My 2 years running a Karaoke show have exceeded my expectations. There is a lot of business in my area that will support another Karaoke show so I put one together and am ready to go.
My dilemma is hiring or employing a Host I am expecting this person to set up and take down.
Should a do a perecentage? If so what is fair.
Rent it out?
I planned on doing the bookings....Any advice out there?
Business Advice on running a second Karaoke System
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Dan Brunner
- Posts: 4
- Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 12:03 pm
Finding someone to trust with your equipment and vehicle is a big challenge.
Getting them trained to do it how you want it done, is the next big thing.
I have 800 lbs of equipment to set up and tear down.
Under 24 and the insurance company wants you to pay more to cover their driving.
Legal employees must be covered by workmans comp. The fine is $10,000 per person if you get caught.
You could hire an Independant Contractor to do the jobs.
I charge $175 a night. I paid people $75 to come get the van, setup the equipment, do the job and return safely. My gas, my insurance.....
Higher pays nets higher quality people. You are buying their reliability.
If you run employment ads in the newspaper. You must be very careful to avoid discrimination stuff.
I never hired women. Jealous Husband/boyfriend stuff gets very messy. Causes you to lose jobs. I heavily emphisized the 800 lbs of equipment, to talk them out of it.
You have to avoid hot heads.
You need someone that can sing and carry the dead spots. Someone that can keep people entertained.
I never play dance music or filler music. So the karaoke music is continuous.
You need someone personable and likeable and trustworthy.
You don't want someone walking off with discs. You don't want someone that is going to abuse your equipment or vehicle.. Preferably someone that doesn't drink or at least drink not on the job. Good luck.
My best "employees" came from karaoke singers that wanted to make some good extra "CASH..." No 1099 or W2's. A lot of the time they approached me about working.
Quality people are hard to find.
Some of them now have their own karaoke business. Stole my jobs. They are now my competition, with my knowledge.
Everyone of them is a RISK factor to your livelihood. One guy secretly bought equipment with the bar owners help and stole the steady gig. Rat bastard...That was 10 years ago. He is still my competition...
Getting them trained to do it how you want it done, is the next big thing.
I have 800 lbs of equipment to set up and tear down.
Under 24 and the insurance company wants you to pay more to cover their driving.
Legal employees must be covered by workmans comp. The fine is $10,000 per person if you get caught.
You could hire an Independant Contractor to do the jobs.
I charge $175 a night. I paid people $75 to come get the van, setup the equipment, do the job and return safely. My gas, my insurance.....
Higher pays nets higher quality people. You are buying their reliability.
If you run employment ads in the newspaper. You must be very careful to avoid discrimination stuff.
I never hired women. Jealous Husband/boyfriend stuff gets very messy. Causes you to lose jobs. I heavily emphisized the 800 lbs of equipment, to talk them out of it.
You have to avoid hot heads.
You need someone that can sing and carry the dead spots. Someone that can keep people entertained.
I never play dance music or filler music. So the karaoke music is continuous.
You need someone personable and likeable and trustworthy.
You don't want someone walking off with discs. You don't want someone that is going to abuse your equipment or vehicle.. Preferably someone that doesn't drink or at least drink not on the job. Good luck.
My best "employees" came from karaoke singers that wanted to make some good extra "CASH..." No 1099 or W2's. A lot of the time they approached me about working.
Quality people are hard to find.
Some of them now have their own karaoke business. Stole my jobs. They are now my competition, with my knowledge.
Everyone of them is a RISK factor to your livelihood. One guy secretly bought equipment with the bar owners help and stole the steady gig. Rat bastard...That was 10 years ago. He is still my competition...
Giving them hands on training and doing it until they can do the show and do some equipment troubleshooting is the key. They went with us (at reduced pay) until they could do it all. Some learned quicker than others. But you need to train them to do everything exactly the way you want it done. It's your business reputation.... Everyone likes to take short cuts.
We had 14 jobs a week so I needed to know if anything wasn't working right or was broken. I use to tell them, I really don't care how it got broken, but I need to know so the next scheduled show can go on without problems.
I worked at least one job a week with each different system so I could keep up on any trouble that could be developing with the equipment, cables, microphones, players, sound settings, vehicle, etc. And to make sure everyone was taking care of the stuff.
We had 14 jobs a week so I needed to know if anything wasn't working right or was broken. I use to tell them, I really don't care how it got broken, but I need to know so the next scheduled show can go on without problems.
I worked at least one job a week with each different system so I could keep up on any trouble that could be developing with the equipment, cables, microphones, players, sound settings, vehicle, etc. And to make sure everyone was taking care of the stuff.
I make 350.00 a night and I pay $100.00 to my contracted hosts (Notice i contract the hosts), so no messy taxes or nothing and I only pay them 100 because i own the equipment and i have to pay for replacements if something gets broken and they don't. they show up and to their job, get paid and don't have to worry about it if things break or mics get broken or cd's started skipping (Back when I was using cd's). Now it's if the laptop dies or a hard drive fails. Ouch!
I Won't run a second show at another bar in the community if it has less than 10,000 people. I Kinda feel like your competing with yourself and the other bar you work at. Cause if the other bar does a night that is more convenient, then POOF your customers start to go there. Then you want to start winning your customers back at the other bar and now your in a conflict with yourself and pitted the bars against each other. But if all your clients start following you to 1 bar the other is going to get rid of you.
I Won't run a second show at another bar in the community if it has less than 10,000 people. I Kinda feel like your competing with yourself and the other bar you work at. Cause if the other bar does a night that is more convenient, then POOF your customers start to go there. Then you want to start winning your customers back at the other bar and now your in a conflict with yourself and pitted the bars against each other. But if all your clients start following you to 1 bar the other is going to get rid of you.
When I ran 3 systems, we only scheduled jobs on the same night if the jobs were 10 miles apart or were separated by natural imaginary boundries that people don't want to cross. That was something I would tell bar owners. Like some people won't get on the turnpike or cross the river or go downtown,....whatever they think is there travel boundry. But it would also depend on what we felt the area could support customer wise. Like if it was a neighborhood bar or out in the sticks.
