August Karaoke Box, Tempe AZ

The pictures online look great but they don’t seem to include any of the stains or holes on the benches and furniture. The karaoke machine is extremely difficult to use and find songs. Once you do find the song you want (if they even have it) it’s often someone else doing a bad cover that you now get to sing over. Most of the time they don’t have an artist’s top 3 or 4 hits but you can sometimes find one of their others. Then after you leave they harass you with 5+ Promotional texts PER DAY. I’ve received 12 just today! Pretty fun if you can get drunk enough to get over all that though.

Just buy a microphone or a karaoke box and please don’t waste your time with this place. This was the worst karaoke experience I have ever had experienced. Staff was busy on their phones. Microphones didn’t work. We asked for new ones and we were told that’s just how they work. The selection of artists and singers is slim. They expect Korean or Japanese customers only. Search for someone make sure not to type the whole artist in cuz it won’t work. Type just the first letter and go through all the pages. Absolutely the worst 150$ experience I have ever been a part of. Kind wish we just stayed home and never gave them any business. The ABSOLUTE worst experience I’ve ever had at a business.

Did a booking on 8/17 4 hours before my scheduled room, and they had the nerve charge my card, send me a reminder email about my booking and once I get there, the place is dead empty with a sign saying “be back at 6”
My booking was for 4pm. No one picked up or responded back to my emails about getting my money back.
I wish I would’ve read reviews on Yelp before booking a room!

I booked a room here last minute, and while I am thankful that they had an opening, I feel that I overspent for the experience.

The interface for their song selection system is pretty bad. Most of it is either in Japanese or Korean (not sure which, sorry), and the touch-keyboard is loath to respond to your inputs. The button to close the touch keyboard is right next to the backspace button, so God help you if you type something wrong.

On that previous point, the way you have to search for songs in the system is not very intuitive. The auto-playing instruction video doesn't really help either. We only found songs in English by typing ONLY the first letter of an artist and sifting through a sea of K-Pop before finding mainstream American Top 40s stuff. We did find Paramore, surprisingly, but do not expect them to have your favorite song - the selection is pretty limited for English stuff. They didn't even have Dolly Parton.

We paid for an hour in the most expensive room but we weren't really allowed into our room until 9: 05 and the system automatically turned off our final song at 9: 55. I feel a bit cheated out of my time, honestly. We also spent 20 minutes fighting with the terrible interface so there's that.

Final review:

PROS:
+Room looked amazing. Furniture was comfortable. Very clean.
+A/C was set to a comfortable temperature.
+BYOB policy means you get more choice of your alcoholic beverages.
+Last-minute booking sometimes possible

CONS
-Overpriced, considering what you get for your dollar.
-Terrible interface.
-Mediocre song selection, unless you like K-Pop and J-Pop exclusively.
-Staff was friendly but unfortunately not very prompt getting us into the room, which ate into our extremely limited singing time.

If you have a small party and you get the cheapest room, this place is great. Otherwise, look elsewhere.

Here is my experience at August Karaoke Box. Small place tucked in a plaza. Our room was waayyyy smaller than we expected and to upgrade to bigger room they wanted to charge us a few hundred more dollars on top of the $250+ we already spent. Song selection was HORRIBLE! I think due to licensing they didn’t many of the original songs we were looking for. Didn’t have ANY Selena songs so we were super bummed about that. There were so many Asian artists and we really had to fish for the artists we were looking for.
I like the fact that we can bring our own food and drinks including alcoholic beverages but they advertise that they provide water and ice. They were out of ice and wanted to charge us $3 a bottle. Also, there’s cameras in every room and when my friend went up front she found them watching us on the camera like CREEPS! I will say my friends and I made the best of it. We did have a lot of fun so I gave 2 stars. The karaoke box idea is great but I would recommend going somewhere else.

The location is very sus and I don’t write reviews but this is just absolutely no. Three separate people barged into the karaoke room (no lock on doors) just minding our business all drunk or high, clearly saying however they felt. Be careful bring pepper spray or something…. The room was dirty and found utensils on the floor from past people and there was stains all over the couch. The music has to be very old in order to used and the microphones would keep breaking then later be working. Also when I went to use the bathroom the lock was broken so half way someone walked in on me using the bathroom.just a no for me and I didn’t even pay for it.:/

It’s so much fun. I definitely recommend doing multiple hours. You’re not gonna want to stop once you start!

Everything was so pretty, machine for songs was great along with the variety of music BUT the room was soooo much smaller than expected. It was the LARGE Victoria room, we had 16 people +5 babies and barely fit. Made the best of it but was sooooo underwhelmed with the size! The pictures definitely make the room look bigger than it actually was so I was disappointed we had to squish.

I was here as a guest for a birthday party and let me share with you. The bathrooms were not well kept. I was dissapointed in how they don't keep up with cleanliness. So unsanitary. Yes, I understand that the guests should be respectful. But come on, when I see something like blood on the wall. That's carelessness to not keep up with sanitary guidelines in a public establishment.

I hosted a surprise Birthday party for my sister last Thursday. Derrick who was at the front desk was helpful and incredibly patient. I needed help with a few things and each time he was courteous and nice.
I booked the Tiffany room, my party had ten people and I had a flash table in there as well. Nine people are able to sit comfortably and there's a small chair for the tenth. It was a party of Black Women and the only thing we had to complain about is that they didn't have Erykah Badu in the playlist
Overall we had a great time and I would certainly recommend this place and I would go back.

I reserved the Victoria room at August Karaoke on a Friday evening for my 15 year old daughter's birthday. We took an ice chest with cold drinks, pizza, and a cake. Everything was super easy. She invited ten of her friends and everyone had a blast. The only thing I would do differently is to reserve a larger room. Three hours was the perfect amount of time.

I had a small event for my best friend's birthday & it was an amazing experience. We enjoyed it so much & got to join in the with our groups as well.

Dear Wendy I heard you say you are open to sharing you sanitation protocols. Then please share step 1 and step 2 of set protocols.

We booked two hours, and honestly I wish I booked three. You’re able to bring your own food and drinks, which makes the experience more customized. We had an absolute blast and the guys at the front we so helpful. This place is great. We will definitely come again!

I had my daughters 17th Birthday here. It was great. Her and her friends had lots of fun. The music selection was good. You can bring your own food/drinks. The room was cute. We booked for 2 hours, we should of booked for 3 hours. Only complaint is our mic battery died a few times and our charging station in the room didn't work for them, so we had to return to the front desk a few times to get new batteries.

This place was AMAZING! We got a private room for only $40 for an hour! They have tons of fun songs and it's a BYOBooze, which turned out to be a plus! They offer a discount for paying cash and even when our time ran out he let's us stay in the room an extra 20minutes and sing! Can't wait to go back!

I loved the experience, me and my friends went to celebrate my birthday, it was awesome. A little complicated at first to understand how the karaoke machine works, but it has a big variety of songs. We are already panning our the next event!

First of all.its hard to understand the layout of the karaoke machine. Its all under a foreign language, we couldn't find any of the artist or the songs we wanted to sing. It took us about 30 mins to understand a little. The rooms are not clean or sanitized after each party.

This place is amazing for all ages. Took my kids there for family karaoke. Can’t wait to take my friends there for an adult night. So much fun!