Havana Bar & Kitchen

There was a karaoke competition there last week. $1000 prize for the winner. You win if you get the most of the votes. You vote if you buy a drink. You can vote for yourself. Get the drill? - The biggest group of people wins and shares the money among themselves. The owner wins far more money by selling beer this way, than if he did it the honest way.

As a bar, it sells drinks and that's OK so if you want to go to a bar that sells drinks this is one of the many bars in the vicinity that sells drinks. If you want to go to a karaoke bar I can only suggest giving this place a miss. Rocked up with a group of friends at about 10:30pm on a Friday, one of them in particular, on his birthday was very keen on singing some karaoke for us all. Requested a song within 10 minutes on arrival, left at approximately 1:00am not getting a chance to sing. If you want to go somewhere to sing for your friends, find another place. If you want to go somewhere and listen to the same 5 or so people sing then this is your place. Very poor system here and I am very embarrassed for suggesting that this was the best place for karaoke in the Valley. Well, I've been wrong before and I'll be wrong again.

Oh dear. This venue definitely has the "late night karaoke" part of their branding correct, as you'd likely need to wait until 4AM before getting a chance to do your song. My friends and I arrived at 10:30PM and were hoping to sing a few tunes to help celebrate a birthday in the group, but we unfortunately were unable to sing any songs in the 3 hours we were there. I understand that there is a queue, but when it is dominated by the same few groups singing* 90,000 times, it can get a bit frustrating. *The word singing is very generous. Someone who went up for Katy Perry's Hot and Cold didn't even sing anything into the mic. We legitimately had to listen to an instrumental while this man lip-synced to a track that had no singing. If they had fun, fair enough. It doesn't help that inbetween songs, the host announces who is next up. This, unfortunately, is a fairly useless endeavour, as they blast the music so loudly, the host's voice is lost in mix and can barely be heard. Ultimately, a very poor karaoke experience. If I was ever invited to come here again, I would protest heavily and warn my group of the bad times ahead. The only reason I am not giving this review 0 stars is because the bar staff were very friendly and because Google won't let me. I do not recommend this location for karaoke, unless you need 3ish hours to work up your confidence before singing. Hopefully this venue can employ a better queuing system in the future, as they have a great venue for karaoke and it is a shame to see their potential being squandered.

Blutes is a very fun and also very popular karaoke bar - and for good reason! The karaoke song selection is done through CrowdDJ, which means there’s a really wide array of songs to choose from, and a diversity of tracks people perform. People tend to pool near the karaoke stage to dance for and with the performers, and I’ve never seen anyone be boo’d or heckled while on stage before - the place tends to attract friendly party people who foster the same environment! I go to the Valley often and it’s definitely one of the more fun bars to hang out at. Judging from other reviews, I think people forget that of course a really popular bar that queues karaoke has a long waitlist, particularly on Fridays and Saturdays. However, every time I’ve been recently, the karaoke host on duty has reminded everyone in the room that they should come let the host know if they’ve been waiting to sing for a while so the song can potentially be bumped up. A lot of songs get queued and then potentially get claimed by people who didn’t queue them, or by people and groups who queued several songs at once, so each friend in that group is going around taking turns singing. There’s no real way for the host to police this, particularly when the bar is crowded and people are constantly coming and going, but I’ve found that when I’ve been waiting a while because of song backup, letting the host know how long I’ve been waiting to sing can help give them the reason to bump you up. I’ve always found the karaoke hosts really nice even though it is really busy and loud sometimes! The bartenders at Blutes have always been really sweet, albeit sometimes really busy while also having to navigate a pretty crowded narrow room. I haven’t had to wait any longer at Blutes for a drink than I have at any other crowded club or bar in Brunswick Street Mall. I’ve seen some reviews here disparaging some of the bartenders and I’ve genuinely never had a bad experience with any of them. They’ve never been rude or particularly slow to make a drink, and they’ve always tried to help people as quickly as they reasonably can from what I’ve seen. Once again, no worse than any other place in the Valley. Anyways, best place in Brisbane to sing crowd pleasers and enjoy the talents and charismas of strangers, catch me there singing Come On Eileen.