Best Tips in Running a Karaoke Contest From the Professionals
As a karaoke host one of your tasks aside from hosting a karaoke party is also running a karaoke contest. Since its birth in Kobe, Japan, the karaoke has become a popular form of entertainment so much so that many competitions have been held in its honor.
Running a karaoke contest is a very popular in fact there is even a world karaoke competition where different nationalities participate. This is evident that everybody loves signing competitions because it is a chance to show off talents and skills at singing plus the chance to be recognized for your talents.
As a karaoke host many joints or clubs will hire you to be their contest emcee. Different hosts have different styles of running a karaoke contest but the basic elements of competitions are the same and these are what will be discussed in the next section.
1. Know the exact plans of the organizers in this singing talent competition, from the purpose of the competition, contest rules, and prizes. Also know what sort of categories they are having, i.e. Best Female, Best Male, and Best Duet.
When you run show karaoke, its possible that other categories such as by age group or by genre of music, will be used by the organizers it is your business to know all of these. You also must know how to take care of tied scores for awarding of prizes and the number of places per category i.e. first, second, and third place.
2. Find an odd number of qualified judges preferably three so that the chance of a tied score among the judges is minimal. You must choose wisely when you run show karaoke because if there are accusations of unfair judging it is you the host and not the judges or the organization that hired you that gets the flack from the audience since you’re the one there.
The judges that you choose for the singing talent competition you are hosting should be people of unquestionable background and someone who doesn’t know any of the contestants personally or that they prove themselves to be unbiased. If the judges are provided by the organizers, you should ask to review the judges yourself to determine if they have certain biases.
If you feel uncomfortable and you value your reputation and your name, don’t use those judges. Of course they should have knowledge of music and karaoke singing itself.
3. The next consideration in running a karaoke contest is the scoring system. Opt for a scoring system that fits the amateur singers.
Criteria such as stage presence, musicality, and audience impact are in my opinion fit for a singing talent competition for professional singers. Karaoke singing is a different form of entertainment where those who join may not be the best of singers themselves and if they are pitted against a professional in a criterion fit for professionals then it’s clear who the runaway winner will be.
4. Have a registration both in the place where you run show karaoke there are enough forms would be contestants can fill up along with their song choice. Be sure that the instruction printed on the form says to print their handwriting legibly because you will want to avoid the embarrassment of not being able to read a contestant’s scrawl. Don’t forget to limit the number of contestants by setting a deadline or else you’ll be overrun by a lot of them and it becomes unmanageable.
In running a karaoke contest, the easiest way to avoid arguments in the order of contestants is to gather all the forms, folding them, and placing them in a bag and randomly picking a form from the bag as the contest progresses.