Singing Competition Scams in Singapore

It is rather difficult to do business in Singapore due to the competitiveness. You have to at least have a good business plan and some capital on hand. If you are running a cafe, you may need good ambiance and a chef who can make wonderful food and drinks, in order to make wonders.

As tough as we know, some cafes, such as music cafes, are struggling hard with their business. Due to location and over-priced food and beverages that are of sub-standard, a music cafe may have to resort to unethical methods to bring in business. One thing they may do is to organise a singing competition.

The preliminary rounds of the singing competition may be held during days the music cafe has the lowest number of customers. The competitors are likely to bring along their friends as supporters, such that the music cafe can earn money from the audience. This sounds pretty decent except for some business owners who decide to be dishonest.

One disgusting action that a dishonest singing competition organiser may do is to make false announcements. They may tell the participants and their supporters that the next round is the final round of the singing competition, so that the participants will bring along more supporters for the "final round". However, they will simply eliminate a couple of competitors during the next round, which is supposed to be the final round, and re-announce the final "final round" of the competition. The reason why the music cafe will do this is because they may be demanding each audience to spend at least ten dollars each at the cafe; having a fake "final" will definitely bring them more income.

Another disgusting thing the music cafe may do is to increase the cover charge of each audience during the final round of the singing competition to catch everyone off-guarded. Even though it may have clearly indicated a minimal of $10 purchase of food items on the printed menu for each audience, the staffs will falsely insist that the actual amount is $15 and they have been giving discounts to everyone during the past few rounds of competition. Obviously, every supporter who has made effort to go down will not walk off because of the additional of $5 each.

After every participant has finished singing, the three judges may announce that they would need 15 minutes to gather their opinions to make the final decision for the standing of the competitors. Somehow, they may drag it for a few "15 minutes". This means that everyone has to stay inside the cafe longer and more people would order drinks to fill their thirst.

The prize may include both cash and gifts. What an unethical music cafe may falsely announce the value of the prize items by bragging about the price, such as claiming that they are giving away a Fujifilm camera that costs $200 when you can actually buy it at Giant hypermart at the price of $75. If the price difference is low, there may be a chance that the organiser is being conned by some shops; however, if they claim that the price of the camera is nearly two times more, we know it is obviously a scam to cheat the participants.

The last thing the music cafe can do is to announce their "own people" as the winner. As long as the winner's singing is not awful, it does not matter how many other participants can sing better. There is also no problem even if the winner looks hilarious or disgusting, or smokes illegally within the cafe's compound, because the focus is on the "singing".

We hope singing-lovers would take note of such singing competition scam. If you are looking to win the top prizes, you should forget about it. For newbies who have just started taking part in singing competitions to gain experience, you should avoid taking part in such singing competition because it may lower down your confidence and faith instead.

- Courtesy of someone whose friend has just finished his singing competition at Bugis the night before