At the risk of everyone throwing tomatoes, I get what Tom is saying here and in principle, agree with some of it. It's a fine line though and the issue has no easy solutions. Karaoke is still very much a niche hobby and it can be assumed that the more people who class themselves as karaoke singers, the more venues we're going to see accomodate them by putting on more karaoke. It seems a simple equation, more singers = more places will want to put it on. I'm sure everyone would agree that this is the best interest of not only all of us, but the industry as a whole.

The problem we come across is that awkward period of time between people discovering they want to go to karaoke more frequently (and probably aren't all that good yet) and venues tapping into this new found desire. The consequence is of course what we're seeing at the moment with some venues experiencing rediculous rotations. Tom's suggestion of not encouraging every man and his dog to get up and sing I feel actually encourages karaoke to remain a niche hobby and stiffles expansion. I feel that yes, we want to encourage every man and his dog to get up and sing, not just once, but more than occassionally, but we also want to encourage what David has been trying to promote for some time, and that is for hosts to act more like businessmen/women.

Let's face it, more often than not, it is the host that secures karaoke in a venue and not venue management. Given this, the only way that the karaoke industry can support an influx of enthusiasts is for hosts to expand their business model beyond the one host/one gig per night structure that seems to be the norm. By having multiple hosts running multiple gigs per night, we can ensure that more venues on average hop on board and over time, we can see karaoke spread, the need to travel for your fix decline and rotations become more managable...
Submitted by LeatherBaron on 17-09-2007

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