Slips (from all songs actually sang) are placed in a pitcher. Near the end of the night, the waitress draws 1 slip out of the pitcher. If that person is still there, he/she gets $100. If he/she is gone, no money is paid.

This causes people to stay until the drawing and of course, the more songs you sing, the better your chances of winning.

Wayne

[SteveWalker]

Originally posted by Wayne White
This causes people to stay until the drawing and of course, the more songs you sing, the better your chances of winning.Wayne

How many times per rotation can a singer sing?

[Wayne White]

Our rotation is always ran the same. Everyone with a song in sings one song. Then we start over.

Actually, when it's busy and we get down to 6 to 8 singers left, the next singer to turn in a request is inserted second in the following rotation. We then alternate new singer/old singer (as long as we have new people entering) otherwise, we will drop a new singer down 6 to 8 songs in an established rotation.

Wayne

[Louieoke]

I don't know if anyone else posted this or not. (I didn't read all of them, sorry) but....A bar I'm hosting at does this and I think it's a good way to draw in business (which is the #1 priority, right?) They have a drawing instead of a contest. Everytime you sing, your name goes in a hat. Every hour or 2 a name is pulled out of the hat and a winner is named and a cash prize is given. This way no one gets their feelings hurt, no one is intimidated, and people that wouldn't ordinarily enter a "contest" will have just as good a chance of winning as the best singer in the place. Just an incentive to show up and sing either way. Good idea? Bad idea? Your thoughts on this?

Thanks,

Louieoke

[Louieoke]

Okay, I see my wonderful idea was already posted. Sorry! I do agree with they guy though, A+++ Idea my man!

[Party of one]

what I have done was to use khp to make things up.
I had what I call baby picture night i had all my regulars names .
When they came up I had a funny clipart for them and a cute saying about them. They loved it.

I also keep their slips and I type them up.
I slipped a ARE YOU PAYING ATTENTION SLIP in with there other ones. I had other saying too to fit thier personality.
They found them cause I heard them laughing.

one thing I also did was " long lost cousin night " where this time I used khp to put clipart of some well long lost cousins some pretty racey too. I had about 30 of them and put four free drink winners. I ask them to pick a number and I pushed that number on the karaoke machine. It worked great just some idea I did at the bar.

[SSmith]

Simply put, in a contest you have one winner and a room full of losers!!! No judging method can ever be perfect, and most are seriously flawed. Karaoke is intended to make everyone feel like the "star performer" during their 3 minute song. Contests shatter that illusion for everyone but the winner. Unhappy customers find other places to frequent.

If you MUST hold a contest, I suggest RANDOM DRAWING from the names of all participants. Coupled with MULTIPLE PRIZES, this method will insure the least number of hurt feelings/lost customers.

[jim in ohio]

Don't care for the contests, we see faces at contests that we never have seen before, people that just go from contest to contest, and doesn't do the bar owners any good. Yea we have a good crowd until the award is handed out, then just another night.

JIm

[Ken]

Now there's an idea!!! We still have to run a quota of talent quests at our regular friday night gig.....but we might slip a few of the "random singers draws" in also....during the year when the big TQ is not running. At the moment when we have the TQ we also have a door prize....and draw that towards the end of the night....to keep people there til late....and gives everyone the opportunity of winning....not just the singers....but the random singer draw, could be a nice change. Cheers!!

[Flipeoke]

I not a fan of contests either, but I have hosted a couple of them at the request of the owner.(or demand rather, since I try to discourage against contests). Anyway, if contests are a must this is the way I do it:

Judges are the singers themselves. You get to vote on all the other singers (1-10 scale), but don't vote on yourself. All singers pick a slip from a hat containing a number. This determines where you are singing in the rotation. Once you sing your first song, you pick a slip again. This is so you are not singing after the same person again. (An average singer will tend to sound worse after a great singer,and an average singer will sound better after a poor singer...etc.) Third round same thing. All contestants sing three songs and must remain to the end of the contest. Contestants who leave early or do not cast a vote for each of the singers' three songs are eliminated. The lowest and highest score is dropped for each song. Scores are counted twice, my parter reads off names/scores, while I add them on a calculator, and then I read off names/scores, while he adds. We then make sure those two results match. The person with the highest score wins (or top 3 or top 5 etc...). It's not perfect, but it is the "fairest" that I could come up with.

Flip (a.k.a. Mike)

[CochrellGary]

I don't like contests for the same reasons previously posted. But what do you do when the bar owner wants a

contest? Here's what my wife and I do to make the bar owner happy, the patrons happy and take the CONTEST

out of a karaoke contest.

We call it a BYOB Challenge, (Bring Your Own Buddies), "A singing show where talent doesn't count but your

buddies do."

Basically here's how it works.
Anyone can sign up during the evening, call it a "no talent" signup. The challenge is held during the last hour of the

gig, keeps everyone in the house. All enterants sing one song. When all the enterants have sung their song they

are all brought up front. One at a time their names are called out, and the audience responds with hoots, hollars,

screams, whistles, etc. The winner is picked by audience response.

The secret ingredient is a visual VU meter that the entire audience can see. We display it off of a laptop computer

into an AV projector onto a large screen, software by Radio Shack. The biggest number that shows up on the

meter determines the winner of the challenge. All personalities have been removed from the judging process. The

audience is now involved, they really get into seeing how high they can get the meter to read. The winner of the

challenge is the person who got more of his or her friends to attend and cheer. Everyone can see for themselves

who got the highest reading on the meter. "Talent doesn't count but your friends do." The bar awards dinner for two

at a local restaraunt and after six weeks the previous six winners vie for a home karaoke system. Then the process

starts all over again the following week.

Gary

[SteveWalker]

Originally posted by Flipeoke
Judges are the singers themselves. [/b]

Flipeoke, How do you know if a singer puts his/her own name in? I was at a show last week and all the regulars won the contest and the newcomers were much better overall. Singers can do the judging but the regulars can come together to vote for their buddy to win!

Steve

[danny_g]

Originally posted by CochrellGary
I don't like contests for the same reasons previously posted. But what do you do when the bar owner wants a

contest? Here's what my wife and I do to make the bar owner happy, the patrons happy and take the CONTEST

out of a karaoke contest.

We call it a BYOB Challenge, (Bring Your Own Buddies), "A singing show where talent doesn't count but your

buddies do."

Basically here's how it works.
Anyone can sign up during the evening, call it a "no talent" signup. The challenge is held during the last hour of the

gig, keeps everyone in the house. All enterants sing one song. When all the enterants have sung their song they

are all brought up front. One at a time their names are called out, and the audience responds with hoots, hollars,

screams, whistles, etc. The winner is picked by audience response.

The secret ingredient is a visual VU meter that the entire audience can see. We display it off of a laptop computer

into an AV projector onto a large screen, software by Radio Shack. The biggest number that shows up on the

meter determines the winner of the challenge. All personalities have been removed from the judging process. The

audience is now involved, they really get into seeing how high they can get the meter to read. The winner of the

challenge is the person who got more of his or her friends to attend and cheer. Everyone can see for themselves

who got the highest reading on the meter. "Talent doesn't count but your friends do." The bar awards dinner for two

at a local restaraunt and after six weeks the previous six winners vie for a home karaoke system. Then the process

starts all over again the following week.

Gary

sounds like a contest I would never compete in as all the winner needs to win is the biggest number of friends in the Audience.

[jahern]

Wouldn't somebody bringing their buddies be exactly what the Store is hoping for? If I were the establishment, I would encourage this kind of contest.

[SteveWalker]

jahern,

yes the bar wants more people to increase sales but if the contest is a joke you may piss alot of people off and in the "long run" lose more more than you gain.

[CochrellGary]

BYOB is NOT a contest, it's called a challenge purposly. The enterants are told up front "Talent doesn't count, your friends do" I tell them that if they have enough friends in the house they can beat (insert favorite artist). We are trying to put some FUN back into our karaoke show. To date, the best singer has never won any of the BYOB challenges. In fact the audience usually gets behind the poorest singer. The attendance has increased, not decreased and the bar owners love it (we are holding a BYOB at three locations). This idea may not work for everyone, it works for us. Just posting another approach.

Gary

[Flipeoke]

Steve,

Basically the way I do it is this: I have scoresheets which I write out and include all singers except the name of the singer I give the scoresheet to. Each singer has three empty boxes next to their name, for their three songs. Basically the sheets are blank and numbered, I just fill in the names. Each contest I have done I have changed the design slightly or printed on different color paper. This insures that people can't print up blanks beforehand. All rules are also printed on the sheet as well as "suggested scoring" methods. I say suggested methods as there are a couple of different scoring scales and a note that they are free to use whatever scoring method they want, including ones not listed. Like I said it's not perfect but it works. It all but rules out favoratism, by judges, KJs, staff,etc,

Another thing I have tried is the Scaryoke approach. I try to pick the most obscure songs, that I've never even heard of, and put a song for each of the singers into the hat. When they come up to sing their third song they pick a name from the hat. It works best if you get songs that nobody should know. It shows a different side of showmanship (showwomanship?) how well they can read lyrics, improvise a melody, follow with the music, and interact with the crowd, all at the same time. I've done this once with fairly good results. It was alot of fun.

Flip

[danny_g]

Originally posted by Flipeoke
Steve,

Basically the way I do it is this: I have scoresheets which I write out and include all singers except the name of the singer I give the scoresheet to. Each singer has three empty boxes next to their name, for their three songs. Basically the sheets are blank and numbered, I just fill in the names. Each contest I have done I have changed the design slightly or printed on different color paper. This insures that people can't print up blanks beforehand. All rules are also printed on the sheet as well as "suggested scoring" methods. I say suggested methods as there are a couple of different scoring scales and a note that they are free to use whatever scoring method they want, including ones not listed. Like I said it's not perfect but it works. It all but rules out favoratism, by judges, KJs, staff,etc,

Another thing I have tried is the Scaryoke approach. I try to pick the most obscure songs, that I've never even heard of, and put a song for each of the singers into the hat. When they come up to sing their third song they pick a name from the hat. It works best if you get songs that nobody should know. It shows a different side of showmanship (showwomanship?) how well they can read lyrics, improvise a melody, follow with the music, and interact with the crowd, all at the same time. I've done this once with fairly good results. It was alot of fun.

Flip

Skaryoke sounds like a great equalizer type of contest or challenge. I would definately compete in that kind of contest.
But I would have an unfair advantage with most shows I go to claim they have 10,000 songs but most of those song are duplicates so I believe they only have 4,000 to 5,000 songs and I have a liftime repretare of 3,000 songs that I know the melodies to. Can't say I'm perefect but I can carry a majority of them well enough to c

[gduns - with the Lord]

I have a different type of contest, I think mine is totaly fair. I Put all the request slips in a box and at the end of the night have a drawing. No one ever feels cheated, and everyone participates...... the more they sing the better the chance to win. Most of my giveaways come from the bar ($25.00 bar tab) of free cd's. I have never had a single complaint. I also dont believe in Judged contests. there is hardly ever fairness.

[SteveWalker]

gduns, you are right - it's always biased in some way and someone always get pissed.