How to make Karaoke work at your pub or bar

Introduction

Karaoke has proven time and time again to be a great addition for pubs and bars alike, it can bring in a fresh new crowd of karaoke goers to your establishment which in turn can increase revenue and awareness of your establishment. Unfortunately, it’s sometimes not as simple as just launching a karaoke night and flocks of people swarming your venue, it actually requires a lot of configuration and marketing to effectively make it work.

Having provided karaoke hire to many bars and pubs in my time I have seen exactly what works and doesn’t to make a karaoke night a success and keep people coming back for more.

In this blog ill share with you my tips and tricks to get your karaoke nights off to a strong start.

Competitor Research

If your venue is in a built-up area it’s more than likely that your local competitors are already running a karaoke evening. Don’t let this deter you, look at what they are doing and think to yourself how can I do it better, if possible, try and get down to one of their karaoke nights and see how the crowd is reacting, are there drink promotions, what time does it peak? All this information is incredibly valuable to your business for you to build on and make a better experience for your guests.

In my experience, I’ve seen people favor other venues over the smallest details, whether that be the size of the screen the lyrics are displayed on or the music the DJ plays between singers.

How to market karaoke

Unfortunately putting a post on your Facebook page about your karaoke event isn’t enough these days to cut through the noise, if you truly want to make karaoke work at your venue you need to be aggressive with your marketing strategy. Here are just some ways our venues have leveraged marketing tactics to help boost their karaoke events.

Facebook Event
Live stream the event
Posters in venue
TikTok Video
Instagram Post
Facebook Post
Local Event website
Post the event on your own website
Like, Share, Comment campaign
Facebook & Instagram Ads
Post events on local community groups on Facebook

Something that I suggest to all my venues is a drink promotion (free shot) for each singer or if your guests check in to the venue on their social media channels give them a discount on their round, this helps show their friends that there is karaoke at your venue.

Most decent karaoke companies will be on hand to help market your event as it’s in everyone’s interest that your event is a success. Here at the karaoke company, we provide poster and social media graphic design services for all our clients free of charge as well as sharing your event on our own channels.

Find the right karaoke host

Finding the right host is incredibly important, you need someone who can resonate with your crowd and match the demographic your targeting, if you’re patrons are primarily aged 20-30, you’re not going to get a host in his 50s playing songs half the crowd has never heard of.

One of the most important things to find in a host is reliability, ideally, you want to have the same host for every event for consistency, hosts form relationships with your crowd and if they know that they are not going to be there one week they might just go somewhere else or worse a competitors karaoke night, of course, all hosts are entitled to the odd night off here and there but it’s important that a suitable replacement is booked for that night.

Another thing to consider in a host is how they handle stressful situations, once your venue starts to get packed will your host be able to manage such a large crowd? It’s these questions you should be asking.

Document the evening

Most venues miss this crucial step and rely on their guests to take pictures and spread the word, this is just not an effective strategy, there is a reason nightclubs hire a photographer to take photos from their events, to boost their brand, and you should be doing the same too.

Now we’re not suggesting you fork out money for a photographer but I’m sure you own a smartphone with a camera on it, next time you do karaoke take some photos throughout the night of everyone having fun and really enjoying themselves, share those on your social media channels and website to really showcase what karaoke at your venue is all about.

With the karaoke company, we take this burden off your hands as we can take photos at your event and share those photos with you, take a look at some of the snaps from our previous events below.

karaoke in pub hosted by the karaoke company

If you really wanted to take it one step further you could live stream the event or get video recordings of your signers to boost your event even further on platforms such as YouTube, Twitch, or TikTok, we’ve seen this work wonders for Central Station Bar in Kings Cross or even the horseshoe bar in Glasgow.

Don’t overdo it

Sometimes less is more and this can be the case with karaoke, in more remote areas karaoke might only work once a month, and in more built-up areas you can find you can make karaoke work once or twice a fortnight. Finding the right balance is key otherwise your patrons will soon be sick to death of karaoke, and you will risk losing your crowd.

Having said that you will always want to ramp up your karaoke efforts around the Christmas period, karaoke is one of the top activities for Christmas parties, you can expect to see double the usual crowd during this period.

Picking the right day for karaoke

Most venues tend to run karaoke on either a Friday or a Saturday which is great for pubs in rural areas but in more built-up areas it can be a death sentence. When you run a karaoke night on the two biggest nights of the week you’re not just up against other karaoke nights but every other event in that area. We’ve seen karaoke work just as well on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays in the past just as much as any other Saturday.

The reason for this was less competition on these days as well as various other variables, student nights, etc.

Have the right karaoke equipment

When booking your karaoke host make sure you hire someone with decent equipment, I have seen some shocking setups in my time including someone still using CDGs. You need something that is going to work for your venue, depending on the size you may only need something small to make it work, for bigger venues you might need a host that can provide a suitable PA system as well a bigger screen size.

Other things to consider asking your karaoke host

Do you supply wireless mics
How many microphones do you supply
How many karaoke tracks do you have available
Can my guests requests songs from their phone
How big a screen do you supply

Host a karaoke competition

Hosting a karaoke competition is a great way to launch your karaoke event, the more money you can put into the grand prize the better, this can help attract media coverage from your local paper as well as increase the chance of people sharing your event on social media platforms.

This doesn’t have to just be a one-off-event either, you can have multiple heats before leading up to the big grand finale to really build up momentum.

Conclusion

So, there you have it our ultimate guide to implementing karaoke at your pub/bar, when you start your karaoke journey don’t be disheartened if not many people show up for the first one, it does take time to build up a following but following our guide, you will be able to get there a lot quicker

If you are interested in booking karaoke for your next event or have any questions regarding karaoke, feel free to email us at info@thekaraokecompany.co.uk and one of our friendly team will be happy to answer any questions you may have.