How To Hire a KJ (Karaoke DJ) For Your Club Karaoke Show

I have often advised club managers on the finer points of selecting a Karaoke Jockey for their upcoming Karaoke shows. Some have followed my advise with reasonable success, and some did not with predictably poor results. I will attempt to elucidate some of these important positives and the avoidable pitfalls in picking a host for a weekly restaurant or club Karaoke show. There are two major mistakes the uninitiated bar owners make when considering Karaoke as an attraction in their venue. The first is the expectation that you will make a lot of money selling drinks to singers. Most singers are light drinkers or drink non-alcoholic beverages. The purpose of Karaoke is entertainment, it creates a party atmosphere and attracts locals to your pub for a little fun and liquid refreshment. Many people come in to party with friends, and not to sing. This is a requirement for a successful show. You will rarely average more than 20 singers per night in So. California since the wait to sing will be so long that singers will go elsewhere. You need a minimum of 2 to 1 audience to singer ratio, and preferably more. The happy party crowd is where you make your profit. We have a number called "critical mass" which is the number of people in an establishment where a party spontaneously ignites. When you hit this point, people hopping from bar to bar "stick" in your club because it's a fun happening place. Below the critical mass the place appears dead. Karaoke music and singers act as a magnet to boost your numbers early in the evening. It can make the difference between a "good night" and a poor night financially speaking. The second mistake managers make is assuming all Karaoke is the same. I have heard this theory from way to many managers, and it couldn't be further from the truth. The success of your show will be due to many factors and the KJ will be the most important of these. But the management and staff in your venue must also support and promote the shows. If you are going to commit to it, commit 100% with advertising, promotion and fully supporting your Karaoke host. If all Karaoke is not the same, how can you pick a winner and not a looser? First don't look for dirt cheap, you get what you pay for in this area as in any important endeavor. As far as the KJ himself goes, there are five things to check for when sizing up a KJ. These are; music selection, sound quality, experience, fairness, and personality. We are well into the second decade of Karaoke, and the requirements in music selection for success are an order of magnitude higher than when it all began. It takes 10,000+ selections today for a top show. But beware, there are KJs and venues sporting less than 1000 songs trying to land your gig. Only pick a KJ with CD+G Karaoke format. Midi, Laser Disk, VCD or DVD formats will not attract singers, and no top KJs will use them. Some of the new MP3+G computerized systems are now good enough to equal CD+G. Check it out first before hiring a KJ using one of these new computer systems. Sound quality is just as important as selection. This has to do with both quality and matching of sound components such as mics, amps and speakers, and tuning and adjusting the equipment for your venue. KJ experience and expertise weigh heavily in this area. Expensive equipment can sound crappy when a poor KJ tunes it, and an average system can perform fabulously with a top notch KJ at the dials. The only way to tell is check them out live at shows. Bring some experienced singers you trust if you are not into singing yourself. Don't just talk to the KJ's friends. Experience matches up with several of the other requirements. Most, but not all, experienced KJs will know what CD brands are good quality, how to tune sound equipment, how and why to be fair and honest with singers and clubs, and how to run a popular, upbeat show. Few inexperienced ones do. But there are heavily promoted companies out there who hire inexperienced hosts, give them mediocre equipment and piss-poor music selections, and offer them to you at a great price. Run, don't walk away from these promoters. It's a guaranteed looser. Fairness includes a lot of things, including honesty and integrity. As in the rest of life you want to deal with and be dealt with fairly. You want a host who is fair to all the singers, good and bad, and lets everyone sing. Some dopes actually require a bribe from singers to sing at their shows. A good KJ always keeps singers happy. It's happy singers that make successful shows. Unhappy singers go to your competitor's shows. If some KJ approaches you with an offer to replace your current KJ for less money, just remember honest KJs go out and start their own shows. Do you want a cheap (read low quality) KJ ruining what it has taken you and your KJ months to build up? If this slug has so little regard or respect for a fellow KJ, how far do you think you can trust him? And once again, you get what you pay for. Personality can be the maker or breaker for your K-show. Not how pleasant the individual is and definitely not how attractive, but whether or not the KJ has ANY personality at all. He can be outrageous, or funny or silly or totally off the wall, but he needs some kind of personality to make him stick out from the crowd. He may dress offbeat, wear a funny hat, have goofy hair, tell dumb jokes or whatever. You just don't want some dull, "jims up next", "nice job suzy", "zzzzzz", kind of kid that puts your audience to sleep. You don't even have to like his personality or his jokes, if he runs a lively show and makes you money, he's the man! Now how do you find this super hero of Karaoke when they come in all flavors and the big promoters are often the dregs of the business? This is where you have to do your homework. You don't buy a car without checking different models, kicking some tires, and taking a test ride or two. Karaoke is no different. This takes a little honest investigating, but it's worth it in the long run. First find some candidates, check the yellow pages, search the internet, and go to some local K-shows. Check out at least a half dozen popular spots in your area. Talk to the singers. Find out where they go. decide what kind of show you want in your establishment, laid back and mellow, wild and fun, or totally off the wall. Do you want Sinatra, rock and roll, or rap-crap? Find out what the KJ specializes in and what kinds of music he offers. Make sure he has a good selection of what you want. Song books can be very misleading. Most people list songs twice, by title and by artist. Some will use several types of listings to pad their book. Plastic loose leave page inserts with two single sided sheets per insert will give you a book six times as thick as double sided printing on standard paper in compression binders. To asses the true song count, take one section (say by artist), count the number of songs on a page and multiply by the number of pages in that section. If there is an 'update' section, add the 'by artist' pages in there also. You will find that most KJs claim grossly inflated song numbers. And if you check for duplicates of the same songs, you will find from five to twenty five percent duplicates. With over 10,000 songs it can easily exceed 25% to 50% dupes. Listen to the singers to see how well the system is tuned. Don't judge the singer, everyone will be different talent wise. If you don't sing, bring friends who do, and have them sing and evaluate the system from the singers perspective. It will sound different to a singer than to an untrained observer. When you find some good possibilities, approach them and see if they are available. Ask if they will do a demo show for you. Offer to pay them, never ask for a free or cheap demo, you may turn off an excellent prospect. When you find the right KJ, find out how much he wants to work for you. Remember if you have done your homework, you have found a top host and he won't work cheap. Saving $25 or $50 a night on a cheap company is poor economics if it ends up costing $200 on the bottom line every night from poor sales. The closer you start to Saturday in the week, the faster your new show will build. If you plan more than one night, start as close to the end of the week as your venue will allow, and as the shows build, add new nights one at a time before it. Don't quit if the first show isn't overflowing, these things do take time. Saturday may take only 2 to 4 weeks to build. Monday could take 6 months. Plan accordingly. Ideally you will find an owner-operator KJ who runs his own business, owns his system and CDs, and cares about doing a good job. He also has KJ friends who can fill-in, in an emergency. You are now ready to start your professional Karaoke show with a professional host. On the other hand if you just run a dive bar and all you want is something loud to drown out the drunks snoring, disregard everything I have said.