Largo – The 14th annual Talent Quest national karaoke contest is slated to begin on Sept. 14 in Laughlin, Nev., and while the national winners have yet to be crowned, Tampa Bay already has plenty to celebrate.
Florida’s regional qualifying competition, Talent Quest Florida, saw Largo’s Quench Lounge take home Venue of the Year, their karaoke jockey Jackie Larson win KJ of the Year, and boast a number of contestants in the top 10 of several categories.
“I was really proud, this was the first year that a TampaBay venue won Venue of the Year, so it was awesome to see the exposure come to the talent of this area,” says Talent Quest Florida regional director Trevor Keller.
“They had the first and third and ninth place Country Male category winners, Men’s Pop, Men’s Masters, and four women in the Women’s Masters category, as well as the People’s Choice winner Erica Kerr.”
Quench bar manager and general manager Jeff Beadle says the venue strives to do karaoke differently than other locations, offering karaoke as a full-time activity, and Quench’s showing this year has instilled him with a great sense of pride.
“Talent Quest is very gay-friendly, but it isn’t just a gay competition, so for a gay bar to win Venue of the Year is fantastic, I think it breaks a lot of barriers and really says a lot about the organization and how they run things,” says Beadle.
“We have some of the best singers in the area that come in to our karaoke nights, I think, and I was extraordinarily proud,” Beadle continues.
“Even more so that every person involved with the competition, from other performers to judges, said they were so proud of the Quench group because even those that competed and didn’t advance still stuck around to show their support and cheer everyone on.”
Beadle also hopes that this year will serve as an establishing experience for future competitions with Talent Quest.
“I think that for the competitors that are really serious about the competition, maybe they’ll look and say ‘Maybe I should consider going to Quench to qualify because they seem to really take it seriously,’” he says.
“It’s really something that that many people went through to the top 10.”
Talent Quest Florida is a regional contest that feeds into the national competition, this year having held the regional qualifiers on July 4th weekend, and Keller explains that the upcoming finals have steadily been expanding and growing as years pass.
“It’s gone from being a national singing contest to now being an international singing contest, we have competitors from Canada, a couple coming in from Australia, even Russia,” he explains.
Keller says that his involvement in the contest initially gave him pause.
“I’ve had 20-some-odd years of classical vocal training, so when they first asked me to come in and judge a karaoke contest, I was horrified, because my only exposure to karaoke was the dark bar with a lot of smoke and bad singers,” he laughs.
“But that first year, I walked in and was blown away by the level of talent and professionalism of these people.”
Though starting as a judge, Keller ascended the ranks and last year was asked to step into the role of regional director for the state of Florida, and he has high hopes for what he and the organization can do for karaoke.
“Karaoke has gotten a bad rap because of things like American Idol, people say ‘Oh that’s so karaoke’, but I would put any of our people up against anyone I’ve seen on Idol,” he says.
This is about trying to elevate karaoke to something more than just a hobby, or something that you do when you’re drunk at the bar,” he continues.
“My goal is to get local venues to realize that karaoke can be more than that.”
As part of that goal, Keller is working to add to the competition and give the competitors more than just a stage on which to perform.
“This year we also did workshops, we brought in a couple of the judges, one of which toured in a production of Phantom of the Opera, and did some seminars on things like vocal technique, stage presence, things like that,” he says.
“What we’re hoping to do in the future is offer those workshops throughout the year, obviously the night before the competition isn’t the best time to be trying to teach these things, so we’d like to see it happen year-round.”
In addition to workshops, Keller hopes to educate venues to help them change the way they, and others, view karaoke.
“A lot of the local level karaoke competitions aren’t run totally properly, it becomes about ‘who brought the most people out with them’ and turns more into a popularity contest, and so the feedback I was getting was that a lot of local spots weren’t running contests anymore,” says Keller.
“So one thing we are doing for next year is we’re putting together a team of people from our organization who will go around to some of these karaoke bars around the state and explain what this contest is all about, and how it’s run.”
And speaking of the future, Quench’s Beadle has his own hopes for what lies ahead.
“Once we get through the nationals this year, the goal I’d like to achieve is to see a national title holder come out of Quench,” he says.
“And with the level of talent we have here, I think it’s entirely possible.”
