iBop Karaoke

It’s a sad day for all those in search for a cheap BYOB karaōke spot in the city.
*Cue the sad violins*
I’ve been calling iBop for the past few weeks but failed to ever reach anyone. I finally decided to stop by in person to see if I could get a room for a night of cheap imbibing and butchering of 80’s top hits. The second story neon sign was unlit and there was no response when I tried to buzz in. The cute hostess standing next door at the Irish Bar informed iBop was shut down by the cops in July.

Karaōke Hangover: That feeling you get in the morning after a ridiculous night of heavy drinking and singing. Symptoms include a throbbing head, raw throat, sore body and sheer and utter embarrassment. I have been diagnosed with a chronic case of this disorder mainly from hanging out at IBop too much. I don’t like to brag, but I’m the most amazing karaoker around. When I get on stage and those lights dim, I’m no longer that tone deaf girl with no rhythm… I’m a superstar.
For $ 24/​per person, you get your own room equipped with a karaōke machine, couches, disco lights and random musical instruments for 4 hours. It’s BYOB & BYOF. My only words of caution are: 1. Make sure you friends pay up front or you will get screwed and 2. Go to the place to make a rezzie, as they NEVER answer their phone.

i’ve been here dozens and dozens and dozens of times. i’ve had good and really BAD experiences here. some– not so much all iBop’s fault; sometimes it was all their fault. anyway, i’ll still tell friends to go here for many reasons.
— group/​happy hour rates
— small/​huge rooms
— sound proof rooms
i’ve actually never known of the BYOB– otherwise i would have never spent hundreds of dollars at the bar in iBop! LOL. oh well.
what i like most about this establishment is that you can upgrade to a bigger room as your party gets more populated.

i am so glad i read some reviews on ibop before i went this past sat. case and point — this place has no business sign, smells like rank BO and is as shady as hell, but i had a blast there. also, the BYOB didn’t hurt much either…
courtesy of my power walk from union square to ibop via 6^th ave, i was sweating like a pig. (on an exciting note, i did spy the obamas driving down the street on their way to the theater. yay!) upon arriving, i rang the buzzer to the nondescript building and walked up two flights of stairs to the third floor. i was hot as hell and the lack of A/​C was jarring — however, we quickly asked the guy working the main desk to crank-​up the cold air and he did so without question.
my friends and i rented out a private room (no public area) and stuck around for two hours, belting out the classics. just so you know, «don’t stop believin,’» «like a prayer» and «bleeding love» were all (poorly) covered that night. (for those of you that think «love lockdown» is an appropriate karaōke song … what’s wrong with you?! seriously.) note to the wise — tone deaf and drunk does not make a lasting relationship.
this place is really just a three-​star locale, but i’ll bump it up because 1) it re-​ignited my love for karaōke, 2) they’ve got a great selection and 3) i’m feeling rather saucy.

I’ve actually never had more fun «playing» a tambourine in my life…
That said, NO LADY GAGA? I craved «Poker Face,» but had to settle for «Hot in Herre» since I love to rap. It wasn’t the most up-​to-​date song list I’ve seen at karaōke joints.
Unfortunately, I forgot what my voice sounds like. Unfortunately unfortunately, I forgot what my voice sounds like amplified by a microphone. Fortunately! It’s BYOB so by the end of the night I forgot what songs I was even singing, danced like a fiend, and shook that tambourine with all my might.
Apologies to my friends for having to hear me sing. You said you wanted me to sing, so «sing» I did.

We went to iBop prepared with a list of 70 songs, two bottles of Ketel, a bottle of Patron, mixers, neon wayfarers, and jelly bracelets.
Everything you read in the previous reviews is true. Leaning stairwell past apartment doors, signs saying «no jumping allowed,» sunken leather couches, and crazy painted walls.
Unexpected…light ball didn’t work, couldn’t operate remote that easily, but on the plus side they let us keep singing until 3am. On minus side, we wanted to stay until 4am! That and they didn’t have some of our faves (Lionel Richie «Hello» and A-​Ha «Take On Me»). Also, I didn’t have issues getting ahold of management to make/​confirm reservation.
Sorry to all the residents that had to endure us singing PopLife on our way out.

It’s been a while since I’ve done the private room karaōke party, and I absolutely had a blast. Went there for a friend’s bday. There were bout 12 of us in one room and about 5 bottles of vodka and 2 of champagne, whoops! Needless to say it was a shitshow, but it brought tears to my eyes I laughed so hard at times. give a bunch of drunk kids some microphones and hilarity ensues. Some of the girls got dressed up in flashy costumes and there were pleather pants, hats, and boas involved.
Oh and the rooms are adorably sketchy. Crazy painted walls, flashy lighting, and couches that you probably shouldn’t sit on (but you do anyway cause you’re wasted.) The song selection is great and the remote control used to enter the songs into the machine made things really simple.
It’s a must try, and I’ll definitely be bringing a crowd back there again!

byob + sound proof karoke rooms = v ^_​– v
that’s my wasteyface fob face, in case you couldnt tell.
large rooms complete with flashing lights and disco balls (we managed to comfortably fit 20 – 25 people in there!). cheap fare. a gazillion songs in many different asian languages. an overall great time.
cuidado! beware the steep stairs leading into and out of this fine establishment. especially after a hard night of byo– beveraging… what? dont judge me.

If it weren’t so darn grody, this BYOB karaōke place would get 5 stars for its convenience and low cost.
Yes, you ring a buzzer and walk up apartment style stairs to the third floor. And yes there is absolutely nothing fancy, or even not-​decrepit about it. But it’s a hidden little cheapo place to have fun in the city, and that my friends, is priceless.
I went here for a pre-​birthday night out on the town happy hour of sorts, and it was a great way to get a fun night started.
They provide ice, cups and utensils, you provide the snacks and booze. $ 6/​pp each hour M-​W, $ 7/​pp Th-​Su

At first, when we had to get buzzed in and we walked upstairs to what seemed to be an apartment my thought was «wtf?»
The room was good-​sized and the selection was really good. We didn’t know it was BYOB until it was too late, but that’s OK. There were fun lights and disco balls in the room, but they burnt out within a few minutes of us getting there, but it was OK.
I still prefer karaōke at a bar versus the private rooms, though, and while I wouldn’t go out of my way to go to iBop, it’s still a decent place to sing some tunes with friends.

My friend recently had a birthday party here — and it was the best time! You can’t go wrong with BYOB — and its only $ 7 per person per hour.
And you can feel free to act like a complete idiot among friends because you get your own private room.
Don’t be turned off by the immediate shadiness of the place — walking up the carpeted stairway and down a hallway makes it feel a little bit like an apartment building and you find yourself wondering if you’re in the right place or if you happened to take a wrong turn and actually wind up in some random person’s apartment. But don’t be too quick to judge — its a blast!

7 bucks per person per hour.
BYOB.
they give you ice and cups.
good song selection.
sound proof rooms.
hilarous videos in the background.
as some said, the owner is little hard to reach via phone, but that’s b/​c the business phone is a cell phone.
OWNER WAS EXTRAORDINARILY accomodating and nice!!! :)
you have to reserve with a credit card, and on friday night (maybe the whole weekend?) there was a 3 hour, 9 person minimum charge. of course, we ended up being 10 and keeping the room for 2 extra hours…
the place is not immaculate, it’s a teensy bit skanky actually (there was an off ‘exotic’ food smell in the building, but i couldn’t smell it after a few minutes). some of the pages in the books have clearly had jack daniels spilled on them. but if you live in new york city you should be used to a little grime. IT WAS CLEAN ENOUGH!
if you and your crew are extra particular, you might be happier somewhere else.
if you want an affordable GREAT TIME, do check out the good folks at ibop!

Went here for a friend’s birthday party on Friday. good song selection in English, large spacious room with a nice big projection screen with the karaōke video on it, and BYOB. Good times. Only downside is that it seems to have no songs in other languages. Oh well, not a big deal for me, though I did miss the chance to mumble along in Chinese, frantically trying to remember the few characters I learned and pretending to know the ones that I don’t.
On a neither bad nor good note, the entranceway is somewhat hidden and it looks like you’re going into someone’s apartment building. I guess it looked sketchy enough that it scared away half the group of people who were originally with us.

The only thing to keep in mind beyond the cheap price ($ 7 per person/​hour) and BYOB concept is that you need to CLEAN UP the room when you’re done, or pay them $ 60 to have them clean it. Just be sure if you’re going to get trashed and someone isn’t going to be capable of taking care of things at the end that you’re willing to cough up the money.
NOTE: Evidently, no longer BYOB. Good bye, star.

Came here for a party. Love the BYOB, and the price seemed fine. The song book was great, and the sound system and monitors were good too (I have done theater tech, so I think I am semiqualified to say: P).
The down side was definitely the walk up… and it seemed kinda shady. A few more bathrooms would have been a nice touch too.

It was a long and exhausting week trying to get in touch with these folks as I had planned a birthday party centered around the main attraction of this place which is private room style karaōke. The major bonus points were the BYOB (completely gone that night), the vast song selection (almost too much) and the decent sound system. The prices are extremely inexpensive and they provide for plates, cups, and ice (but only for small cocktails apparently — no more coolers).
The owners were nice, but a little difficult at first since they were so hard to get in touch with on the phone and a bit snappy in person. The female owner of the joint kept interrupting me and was assuming almost every other line I was about to say. It was a very frustrating start to say the least.
I was initially extremely disappointed their international song selection is virtually gone (website is incorrect) but at the very least the English selection they had was fairly current with new songs and separated by year of release. Their 25 person room was better fit for 15 – 16 people (comfortably), so there was some severe overcrowding in our space as over 30 people arrived for the party. As a result, some folks were relegated to the floor which was sticky and grimy, just like karaōke books which were covered with small bits of food and the pages were stuck together from previous spills. There is even a couch that is technically broken and sinks so low to the ground that your ass is only separated by 1 inch cheap leather. I may be willing to come here again for BYOB karaōke fun, but I’ll leave someone else to reserve this place in the future.

I dunno about this place. On the one hand, you get 35,000 English songs, which is pretty awesome. Plus, $ 7 a head/​hr is also pretty awesome. On the other hand, the songs aren’t organized well, you have to ring the buzzer to get in (a hassle if you smoke), and the song folders are sticky and accompanied by an unsavory odor.
I just got back here from a birthday party and am one step away from being overt-​the-​top shit faced, probably due to the fact that this place is BYOB – another major bonus. But early on in the night, our host and birthday boy, Jando S., was pretty upset due to the fact that in order to sing non-​English songs, you had to switch systems, in effect, reducing your English song count to 4k.
That probably wouldn’t affect most people, but when you have a multicultural crowd, it makes sense to have access to the joints entire library of songs. In all, we had a good time. For what it’s worth, you may have an awesome time here. Unlucky as we were, it really wouldn’t have taken a lot for us to have an awesome time. But at iBop, that awesomeness came up two stars short.

I generally don’t think you can go wrong with karaōke… as long as there’s fairly current songs and a coupla mics, I’m generally happy. There’s a lot to love about iBop: BYOB and food! the cooler they provided was pretty sweet. The room had an interesting décor, somewhat like if an American flag threw up on the walls. My issues with the space were 1) the hike up to the 3^rd floor 2) the broken couch that basically sunk me down to the floor and 3) the sticky ass carpet — grody to the max.
I thought it was a great deal and loads of fun, but I think I’ll stick to the cleaner options next time.

Pros:
— Amazing song book with pretty much everything, updated every month, all the top hits like «Ms New Booty» and «I’m in luv wit a stripper». Even Liz Phair’s F*** and Run, which I have never seen in a k-​book, ever. And I’m a karaōke freak.
— Very large screens.
— Very large leather couches.
— BYOB. They provide a cooler, a table, and a kitchen where you can store ice if need be.
Cons:
— Third floor walk up in shady ass building with no elevator and basically no distinguishing markings.
— Gets kind of expensive, especially as people come in and out all evening, and everyone gets super drunk and it’s hard to tell what’s going on.
— Only 2 small bathrooms.
We had a blast, I’d totally recommend it. I’m a fan of the karaōke-​in-​a-​bar-​with-​a-​stage variety, because I’m a huge ham and a wannabe rock star, but if you’re slightly more prudent than I or new to karaōke, this is the place to do it. Great for birthday parties.

Wow!
Mind you this was my first ALL NIGHT karaōke experience, but god damn was it a blast. My girlfriend and I rented out the biggest room which entertained 35 of my friends from 12am to 4am for my birthday this past saturday. They charged us $ 6/​person per hour but it gets kinda of sticky because people come and go as they please. It ended up being over $ 600 but at the end of the day we ended up paying $ 80 out of our pockets. The key is to make announcements throughout the night to make sure people pay.
September is a birthday heavy month so I wanted to maintain a low cost theme hence me not being able to drop $ 300 myself to rent a private room outright. iBop is BYOB and that we did. I even brought in my funnel! There is a NON-​24 hr bodega across the street and another on 36^th St. They give you ice for your drinks and coolers but bring cups for liquor.
Now I must warn you that it’s on the 3^rd floor and the stairwell is… still under construction to put it lightly… you can’t smoke in there obviously, though I snuck a few bowls in here and there… and the elevator doesn’t work so you’ll be traversing those 2 flights alot but it’s not that bad. Bougie people will not be down with this place but as demonstrated by my funnel, my crew is the furthest from bouge.
They had AC going in there thankfully but it still got sweaty at times. EVERY single person that came has not shut up about how much of a blast it is was. Karaōke just gained a new fan in me.