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Need To Grow Karaoke Night

Posted by mmprint on 11/3/2004 at 5:39 PM ET 50 Points

I just started a Karaoke Night at Jillian's Entertainment in Westbury, New York- Its on a Tuesday night -- we are trying to add business to a rather slow night. It's from 7:30pm - 11:30pm. It’s in its 7th week. I have had night of 15 to 45 people. I have no budget to do paper or radio ads -except, I had a radio station come down one week sponsored by a beer distributor. So All I really have is the web and word of Mouth and Fliers. (Handing out fliers which I don't think does a lot) I have a talent agency working with me to give a grand prize gift getting their Big Break to sing with one of the top "Omnipop Talent Agency" Bands. We were schedule to start this contest in October but we haven't had a large enough crowd to really get this started. I really want this Karaoke night to take off. Please let me know any ideas that you would have to really launch and make a real crowd for Karaoke. I was thinking that I would invite VIP winner from our fish bowls to a free night of Karaoke and free appetizer platters. Any other ideas ? Thanks

Posted by DesignVHL on 11/3/2004 at 6:40 PM Member

Here's some ideas:

Make sure your flyers are bright, flashy, and communicate properly.

Make sure they get out to your target market.

Try to offer a small prize ( like a tshirt) to every person who enters the contest. OR you could even offer a free t-shirt -T-SHIRT TUESDAYS! to anyone who walks through the door!

Offering free food on tuesdays could be a good incentive as well. Also do you offer Drink Specials, that's another way to do it...

You need to get a good tagline or slogan to entice....such as: Chill out afterwork with a good beer and some karaoke!! I dunno I would need more info to come up w/ something...it's what I do! :)

If you would like some help on flyer design, be glad to assist! I help to promote live bands at different venues on the side as well...

Good Luck!

Valerie
Posted by karidellingalls on 11/3/2004 at 7:35 PM Member

Karaoke nights can be a blast, but the right target audience is crucial. What are the demographics of the crowd you are targeting? Flyers can be very effective, but it is what is on the flyer that will entice the appropriate crowd to come. For example, a college crowd is going to be looking for drink specials, free appetizers (chips and salsa are inexpensive), and contests.
As an additional thought, having an upcoming pop star sing might intimidate people and hinder attendance rather than add to it. When people think of going out to do Karaoke what comes to their mind? Most would say, “After a couple of drinks, you might get me to sing,” hence the drink specials. College students might prefer group karaoke contest as opposed to individual contest. The most important marketing tool would be to get out in your community and in contact with your target market, and directly ask them what would get them out to Karaoke on a Tuesday night.
One more thought would be to host a theme karaoke night on occasion, such as a Malibu Mania or Captin’s Rum in the Sun. The idea would be for everyone to come in beach wear and sing beach related songs. The fun in this is the themes can vary from a Beach night, to an 80’s night, etc.
Hope this helps. Good luck.
Posted by mmprint on 11/3/2004 at 7:39 PM Author

I actually do all of that.. I give away t-shirts to get people to come up -- most people are eating because its in the dining/bar area so I most of the time get those people to stay a little longer. Corona is a sponsor of the event so I call the night Corona Karaoke and we give $1 discounts on bottles
Posted by jillm on 11/4/2004 at 1:10 AM Member

Have you thought about moving the time up to, say, 5 PM to get the after-work crowd attending? I know that there are a few co-workers around my office who wouldn't mind making a stop at bar for karaoke, provided that they wouldn't have to either hang out at the office or somewhere else for an extra hour or two prior to the karaoke hours...

Also, in that vein, what about bringing some of the flyers to businesses that are in the area and dropping them off. The sales team (or some other team) may see the flyer in the lunch room and drop by to check it out, on the off chance that they could join in, etc.

Hope that this helps!

- Jill
Posted by mgoodman on 11/4/2004 at 7:54 PM Member

Can you help me understand the "low budget" thing? I'm a big believer in "you get what you pay for," and a low budget is a great way to get minimal results.

What's wrong with investment spending to achieve an objective that will ultimately generate more incremental profit than the cost to achieve it?

This is not to say you shouldn't be prudent. I'm not advocating foolish overspending. But when you limit your thinking because you don't have a budget, the first thing you should do is re-examine the objective and ask yourself (or your boss) whether the budget and the goals are in sync with each other.

If not, then either save your money and change the objective or come up with additional funds and make the investment work as hard for you as you can.

I'm not trying to throw a wet blanket on the creativity, but I hate to see you fail in your mission because someone thinks that guerilla marketing is free.

You get what you pay for.
Posted by SRyan ;] on 11/4/2004 at 9:57 PM Member

Do some theme nights/months to find the best knock-off of one particular band or artist, like:

The Partridge Family
Abba
The Beatles
The Monkeys
Elvis
Britney Spears

Find the right genre of local radio stations who play that kind of music (oldies, easy listening, classic rock, etc.) and get them to promote and sponsor that night or that series of nights.

If you do a month-long promo for one "band," you can model it after the American Idol process of elimination.
Posted by ReadCopy on 11/5/2004 at 5:24 AM Member

SRyan ;] beat me to it, I as going to suggest theme nights :-(
Posted by ASVP/ChrisB on 11/5/2004 at 9:03 PM Accepted

After visiting the website I could not see any promotion for the Tuesday Karaoke night. so either it's not there yet, or else it's lost in the noise. So fixing that would be a step forward.

Also, people visit a website like yours when they are planning and event, or just looking for somewhere to go. Why not have a home page which shows what the next upcoming events are? So when someone types in your URL on Tuesday, they see Karaoke as one of tonight's events?

I would definitely look at starting earlier. The post work-crowd would be great to catch, and while they may transition off earlier in the evening, others should be attracted by the activity and fill their seats.

Set up competitions within businesses around your venue. Drop off flyers suggesting "Interdepartmental" Karaoke Sing-Offs"; "Men vs Women Sing Off", "Blondes vs Brunettes Night", whatever strikes you as gaining some traction with the audience...

I noticed your comment about winners getting a Big Break with an OmniPop band... Perhaps American Idol has much to answer for but I think the average karaoke singer is looking for fun, to make fun of their colleagues, to push their personal boundaries a little, but not as a step towards a lucrative recording contract.

I like the free beer idea. Might need to check whether it's legal in your jurisdiction though. If it is, maybe a team winning a comp could get a free tray of shooters or something like that. My personal experience with karaoke tells me alcohol is an enabler, a critical success factor.

And if you do heed all these suggestions, then when you face the final curtain, at least you can say, "I did it my way!" :)

Cheers

ChrisB
Posted by SRyan ;] on 11/6/2004 at 6:23 AM Member

I    love    you    BAAY-aby
and if it's quite all right
I need you,    BAAY-by
To warm a lonely night
I love you,    baby
Trust in me when I saaaayy....

Oh! Sorry, I was just rehearsing for Tuesday.   ;]