The Dudeism Forum

The widespread and growing phenomenon of "open-mic" nights can be seen from various perspectives.
Firstly, I should state my vested interest here: I'm a musician.

On one hand, open-mics are a great platform for hobbyists to present their music to someone other than friends, family, pets etc.
They also provide opportunities for performers to tighten up their acts in an informal live setting; there's nothing like audience response to let you know whether something works or not.
Open-mic nights are usually free entry, so music lovers can hear a variety of acts for no more than the price of a couple of oat sodas.

However, there is a dark side to the open-mic phenomenon, at least here in the UK.
Bar managers love open-mic nights for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's an evening of free music, punters come in to listen and drink, musicians are often quite thirsty and those unused to going on stage might need a couple beforehand for Dutch courage. Some of the acts will have brought their mates along, so more money for the management etc.
Some first or second-timers might start to believe that they've got a gig.
Nothing wrong with any of that, I hear you say, it's keeping the economy afloat and people are getting to play their music. Win-win, you might imagine.
But, If the management can get night after night of free music, where is the incentive for them to pay musicians? Quality control goes out the window, a lot of fucking amateurs get the same amount of "exposure" as life-long performers, and bar-circuit musicians who've worked for many years to put together their acts cannot find paying gigs anywhere. Open-mic bar managers are laughing all the way to the bank.
And who wants to sing into a microphone after it's just been in six other peoples' mouths? Dude.

Any thoughts?

As a fellow musician, you make some great points dude. Wile I've played many a paying gig over the years, I too cut my teeth on open mic nights in the early days. I feel they have their purpose, but as you said in can get a bit much when you get anyone and everyone up there who "thinks" they're great. Sometimes it can be painful to sit through as well, like a bad karaoke night only with instruments added to it.
As for "free music", I say let the bar owners do whatever they wanna do in that regard, because IMO you can't really replace an actual band playing a real show with a bunch of different folks wailing out a few tunes on an acoustic guitar. I guess I see open mic night and bands playing live shows as two different things really. But I do see the appeal from the bar owners perspective, as many are cheap fucks and don't want to pay anyone with talent, even though the musicians are helping bring people in!
Man the live music scene can be a real ass pain. Not sure how it is over there in the uk but here in the states man, the live music scene has really died over the years. Seems the younger crowd is more into auto-tuned garbage club crap than live bands. Is fuckin sad.

Even the fact that Karaoke became a "thing", to me, signalled the demise of quality live music in general.

I don't do open mics.
Too often they are just depressing with crappy sound and just a general tone of desperation.

I have played in many bands over the years.
Now a days I'm happy with my home studio.
It allows me all to have a musical outlet without headaches.

Dealing with the local egomaniac trying to control things so he can get off his big solo...

...but I'm just a bass player.