Finding Karaoke Shows in the Wild

A month ago, KaraokeCrowd had decent coverage in a handful of US cities. Today we have 81 venues in Seattle, 71 in Toronto, 66 in Columbus, 42 in Cincinnati, 32 in Pittsburgh. Those didn't come from a data broker or an API. They came from talking to people. Karaoke regulars, hosts, bartenders, and the friends who always know where the next show is.

Here's how it worked, what we learned, and how you can do the same thing for your city.

The problem

Karaoke information doesn't live in one place. It lives in the heads of the people who go every week. It lives in a text message from your friend who knows the scene. It lives pinned to the wall of a bar that doesn't have a website. It lives in a Facebook group post from eight months ago that nobody can find anymore.

Nobody has assembled it into one map. So we started doing it by talking to people.

What we did

Over the last few weeks, on evenings and weekends, I went looking for karaoke shows by asking the people who already know. The approach was simple, and anyone can replicate it.

Step 1: Ask your karaoke friends

The best source of karaoke information is the person who sings every week. They know which bars have karaoke, which nights, which hosts, and which places recently stopped. If you sing karaoke, you probably know someone like this. If you don't, go to a show and introduce yourself.

The first thing I did for each city was reach out to people I knew in the local scene. A quick message: "Hey, I'm putting together a complete karaoke list for [city]. What shows do you know about?" The responses were always better than anything I could find online.

Step 2: Talk to the hosts

Karaoke hosts (KJs) run multiple shows across multiple venues. They know the scene better than anyone. A single host can give you their entire weekly schedule: five, ten, sometimes fifteen venues. And that information is accurate, because it's their job.

If you go to a karaoke night, talk to the host. Ask them where else they run shows. Ask if they know other hosts in the area. The karaoke community is small and well-connected. One conversation can unlock a whole city.

Some hosts also post their schedules online, on their own website or social media. Those are useful too, but the conversation always gets you more: which nights are growing, which venues are thinking about adding karaoke, which hosts just quit.

Step 3: Ask at the bar

When you're at a karaoke night, ask the bartender if they know of other karaoke in the area. Bartenders talk to each other. They know what's happening at the bar down the street. They know which nights are busy and which ones just started.

This sounds low-tech because it is. But a two-minute conversation with a bartender often produces better information than an hour of searching online.

Step 4: Cross-reference and import

Once I had a collected list for a city, I cross-referenced it against what we already had on KaraokeCrowd. Some venues were already listed. Many weren't. The new ones went in as a list import, tagged by source, with a clear verification status: these came from a person, not from someone walking into the venue last night.

Step 5: Share the list back

This is the step that matters most. After importing a city, I went back to the people who helped and shared the list. Not as an ad. As a resource. "Here's what we have so far. What are we missing? What's wrong?"

The response was always the same: people added more. They flagged venues that had closed. They corrected nights and times. One person would mention a place, another would confirm it, a third would add the host's name. The list got better in real time.

Ottawa: the gold standard

Before I get to the numbers, I want to highlight what one person can do. A contributor named Yamez decided to map Ottawa. He picked up the phone and called every single karaoke venue in the city. One by one. Confirmed the night, the time, whether it was still running. Then he brought the results to KaraokeCrowd.

Ottawa is now the most thoroughly verified karaoke city in our database. Not the biggest. The most accurate. Every listing has been confirmed by a human being who actually spoke to someone at the venue. That's the gold standard. If you have a phone and an evening, you can do this for your city too.

You can see the current state of any city in our spreadsheet view. More on that below.

What happened when we asked

People shared freely. Karaoke regulars love talking about karaoke. When you ask "where do you sing?" you get an earful. Hosts gave us their full schedules. Bartenders pointed us to other venues. Friends of friends sent text screenshots of their personal karaoke calendars.

The moderation wall on Facebook groups was the one place things got stuck. If you just joined a group, your posts go into a queue and sit there until an admin approves them. Sometimes that takes hours. Sometimes it never happens. This is by design. Facebook built it to keep scammers out, and it works. It also keeps out the person who just wants to share a karaoke list.

This is where having local volunteers matters. If you're already known in the community, you can ask "does anyone know if the Brunswick Hotel still does Tuesdays?" and get five answers from real hosts and regulars within an hour. The conversation happens naturally because people already trust you.

The biggest single win was always the hosts. A host who runs shows at a dozen bars can give you their complete schedule in one conversation. That's a dozen listings, all current, from a single trustworthy source.

The numbers

Through this process, we processed over 1,000 list-import items across a dozen regions. Each item is either a venue/karaoke listing or a host profile. Some were new to the database. Some were already covered. Here is the breakdown by city:

Plus smaller batches for St. Louis, Berlin, Sydney, Australia (statewide), Texas, and Kansas.

Not every item became a live listing. Some were skipped. Some were already in the database. Some are still pending review. But the net result is over a thousand pieces of karaoke information, collected from people who actually know the scene, and structured into something searchable.

Bring us your lists

Here's the important part. If you want to do this for your city, you don't have to type every show into a form one by one. We have a list import system designed for exactly this workflow.

The process is simple:

1. Collect shows from your karaoke friends, hosts, bartenders, or wherever your scene lives.

2. Send us the list. The easiest format is a simple text file or a CSV spreadsheet. One row per show. Include the address, especially if there are multiple bars with the same name in your area. Start and end times if you know them. Host if you know it.

   Venue Name,Address,Night,Start,End,Host
   The Brunswick Hotel,123 Main St,Seattle,Tuesday,9:00 PM,1:00 AM,Mike D
   O'Malley's Pub,456 Pine Ave,Pittsburgh,Wednesday,8:00 PM,12:00 AM,Karaoke Kings
   Lucky Strike Bar,789 Broadway,New York,Friday,10:00 PM,2:00 AM,
   

   Headers are optional. No strict formatting. This works too:

   The Brunswick Hotel, 123 Main St, Seattle - Tuesdays 9pm-1am - Mike D
   O'Malley's Pub, 456 Pine Ave, Pittsburgh - Wed 8pm-midnight - Karaoke Kings
   Lucky Strike Bar, 789 Broadway, NYC - Friday 10pm-2am
   

   The address matters because "The Brunswick Hotel" exists in five cities. If we know it's the one on Main Street in Seattle, we can place it correctly. Same with times. "9 PM" is good. "9 PM to 1 AM" is better. If you only have the start time, send that. If you only know the night, that's fine too. We work with whatever you have.

   We've imported lists from host schedules, bar napkin notes, text screenshots, and word-of-mouth. Any text-based format works: CSV, plain text, even an .ics calendar file. If you have it in Excel or Google Sheets, just export to CSV first.

3. We process it. Each item gets checked against the existing database. New venues and hosts get submitted. Duplicates get flagged. You get credit for every listing you contribute.

4. Review the results. After import, you can see every item in a spreadsheet view. Here are the cities from this batch: Seattle, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Columbus, Cincinnati, Charleston, Ottawa. If your city isn't there yet, that's where it could be.

The spreadsheet view shows every venue in the city with its karaoke details, verification status, and host information. You can sort, scan, and spot gaps at a glance. It's the fastest way to see what your city looks like and what still needs work.

What didn't work

Not every conversation led somewhere. Sometimes people didn't know about other shows. Sometimes a lead turned out to be stale, the venue had switched hosts or stopped karaoke months ago. That's fine. Not every conversation produces a listing, but every conversation builds the relationship that eventually does.

How you can do this for your city

If your city isn't on the map yet, or has only a few listings, here's the playbook. It's not complicated.

1. Talk to your karaoke friends. Ask them where they sing. You'll get a better list in ten minutes than you'd get from an hour of searching.
2. Talk to the hosts at your next show. Ask where else they run nights. Ask if they know other KJs in the area.
3. Check for karaoke company websites. Some hosts post their full schedule online. That's a good starting point, but the conversation always gets you more.
4. Share what you found. Post it back to the people who helped. Say you're building a list and ask what's missing. Be clear about what you've verified and what's unconfirmed.
5. Bring the list to KaraokeCrowd. Upload it as a list import and we'll process it. You can also add venues individually if you prefer.

You don't need to be a developer. You don't need to know how the site works. You just need to care enough about your local karaoke scene to have a few conversations and write down what you learn.

What happens next

The cities above are just the beginning. There are thousands of karaoke shows happening this week that aren't on any map. Someone in your city knows about them. Maybe it's you.

If you want to help map your city, the door is open. Browse the cities we already have and see where your area stands. If your city is thin or missing entirely, that's your opportunity.

The karaoke community already knows where the shows are. We just need to put that knowledge somewhere the rest of the world can find it.