Queue etiquette for hosts and guests
Queue buttons are documented in room codes and the shared queue. This page is the social contract: how humans use those buttons so a mixed group still wants a second song.
Turns are the product
Karaoke is not a radio station you program alone. If one person stacks seven tracks, everyone else is an audience. A workable rule: two in the queue per person until everyone who wants a turn has one. After that, add freely. Hosts can see who added what; if they cannot, they can still hear who is dominating.
Guests: add with +. Do not play now unless the host asked, the current video is dead, or the whole room shouted for it.
Duplicates
The app allows the same upload twice and warns you. Take the warning. If two people want the same title, let the first play; the second picks something else or waits until later. Stacking the same chorus is how a night starts to feel like a loop.
Different uploads of the same song (official vs karaoke channel vs live) still count as “the same song” socially even if the catalog IDs differ. Use judgment.
Skips
Skip is for:
- Wrong language / wrong version / instrumental-only when people wanted lyrics.
- Embed failed (black player).
- The singer clearly wants out.
Skip is not for:
- “I don’t like this artist.”
- “This is slow” thirty seconds in. Slow songs are allowed; see mixed-age notes in family song picks.
- Skipping someone because they are nervous. Let them finish or they will not queue again.
If guest controls are on, the skip rule has to be said once out loud. If it is not followed, the host turns guest controls off. That is host vs guest, not rudeness.
Play now
Play now interrupts. Use it for the birthday person’s requested song if it got buried, or to recover from a blocked embed. Do not use it to jump your meme track in front of a kid who has been waiting.
Hosts: you can play now. You should still announce it: *We’re jumping to Lola’s song, then back to the queue.*
Ballad stacking
A queue of four slow tracks in a row will empty the dance-adjacent people from the room. Alternate. Nobody needs a spreadsheet. If you see three ballads lined up, drag an uptempo from later in Up next (host) or ask in chat for someone to add a group chorus.
Themed playlists are allowed — 90s night can be 90s — but even then, mix energy. Personal playlists should be built with that in mind, not dumped as twenty sad songs via Play all.
Chat
Chat is for “this is mine,” “need water,” “duet?” It is not for roasting the singer in a way you would not say to their face. Hosts can kick. Kicking is this room only.
Remote vs same room
Same-room guests should not also blast the embed. Remote guests should not talk over the chorus on the video call. Same etiquette, different speakers. Remote karaoke covers the technical side.
A sentence you can paste into the group chat
*Code is in the chat. I’ll approve you. Add songs with plus — don’t skip other people. If a video is black, we’ll pick another version. Guest controls stay off unless this group is tiny.*
That paragraph, plus how to join as a guest, prevents most politeness failures before they start.