I called several bars from other suits to see what was up, some just got out of karaoke or paid up, it seemed as if the suits swept thru an area and if you survived you could snap up places easily and the ones you had would do better just because of less competition. I called the owner of Slep Tone directly even though there was a settlement hotline to call some law firm. Kurt and I became friends and I attempted to help him get his business back and provide the KJ perspective he didn’t have. Needless to say we reached a settlement and Kara-O-King survived.” These changes in karaoke affected the PDX area since 2012, and have made hosting karaoke a more professional endeavor. Even still the karaoke scene has continued to be a favorite pastime of PDX partygoers. Now what about the future, what about those karaoke fiends looking to get discovered? Robert wants to know what Oregon has got to bring to this years KWCUSA contest. Recently acquiring the the Oregon State Host (https://www.facebook.com/kwcusa.or) position, singers from contests in Portland, Bend, Eugene, Salem and even Vancouver, WA will battle it out to represent OR in the US Nationals. “The State Finals will be on August 30th at Pyzano’s Karaoke Lounge and the top male and female singers will win airfare and hotel to the nationals. We will begin qualifying competitions June 14th at Pyzanos and run for several weeks as we build team Portland to eventually face off with teams from around the state. Get more information and sign up to sing Sundays @ Pyzanos Karaoke Lounge 20255 SW Tualatin Valley Hwy, Beaverton, OR 97006, (503) 591-1507
“I was doing karaoke as a side job for fun and extra money, my real job was as a mortgage broker. When the market collapsed, I was like, OK what now. I decided to take my side job to the next level, taking what I learned about online marketing mortgages, I applied these techniques to my karaoke. Within about 6 weeks I had a full schedule, 6 days a week and started to think about hiring people.” It was then that Mr. Bedrossian came across the KWCUSA (www.kwcusa.com) , the American portion of the Karaoke World Championships (http://www.karaokeworldchampionships.com/) . Started in 2003, the KWC has been the largest international singing contest, now including over 46 countries. The finals are held in different countries similar to the Olympics, this year they are at the Azzura Beach Club on Sentoza Island in Singapore in November. “I became the Florida state host in ’05 and the following year hosted the US Nationals at the Hard Rock in Hollywood, FL. This move gave me access to plenty of like minded people and lots of publicity, in 2 years I’d gone from just me a few nights, to 12 KJs, 50+ shows a week and making some serious money.” Kara-O-King had become one of the largest karaoke companies in the US as most karaoke outfits are just one person. With this publicity amongst the growing problem of digital piracy a storm loomed on the horizon. “It was my birthday, April 2010, I got a huge envelope in the mail and thought I’d gotten a book from my dad or something. I opened it to see that it was actually a lawsuit from Slep Tone Entertainment, the makers of the popular karaoke series SoundChoice (www.soundchoice.com). “2.5 million dollars of potential fines, I saw that number and freaked, then I read on about how I could settle right away for $100,000 and thought, this is a fucking sales pitch! Depending on how many shows you had simultaneously they inferred multiple systems and since we had 10 shows on Wednesdays we got 10 counts at $10k each. I researched any prior suits to find out that Florida was the 5th state since the antipiracy campaign began in 2009. I called several bars from other suits to see what was up, some just got out of karaoke or paid up, it seemed as if the suits swept thru an area and if you survived you could snap up places easily and the ones you had would do better just because of less competition.