Sing Your Way to $500 at Japantown Karaoke Contest

See William Hung? If you want $500, be the opposite of him in every way.

The thing about karaoke is that you either love it or you hate it.  There’s really no ambivalent feelings where the art of singing cheesy ’80s songs to an audience of completer strangers is concerned.  I happen to be in the first camp of people, the camp that kind of lives for it.  But if you’re either not the greatest singer or just don’t like to hear frat guys maiming “Don’t Stop Believing,” I get that maybe it’s not the most fun thing in the world.

For the rest of us, GOOD NEWS!  This Saturday there’s an amateur karaoke contest in Japantown’s Peace Plaza — and the cash prizes are no joke: $500 for first place, $350 for second, and $150 for third.  Not too shabby for a competition that’s FREE to enter (and attend).  Sign-ups begin on-site at 11am and individual as well as group entries are allowed.  If you’re super fancy you can bring a burned CD with your own karaoke song on it, but the rest of us will do it the old-fashioned machine way.

You’ll find a full list of contest rules here, but the most important thing to remember is that contestants will be judged on vocal accuracy, presentation and crowd response.  This means that if you have a halfway decent voice, a leftover-from-Halloween Lady Gaga costume and can get enough of your friends to show up to this, you might walk in as a broke-ass, but walk out with next month’s rent.  Or half of it, at least.