Lucky Voice

This was one where my nephew had a rest and let the others have a
go. Well, for some of us who were dubious about karaoke we had a great time. After my sparkling efforts I can only sit back and wait for Danni Minogue to contact me. Drinks reasonable and, we found, staff were brilliant. Thanks for a great evening!!

This was the first proper booth-style karaoke dive I ever attended, but it's since been mostly superseded by its sister branch in Angel. It's smaller and a bit more cramped than the Angel branch, with less in the way of special events and promos, but it retains a certain gritty charm that goes a long way.

Like all branches of Lucky Voice, you'll find the biggest list of songs anywhere, and they expand it all the time. It has the same dangerous combination of booze, crooning and waitress service that ensures the maximum spend from punters but that we've all come to know and love.

It was a great evening with the colleagues from the office. Lots of laughs and fantastic range of music from old chessy pop to current top charters. music that meets every generation! food and drinks are reasonably priced. It was a unforgettable night out!

I love lucky voice- great rooms that are luckily sound proofed! Waitress service on drinks, not bad value for money. One let down- the bar staff in the main bar are complete cocky twits, we would have spent a lit more money in their bar after our sing sessions but for the two barmen, they were so rude to us that we took our money elsewhere to spend. Overall great for singing, just don't go to the bar after.

great ddecor great all around

Really liked this one - a bit expensive, to be fair, but no complaints about the fact that Kirin Ichiban and Asahi were on the menu and had a really good night. One of those places where so much depends on who you're with, though. If you need a couple of drinks to get going, you should probably be prepared for a fairly expensive night!

Lucky Voice Soho and I go way back; my wife (and fellow Qyper), finger constantly on the pulse of London’s ever-shifting entertainment landscape, surprised me with a trip there on just its second day of opening. I, finger far from the pulse and halfway up my nose, thought it was still Yo! Below. At the time, it felt classy, unique, cutting edge and, most importantly, ridiculously good fun.

Fast forward to 2011. I’ve now lost track of how many times I’ve visited this dimly lit, maze-like retreat, packed into one of its cocktail lounge-cum-padded cell private rooms, crooned, wailed and screamed to its diverse, ever-burgeoning tracklist, and emerged with a voice like The League of Gentlemen’s Barbara Dixon. This may have something to do with the free room hire vouchers that appear to be in constant supply to me and my faithful karaoke cohorts (courtesy of LV’s extremely generous Twitter representative Dan), but hey, it means we have more precious Asahi money to play with.

I’ve only once visited its (superior) sister venue in Islington, and have no idea what its younger, Brighton and Manchester-based siblings are like, but I get the distinct feeling that the Soho branch is now the runt of the litter.

Nothing, save the songs and menu (and staff, but I’ll get to that later) appears to have changed since day one; the once pristine microphones are misshapen lumps, presumably because the combination of beer goggles and lack of illumination has caused some to mistake them for weighty lollipops; the novelty props look like they’re harvesting several dozen strains of hitherto undiscovered bacteria (and where did the bongos go?); and journeys to the toilet are still a disorientating odyssey (if anything, I think a few blacklit UV arrows would actually contribute to the sex dungeon ambience).

Bafflingly, nobody appears to have bothered to make an earnest stab at going toe-to-toe with LV’s brand of designer karaoke, and I suspect it’s this lack of competition that’s bred a certain degree of complacency. Perhaps it’s time to once again look to Tokyo’s top-flight karaoke dens – or even the likes of Brighton’s Hotel Pelirocco - for inspiration; a fresh lick of paint, themed rooms, updated equipment, more dress-up opportunities - even applying a SingStar/Lips-esque competitive element to a selection of the most popular tunes – could restore vitality to this now rather tired-looking ground zero of the UK luxury karaoke scene.

As it stands, classy, unique and cutting edge it may no longer be, but it’s still ridiculously good fun.

A final observation: every time I visit Lucky Voice Soho – and, as I’ve established, it’s not infrequently – the entire workforce appears to have been refreshed. That said, any workplace where one of your employees’ key responsibilities is attempting to coax a group of roaring drunks out of a room while in the midst of destroying ‘We Built This City’ and then looking on wearily as they shambolically struggle to split the bill, is likely to have a high staff turnover. I imagine trying to discipline a pitbull just by waving your groin at it is a less futile endeavour.

Visiting the labyrinthine Soho branch of Lucky Voice left me croaky but happy. It's exactly what you'd expect - an assortment of rooms which are rather fun to walk past, as the variety of greatest hits being belted out can inspire you once you're safely enclosed in your own cell.

If you're wondering what happens in a karaoke bar, it's this.
1. A group of you hire a room.
2. A song is chosen to play - then sung (preferably loudly and unsuitably) to the victims / companions who haven't managed to escape to safety.
3. Repeat step 2 until you run out of a) voice or b) time. You're not going to run out of songs.

Once you've finished wailing along to classic tunes, i.e. after step 3, you can retire to a lovely little bar at the back of the complex.

Things to know before you go to Lucky Voice Soho.
1. The book inside the booth has a list of "warm-up songs" (including Queen - always a karaoke winner).
2. The staff are friendly and easy-going
3. The buttons underneath the touch screen allow you to change the voice and music volume separately.

Oh, and finally, the best thing to wear to a Karaoke bar?

...Earplugs :)

Had a super-fun night here. We all left hoarse but happy! A lot of people say this place is expensive- it was £80 for a room for 8 for 2 hours. This seemed fair enough- you would pay that to go to the cinema. The only thing was when one person dropped out and I called in advance to explain they couldn't negotiate even though it was a Tuesday night. Splitting tabs in a group can be headache and they wouldn't let us pay for drinks as we went along- although they did let us pay individually for what we had at the end and did this very efficiently with minimum fuss. Will be sure to go back.

Had a bit of a bad night here - came for the office party with a fairly new team and we weren't really drunk enough to let down our inhibitions. Awkwardness all round. Pretty decent place otherwise, and I do like a bit of Karaoke.

Nowhere near as fun as the Angel branch, but conveniently close to Bodean's. The staff look and act like they're on the verge of topping themselves; and I can't blame them. Emptying booths of rowdy folks mid-Journey and presenting them with an astronomical bill to fight over can't be fun.

The cocktails are also worryingly patchy.

Oh man. This place is TOO MUCH FUN!

I wish they had more rock anthems for me to belt out (Van Halen, AC/DC, cheesy stuff like that) in their otherwise impressive list of songs. But, aside from that (and the jacked up drink prices), I’ve gotta give it up for this private karaoke club. Air conditioned, plush rooms with drink service at the push of a button.

It’s a brilliant venue for a variety of celebrations or simply a fun place to go with a bunch of friends.

Wallflower types will appreciate the private room, cosiness while spotlight hogs will love the captive audience feel.

Lucky Voice is a private karaoke bar catering for groups of 4 - 12 people. You book by the hour and select any songs you want from their computerised list.

There’s a 'Thirsty’ button to push when you’d like to order one of their amazing cocktails (or other drinks). They also serve food as well. I highly recommend their shots: some of them come with fizzy cola bottles or other sweets at the bottom of the glass. They also do an AMAZING cocktail: strawberry with popping candy!

This has got to be one of the best ways to spend an evening with friends: drinking, singing and, best of all, no one else can hear how bad you are!

Bets place to do private karaoke in London.

Nice spacious rooms, decent TV size, modern dark interior, good choice of up to date songs which you can practice online beforehand.

Make sure you book as they get very busy. There is a limit to numbers per room so be prepared for that.

Good waiter service too.

We booked in at 6.30pm, with a woman who had no smile and made us feel like we were generally an annoyance to her. She preceded to take drink orders throughout the evening with a scowl on her face. And when we were reminded towards the end of our slot that our time was nearly up, she then came back to our room and switch off our last song at 8.28pm (2 minutes before we were officially meant to finish!) and part way through the song.

When we went to reception to pay our bill, we put in a complaint about the service. We were told by the receptionist that she believed the manager had done a perfectly good job, we also spoke to the manager who did not seem particularly bothered at all that we were unhappy with the service, and said “well, I’ve said sorry!”. We continued the conversation with the receptionist and explained that we were with clients that day and that with the amount of money spent on room hire, we felt that it was in our rights to make note of the poor service. She then said, “well, we get these complaints all the time, there’s nothing we can do about it!”. We said that next time we would take our business to Bloomsbury Lanes and she replied “well, fine then, you do that!”.

All in all, a disgraceful attempt at good service. Something that we expected to be of high calibre when coming to such a well known, expensive karaoke venue.

We will not be returning here, we will go to Bloomsbury Lanes for sure! It’s a hell of a lot cheaper there and much more fun with bowling as well.

I'm not really into karaoke, but i had a brilliant time here. I came for an office party. The staff kept the beer/champagne flowing and the selection of songs to sing was massive. "Jailhouse Rock", "I am the One & Only" and "Livin' on a Prayer" stand out in my mind. And what better way of finishing a night than linking arms with your co-workers and belting out "Under the Bridge". Tragic, but lots of fun.

Get wasted and you'll have a blast (no matter who you are with!)