Tips for hosting an open mic night?

[Paulie13]

Hey guys, a local bar has hired me to start hosting an open mic night every week. I actually have no experience in running one of these things. I was seeing if maybe you guys had any experience or ideas that might would be able to help me out?

 

[dmarg1045]

Have a sign-up sheet. Keep the time under control, and start on time. If everyone gets 15 minutes, then see that they get 15 minutes. If the list starts to fill up, you'll have enough time for everyone, if not, folks can maybe go around again. Don't favor your friends. Tell people that the allotted time includes tuning and setting up--some folks will burn five or ten minutes tuning. Running an open stage competently can be a lot of work.

 

[jonzer]

It's not about you or your friends. Don't play and play and play if you have performers lined up. I've seen hosts do that only to have fewer performers the next week. Think of it as giving back to the music community. The less you play means the more success the night went.

Ditto on the time or number of songs. Try to smile when people are jerks. You will have that guy who thinks he deserves more time than anyone else because he's better. He might be better, but don't give in. You'll also have people who whine that they brought followers to hear them...so they wanna play earlier, even though they didn't get there early enough. Often times their followers aren't even spending money to support the bar. Make them wait their turn. Letting people skip over others who've been waiting shows you're not attentive or caring enough.

Tell everyone to tip the bartender. Say this on the mic. Say the bartender's name.

Introduce each act. Compliment the acts. Don't criticize or offer comments that may come off as negative...unless you're asked...and then keep it to the minimum.

Treat everyone equally.

Promote through word of mouth, fliers, facebook, craigslist, etc. Get people in there.

Enjoy it while it last. Even if it's a success, it's a huge headache and you will get sick of babysitting.

I just did an open mic for very little money. I quit when the bartender quit. The new bartender hired someone else to do it and asked me if I wanted to co-host. I don't know the new host and not sure how he operates...so that in addition to the prospect of no money, I said no.

Good luck.

 

[mudbean]

Hey guys, a local bar has hired me to start hosting an open mic night every week.

Hope they're paying you well. Will you be playing as well, or just doing the MC bit?

mud

 

[stevesz]

Promote through word of mouth, fliers, facebook, craigslist, etc. Get people in there.


Good luck.

Save the sign-up sheet and get the names so you can create a facebook group and keep everyone posted on time, rules, available equipment, etc.

By all means be positive and supportive to everyone, but I'm going to stray just a teeny bit from what others are saying here. If you get steady support from a few talented "friends" and "regulars," that can help keep the talent level relatively high and the set-up times short. In other words, it's not just you that sets the norm, but the folks that keep coming back as well.

If everyone is kind to those who may be shy or awkward or less- practiced cos it's their first time up or whatever, you will see them gradually improve and step up their game to match the tone that's set. I also find it's cool if you tell people to never apologize for their performance. It's like they set themselves up to be weak. Give 'em a good pat on the back and say "you be you, go up there and have fun," and most times they won't have anything to apologize for anyway.

and Never take it too seriously

 

[sonny wolf]

I've hosted plenty and to pull it off you need to understand a few things.The first being that the bar is hiring you....meaning they are PAYING you.The reason they are gambling on a jam is because they hope that a jam will increase business on what is normally a slow night for them.So the jam needs to be ENTERTAINING for the clientele in order to keep them there drinking and having fun.If you have 40 people in the room before the jam and after 4 songs there are only 10 left because the jamming sucks.....there is a problem.You can't please everyone....some musicians just plain suck so you can't let the bad ones ruin the night(like the 'drummer' who thinks he can hold a groove or the 'singer' that is painfully off key).I always make sure at least one of the house band's rythym section is always onstage to help keep the groove under control.....never put a bad drummer with a bad bass player.....that will always be a disaster.Try making good team combinations.After a while you will begin to know which musicians sound good together....this will help solidify the entertainment factor.Also watch out for volume....keep that under control because it is easy to get too loud at a jam and you will lose the clientele.The name of the game is to keep the crowd all night long in the bar drinking.Hopefully most of the jammers will be of good musical calibre and you will only have to deal with a minimum of jerks.Good luck!

 

[Bluej58]

I love Open mic night, you never know what will happen.

 

[robb3566]

Maybe some earplugs.

 

[Paulie13]

thanks for the tips guys. some will be very useful. the idea of getting emails and facebook names is definitely cool and something I havent thought of.

 

[Paulie13]

Hope they're paying you well. Will you be playing as well, or just doing the MC bit?

mud

decent amount of pay. its enough to help pay off the acoustic i bought. (plus, it was good justification my girlfriend on why i needed to buy the acoustic in the first place...)

we are playing as well, not just hosting. first go at it is tonight, we will see how it goes.

 

[gearhead69]

Have a sign-up sheet. Keep the time under control, and start on time. If everyone gets 15 minutes, then see that they get 15 minutes. If the list starts to fill up, you'll have enough time for everyone, if not, folks can maybe go around again. Don't favor your friends. Tell people that the allotted time includes tuning and setting up--some folks will burn five or ten minutes tuning. Running an open stage competently can be a lot of work.

The above is all REALLY good advice. I helped out at a jam for 2 1/2 years, and this was pretty close to how we worked it. Also, there's no way in hell you're going to please everyone, and sooner or later someone's going to get pissed that they got cut ('cause they went outside to smoke while you were calling and calling and calling their name), or they didn't get as much time as so-and-so, or they wanted to play with guys A, B, and C, but you always put them with guys D, E, and F (mainly because guys A, B, and C said they don't want him on stage with them), or someone has "been here all night!" or whatever. Just keep your cool. As another poster said, it is indeed like babysitting. Oh, and don't overrun your allotted starting warm-up show. I used to hate it at one jam when the host band would come out and play for an hour instead of half an hour. Actually, the bar didn't like it either and told them to stop.

 

[Wyzsard]

Great thread, I've been asked to host one as well. I've got it easy, because I grew up with the owner of the bar, and he's asked me several times to do it after I took an acoustic up there one evening and played some stuff on the deck.

Guess I may give it a shot. I've picked up some great tips here.

Paulie13, all the best and let us know how it went brother !

 

[Wyzsard]

I gather from the posts by those who have hosted one, an unplugged solo singer songwriter open mic may be less headaches ?

 

[mudbean]

I gather from the posts by those who have hosted one, an unplugged solo singer songwriter open mic may be less headaches ?

Not necessarily ... it's a crapshoot and alotta work, either way.

mud

 

[Wyzsard]

Not necessarily ... it's a crapshoot and alotta work, either way.

mud

Fair enough. I think it will be slow at first anyway, so I can learn as I go.

 

[Paulie13]

Hey guys,

I think it went pretty well last night. Started out playing, did about 20 minutes, then had a few people called up and they did a great job. I think it helped the first time to have really good talent come up and play. Also, the bar was great in cutting on and off the house music in between performers. We ran out of performers and closed out with about a 45 minute set. All in all I pretty fun night, and I think pretty good for the first. Thanks for all of the tips.