How to kill a successful show

[jfbiii]

1. Give it five years on Thursday night, let it get really popular
2. Wait for the end of the school year
3. Move it to the slowest night of the week (Saturday, oddly enough)
4. Move it to a space 10 times as big
5. Force it to work around already scheduled events (some weeks it's on, some it's not) so that nobody is ever sure whether there will be karaoke or not
6. Call me the day before a show, explain that not many people are coming to karaoke, and tell me that you're going to cut back to try and "build excitement;" suggest in a round about way that the every-few-weeks gig that pays twice as much as you might be hurting the crowd
7. Listen to me tell you I'm taking the rest of the summer off for ya'll to decide which Thursday night of every week you want to be karaoke night
8. Wonder why Thursday and Saturday now together don't do as much business as Thursday by itself used to do.

Number 6 was the one that pissed me off the most. I was only happy about the first step, anyway. But to take the time to try to pin it on me rather than take responsibility for questionable venue management decisions really hits a nerve. At least it's not going to hurt my pocketbook. I'll make more at the other gig doing fewer nights.

[Einsteindork]

YEP! I have had my fill of crappy bar owners not understanding that karaoke can't be just thrown together. It's a culture of people that have something in common that are meeting to enjoy singing. The one thing that will send me over the edge is when they tell me that the singers are not really part of the "real crowd"; that somehow we are just a sub-set of the majority of patrons. We are referred to as "the Thursday group" or the "Karaokers". It's alright though. There are always other places to go to buy my beers and sing.

[dave]