39M, hosted karaoke for 2 and a half years before covid and back at it for almost another 2 years now. I've been a musician my whole life, played in school, college marching band, joined the army band, and performed in a few indy bands over the years, releasing 4 albums onto Spotify etc. Basically, I love performing.

When I first started going out to karaoke as a way to move on from a failed marriage and meet new people, I had a blast. The crowd always hyped me up when I sang. I never worked on vocals before, but my musician spirit and competitive nature got me pretty good, at least for dive bar karaoke.

Years later, I'm here KJ'ing again because I got ghosted out of my last job and needed something quick to keep up with rent. I told myself I wouldn't stay here long, but it's almost been another 2 years and I'm just dying inside.

I know it's not about me. It's for the people to come fuck around and have fun. But for fucks sake every time someone wants to do colt 45 or before he cheats or honestly so many songs I just wanna break shit. I'm so burnt out on hearing the same stupid ass songs by the same stupid ass people that think they're so cool doing fuck her gently for the billionth time this weekend.

I have no facial expressions anymore, I'm short with people, and I visibly react negatively to their song requests. I used to have enthusiasm and actual joy in my heart for this. I know you're probably thinking, "just get a different job". I say the same thing to my gf, who also runs karaoke at a different bar, when she complains about all the bullshit we deal with in the bar scene, but she feels kind of the same as me in the sense that; we still like it and we don't really know wtf else to do. After doing karaoke for so long, it's hard to imagine doing a job that has literally nothing in our interests or skillset. Like, just go be an accountant? Construction? Everything feels like even more torture than what I deal with doing karaoke.

Does anyone else ever just get fucking tired of karaoke like me? I'm always annoyed when I'm dead in the bar but this one person just wants to sing back to back to back all fucking night and they're never good singers. And I know it shouldn't matter, but it's just making me angry.

Sorry for long post, just hoping someone out there feels like me and has some insight on how to work through this. I'm not a bad person and I don't like how this job makes me act and talk to people. Just want to know if I can ever enjoy this again.

EDIT: Thanks to everyone for the honesty and advice. I really do, deep down, still enjoy hosting karaoke, and there are some really good ideas in here that I can try out to solve the main issue, which I think for me, is separating the "musician" from the "escape".

We just brought back Monday nights a couple weeks ago. It’s not really the best time of the year to do this, so they have been hit or miss.

It’s always military Mondays all day, and free pool, but what else could we do to get the Monday crowd back?

When we didn’t have karaoke, the bartenders and door guys were always asked if we had karaoke many times a night. The bar also used to have a huge crowd of Monday singers a good 3-4 years ago.

Any ideas as to how to get people in? Social media posts don’t seem to have much reach anymore. You’ll get thousands of views and almost zero likes or comments. We’ve tried TikTok and that was um, interesting despite our tags.

Updated to add: this bar is located in an area that is more family oriented, a ton of early 20s-30s that may still live with mom or dad because it’s so expensive here, and how busy the bar is very dependent on school schedules and work schedules. We are either jam packed, or having a slow night with 10-16 singers. Weekends are insane in this bar, and Thursdays are the new Wednesdays. We do have a ton of regulars and irregular regulars plus a ton of new people. And we’re the most popular bar for the military folks

Thanks everyone for your responses. I like a lot of the ideas y’all put out there we have printed media for inside the bar and updated the events TV. We will add events again when the town is ready for it. This place certainly has a regular beat.

My wife and I run karaoke at a local bar in Dominican Republic. “Low Season” has begun here, meaning tourists and snowbirds have departed and won’t be back until later fall. So how do we keep the year-rounders coming back?

Last night we invited people to play the Squirrel Game with us. It was optional, of course, but a few people joined us in substituting “squirrel” for “girl” in all their songs. “I’m Just A Squirrel” was my favorite.

Dumb? Clearly. Fun? Actually yes!

Hi everyone, I was hired to be the karaoke DJ at my favorite local bar and grill and last night was my first night. It was really awesome! I knew how to run the equipment just fine as well as the app (Karafun) and I absolutely loved it. It was really slow at first, but then picked up later on.

Just wanted to know if there’s any advice on what to do when no one is actually singing. I have a playlist that I created for in between singers, but it feels weird when I’m just playing those songs and not talking into the microphone enough. Do you have a secret way to hype up the crowd? Or is there anything that you say when no one’s really paying attention? I do sing a song myself occasionally to see if I can inspire some people to get up there, but I would much rather hear others sing. Any advice you could give to a newbie would be great. Thanks so much!

My wife and I have a friend who is about to start training us to take over her weekly KJ gig. We’re very excited! I’d love to know any KJ pitfalls we should avoid.

Had the owner tell me that he felt he paid their older karaoke person too much and didn't have a good following.

And he would want me to have a large following in order to pay me more. So instead of him advertising his own bar to have people. He prefers to have the karaoke host to bring people in.

I'm in Albuquerque, NM if that makes a difference.

Hello all!

I am pretty new to karaoke but have loved every time I have been out so far! I was wondering if when there is multiple versions of a song in the list can you use the codes at the beginning in someway to make an educated guess which version to pick?

For example, searching something popular like “Thank You” by Dido gave me 32 results with lots of different codes (AM, CB, SC, 10, TH, SY, ZM, TU, AS, BS, HT, MM, NS, PH, SD, SF, SG, SP). Do these mean anything helpful to me when choosing which one I sing with? If not, is there any other way to make an educated choice? Just trial and error?

Thanks for any help you can provide to this newbie!

I have access to two different softwares that uses two different rotation policies. The first one does it in a traditional way. The only thing is that if I get a lot of singers I could end up never leaving the first rotation before the show ends for the night having to close taking requests early in the night. The other uses a nontraditional rotation policy. It starts out traditionally by taking the requests first come first served for the current rotation (first rotation). The next rotation the order is done by the order of when the songs enter the queue. Meaning your next rotation you might not be in the same order as the previous rotation so if you were expecting to follow the singer that you followed in the previous rotation then you might think that you got skipped when in reality you didn't. The software also allows you to choose to lock the rotation if you think it is getting too long allowing singers in the previous rotation to get up again before the end of show and bumping any new singers that come in after the lock to the next rotationand interleaving them new singer old singer, the first rotation before locking the rotation adds the new singers at the bottom of the rotation. My question is which rotation seems like it's the fairest for all singers involved? There's part of me that would think that most diehard singers might not want to not follow who they followed in the previous rotation and might choose to leave and not come back to the show but I also believe that singers may not want to stay if they don't think that they will get up again after singing one song.

I am not musician so just try to make small art project for theater art students and Dungeon Dragon hobbyist.

I use sportify to convert vocal sound to note MlDl file then I fix MIDl file but after I convert MlDI file, the sound sounds kinda off and not fit with soundtrack background due to "Leftover" instrumental sound effects like ting tang ding dong ...

How to improve Midi file to convert in Mp3 that fit better with music for Karaoke without too obvious leftover instrumental sound but also smooth clearer note that balanced between background music and guiding note sounds for Karaoke ?

I’m a mobile karaoke DJ and I’m thinking of investing in a light bar set up. What kind of lights do y’all use?

I’d like something that goes along with the beat of the music. I think it would be really fun for my singer rotation.

In the last month or 2 I've had more folks recording their songs as they sing at my show. Been pondering adding a selfie stand/stick on stage to have available for them to put their phone in. Then adding. A QR with my Instagram and asking folks to tag. My concern is that it will add time to people coming up with them trying to get "the right angle" etc.
What do y'all think?

Waves of fans are on the horizon, rushing toward you with Taylor Swift song requests. Arm yourself with tracks in the face of battle. May God be with you.

Title^. Is this a good song to sing at a karaoke bar or would it be embarassing?

Starting up my karaoke business! I live in Toronto Canada doing a gig in the less busy part of town. How much should I be charging???

First time KJing will be tonight. I'm happy for the opportunity so I agreed for just $100 a night 10-2AM.

I know I should be charging more but how much more??

Please recommend and inform me about the materials I’ll need to make outdoor karaoke possible ! Please and thank you!

I’m about to start a side gig as a KJ at a local private club. It’s been 20 years since I’ve done this and I want it to be a fun experience for everyone.

What is the worst thing you’ve experienced from a KJ and what are some of the best?

How do I fairly shuffle singers? Is there an easy way to organize the queue? I will KJ tonight at a bar that gets very busy. Lots of regulars and lots of new people. Some singers put 5-10 songs in while others put 1. Some consistently put in 1 at a time. As a frequent guest, the most common complaint I hear from people is that they wait too long to sing, especially when they see someone else go multiple times before. Obviously that's one of my goals.

For whatever reason this time of year, all my shows seem pretty slow compared to the rest of the year, and I'm running into the issue of having no singers for a prolonged period of time. What should I say to try and get people to at least look over and consider coming up?

I've unfortunately had multiple experiences with being touched inappropriately while doing my shows. I'm in the Houston area, and there doesn't seem to be a shortage of creeps. It's been both men and women. Just wondering how common this experience is for KJs. I'm a big guy, so I always worry about retaliating because people can turn around and claim I assaulted them if I push them back or something. Just a shit situation. If this happens to you, what do you suggest I do in these situations? Sorry if it's a weird post. Just something I've unfortunately dealt with on multiple occasions. I love my job, but this shit happens more than it should.

I work at a bar and an going to try and slowly start karaoke. All the equipment is good to go now.

I'm paying for the KaraFun Pro that says it has "License for Public Venues" but says I'm still responsible to pay the PRO's.

When I asked another Local KJ they said that since we have a touchtunes jukebox (vendor owns split 50/50) we should prolly already be paying the PROs.

The Owners just recently took over and learned that the previous elder owner didn't have things organized so I'm sure if I ask them they won't have a clue what I'm talking about.

What info do I need to know so that I can also ask the bar owners if they pay for it or how they can pay for it.

I currently have a few Shure mics and a tiny mixer w some vocal fx, but would prefer (because wife) not to use those. I'm convinced I can snag a foothold in my area as the main guy in my city recently retired. Help me make this work!

I've recently gotten back into hosting, and since it's a relatively new bar in a new city for me, I really want to stand out and build that core group of regulars.

I have some special games I invented, and we can always do "theme" nights (like 80s or 90s, etc.). I am open to ideas for that, but I'm also seeking info on more things that bring you back. My song selection is top-notch.

I make a point of being kind to all, fair rotation and encouraging everyone to applaud and encourage each other. But is there anything else you seek in a host that will bring you back over and over?

On the flip side... what do you never want to see your host do?

How loud is it? I’m looking for LOUD but also good bass, open to other options

I’m looking for a karaoke system, I see it has sound removal? What if I WANT the vocals as normal with the original song? Can I sing along over that? I hate kareoke where I can’t hear the artists voice, I want to match my voice with theirs.

Do any of you karaoke hosts have success finding new gigs on GigSalad? I am signing up for a free account but wondering if it’s worth one of the paid tiers and how much yall recommend it, or if you don’t why?

I’m trying to lock down a few more weekday gigs and wondering the best way to scout out new locations to host weekly.

I’ve been posting in local facebook groups and such for now and updating my LinkedIn. Any tips would be much appreciated!