So there's this karaoke rent-a-room and sing with friends type place that's been around forever - everywhere in the world it seems but just recently started up here. Or at least as far as I'm concerned - I'm always late to such parties. There's this place called August Karaoke Box (八月恋歌) in Tempe on the south side of University between McClintock and Rural - more specifically in the mall at University @ Dorsey that has businesses like Republic Ramen. You basically pass Republic Ramen and go south into the parking lot and it's in the same building on the east side of the building. There's also a rock climbing place to the south so it can be busy and the parking situation can vary. So... I've been here a few times with friends and there are things I like about it and things that I am not particularly pleased with. I'll break it down for y'all... Pros: 1) During the weekdays of Monday through Thursday before 8 pm you pay 15 bucks an hour. That works out pretty cheap if you come with friends. It's usually not crowded in the afternoons at all. 2) You get a private room so nobody sees you singing except for your friends if you're the shy type and are mortified about the idea of singing in front of people. This also allows you to try out songs you normally wouldn't dare without any embarassment when the song becomes a trainwreck. 3) These rooms allow you to have a private party for as long as you like and are willing to pay for. Cons: 1) Catalog - I understand that the reason this KTV place even exists is the Chinese speaking clientele - which is why I wasn't too surprised when the receipt I got after paying was almost all in Chinese characters. That said they could use a much bigger English language artist catalog. It's funny that the Rod Stewart and Bee Gees song catalogs are much bigger than the Beatles catalog and there isn't any Rolling Stones at all that I could find. Nor could I find any Eagles. Or Led Zeppelin. Been here a few times and I can see the novelty fading pretty quickly after going through all the available songs that I like/know. It might be my lack of Karaoke GUI navigation skills but I searched by artist and looked at all the offerings for each particular artist. What's weird is you can type in songs by name and they sometimes come up even if the artist isn't listed in the artists section. Oh well. 2) The way the lyrics show up on the screen are usually two lines at a time. During faster paced songs the transitioning of the lyrics to the next pair of lyrics can sometimes be slow enough that you can be caught waiting/wondering what the rest of the lyrics are (if you don't know the song too well). Most karaoke bar type setups have a full screen of lyrics at a time to avoid that. 3) The backing tracks/video. So some of the songs have the actual music video or live video of the artists playing their songs. Some of them have some weird Chinese videos of women walking through the street but having nothing to do at all with the song itself. Awkward. But some of the audio tracks sound like MIDI - like you're listening to an old school arcade game rendition of that song. Fortunately not all songs are like that. If you're a karaoke fan this might appeal to you to try at least once anyway. As always, your mileage may vary. read more

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My best friend and I wanted to go karaoking at a local bar, but we were scared that since her siblings are under age, that they would be kicked out immediately - which would almost certainly ruin the evening. We looked up other karaoke places nearby and found August Karaoke Box. This place was perfect for our needs. We got to include all of my friend's co-workers and underage siblings while I wasn't forced to sing in front of a bunch of drunk strangers. Another great plus is you can bring in your own food and non-alcoholic drinks to enjoy while you're karaoking. We all shared the "Max 12" private room. Their website says that they have thousands of songs, but 95% of them are in other languages besides English. You should note that songs that are pre-2000 have ridiculous music videos. For example, Journey's "Don't Stop Believing" has a video of someone chopping onions and tomatoes. Also, since there was no air conditioning in the room, it got hot very quickly. read more

We had a big party here sunday night. 18 or so of us. The owners were really nice and only charged us for the big room even though we used the hall. She also helped us find songs (none of us read chinese derp) and hooked up the ps3 heh. The service was great but we weren't fans of the more limited english and japanese song selection. read more

August Karaoke Box - Karaoke Near Me - Tempe, Arizona

Great time! Easy karaoke machine to use when they showed us how to use it. Awesome staff as well, very tentative. Reservations were super easy read more

Fun place, we had a blast. We had never done anything like this you have your own room and a ton of music to pick from.

I have been here multiple times now with different friends and have had fun every single time. Lots of options in many languages too! Best part is private room and you can bring in your own food and drinks! Awesome time! read more

Booked this room as a surprise for my friend's birthday and she absolutely loved it! We got the Tiffany room and it well exceeded all of our expectations. Beautiful furniture and easy to use karaoke machine. I recommend coming here! read more

They are the best!! The service was excellent and the music was excellent. We danced. We sang and we had the greatest time of our lives.

My colleagues and I came here while we were in Phoenix for work and had a total blast! The rooms have great decorations and you can sing as loud as you want since the space is private. It's byob but there's a great liquor store in the same complex with a very impressive beer collection. Would definitely recommend this place! read more

This was our first visit. Got surprised for my birthday. I jokingly said "we should do karaoke" and low and behold we got a room reserved. We visited on a weekday and was quite. The room was awesome, decorated CLEAN and full of fun lights. It is BYOB so bring snacks and drinks. The staff was very friendly planning the visit. The menu is in English and Mandarin. So that took us a minute to figure out. But super fun experience once everyone lightens up. read more

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So I've been to this Karaoke place for a number of times. And yes we've had some good times there before. What made me give this rating is because of their customer service. We got three 1 hr free coupons through a promotion. The first time we used the coupon, the guy working there was insisting we cannot use this coupon on Friday. If you look at the coupon, it says it can be used on Friday & Saturday, just not at certain times. We went early to follow the rules on the coupon. When I pointed this out to him, he acted surprised and just went "oh yeah it does say that". Then he insisted that it is two hour minimum. Nowhere on the coupon does it say that at all! I point it out to him and he begrudgingly lets us do one hour, saying things like "we'll lose money if we just let people sing for free". Today was our third time going there to use the coupon, and he again insists on this "two hour minimum" rule and would not budge this time. Even though he let us use it the first time! He said the company changed the policy and kept saying "I told you verbally the first time!".This is a totally false advertisement. You can't give out a coupon and then start making up policies after. Yes they have themed rooms, and they have decent selection of songs. But I will not be using a business that lies to its customers. It's a shame because we did like this place before they started acting this way. read more

August Karaoke Box - False advertisement - Karaoke Near Me - Tempe, Arizona

This place is worth it. If you are wondering if you should sing your heart out, just do it! BYOB is great! Wonderful rooms! Great sound. :) read more

Reserve a room in advance. They book up the small rooms a couple of days in advance of the weekend. Pricing isn't bad if you split it between friends. Karaoke technology is pretty good. Selections are made via a touch screen. The selection of songs available is really current though they have a lot of oldies too. Songs are available in several languages including Spanish and quite a few Asian languages. Rooms are private and small. They have color changing lights too. Have fun! read more

Hate to give this place a bad review, since my time spent here was free (reason not explained, maybe I sang so bad they just wanted me out?). However, there are a few things about this place that are "meh," for lack of a better term. First off, the selection of music is not a problem. I'm not keen on all the new stuff, but luckily there's a lot of stuff from the 50s-90s to choose from. The problem is not in the lack of choice, but the impossibility of finding anything in their system. It's almost like the now olden days when you used to download mp3s with incorrect artist tags; I might search for Elton John and see a few of his songs, then be searching manually through a list of songs/artists, and find songs by him not on the artist page which also claim he's a Korean singer. It's weird and clunky. Another thing is that the user interface is clearly geared toward Chinese people. I get it because it seems the owners are Chinese and there's a large presence of Chinese at the nearby ASU campus or whatever, but many of even the American artists are written in Hanzi, so it's really hard to find what you're looking for unless you happen to read and/or happen to be able to write English people's names in Hanzi. As for the quality, it's kind of a typical karaoke machine. The newer stuff is clearly better in terms of audio quality, as older stuff has a lot of MIDI and really corny videos made with really corny people on one weekend in 1992. I think if selection was made easier and the price brought down a bit (Again, I didn't pay, but the usual prices without the Groupon seem pretty steep) then I think this would be a cool place to hang out with pals and sing the night away. As it was for us, it took forever finding songs and got really boring after a bit of that. read more

I booked a room at August Karaoke Box for my birthday and it was so much fun! They have a great song selection, and clean, awesomely decorated rooms. The staff was very welcoming and helpful as well. I would definitely recommend this place! read more

Fun place, however very expensive & their music catalogue was lack luster & badly organized. We spent most of our time searching for music rather than singing. Friendly staff & clean (but worn) rooms. read more

I LOVE this place! There were four of us, we rented out a small room I think and we had a lot of fun! We had a bit of trouble with the machine but only because we didn't ask for help. My Top priorities were: 1. They were 18+ so my boyfriend could come along. 2. Service was friendly but not at pushy. No one came in and asked us if we needed anything, we just did our own thing! 3. BYOF! We brought in a ton of our own food and even a bucket of our own drinks! Which means we were able to control how much we'd spent on food alone. 4. They have a birthday discount!! Most importantly, they're all so freakin sweet! Anything you need, you just ask! They're not snooty or rude at all! I think I loved that most about their place aside from the awesome karaoke rooms. They treat you with respect and kindness, not just in and out. I really loved it here and would recommend highly to everyone considering this place! read more

It's good and there are so many songs in Korean, Chinese, English, and others!! It's clean and the friendly staff!

We took our daughter and her friends for her birthday. They all had a great time. Each room is private. The employees were nice and helpful.

Probably your best bet for Asian karaoke! The only other places I knew that had private rooms were Korean BBQ and Saketini, and I heard Saketini doesn't do the private room karaoke anymore. Who knows... they may bring it back! But as for August, it's pretty nice. It's also pricey if you don't have a large group to divide the hourly cost! The setup is nice. Each group as their own room. You can even rent the large open area in the middle of the place. I do like how the song selection is all digital and has nice pictures of artists on it. It's very modern app setup. The rooms can fit up to 20 people it seems, and you can bring your own drinks and food. Selections of songs range from Thai to Korean to Japanese to American songs... a little something for everyone! And it even has some pretty recent songs. I think the best part of the digital interface is that you can choose five to six different ways to find a song. Genre, artist, language, title, top hits, etc. If you have a large group that wants to sing privately, this is the place. Of course don't make it too large because then you would only get to sing one to two songs every hour. read more

ARIZONA AINT BUT THIS. literally love this place. We went to so many places before finding this diamond.

So fun! Love this idea. Each room is unique. Three of us were in a small room (kinda tight but not claustrophobic). We really enjoyed ourselves and the staff was nice. Gave us a free half hour because it was our first visit, and a $5 coupon for next time because we texted a quick rating after. read more

If you want to get drunk and sing with you friend extremely common songs you will love this place. But if you like karaoke this is not the place for you. Extremely poor selection. The sound and microphone is horrible. The software is extremely complicated, even if you are sober. Very much over priced for the quality. The prices the have online are just booking prices and they charge you more when you get there. read more

Really fun designed rooms! HUGE song menu, but software can be a little challenging. (Sometimes use just initials rather than spelling it out.) Definitely going back!! read more

Great experience! We had a fantastic time for a group event! You guys are awesome, definitely will come back again!

Went to August Karaoke Box last night to celebrate mine and a friends birthday. The room we had was meant for 15 but seemed very small. The machine itself was difficult to use at first, but once we got the hang of it it was easy. The staff there was super helpful and the venue was clean and well kept. For the price and atmosphere I would definitely go here again just maybe with a bigger room! read more

This place is great. Just went last night from about 9pm to 1am with a small group and had a blast. After reading some of the other reviews I was a bit worried the selection of english songs would be limited but I've actually never been more impressed with a karaoke selection. There were a handful of songs that I was surprised they didn't have but for every one of those there were five or six other songs I've rarely seen anywhere else. We reserved a "small" (8 person max). The room was bigger than I expected, very clean and comfortable. For a group of six people we had plenty of room to move around throughout the night without tripping over each other. Sliding the table in the middle of the room toward the screen helped a lot. Bringing in our own food was a way bigger highlight than I expected. We laid everything out on a table in the center of the room and were set for the night. My girlfriend and I intend to try some of their menu options next time we go. The sound in the room was good, there was a bit of noise from the group out in the main room but considering how loud they were I'm amazed at how little of them we heard in our room. Once we started our music though we couldn't hear them at all. The menu system is another highlight. It's a bit weird at first since you have to select by using the first letters (e.g. Micheal Jackson is just MJ, Feel Good Inc. is FGI) but once we stopped forgetting that using the system couldn't have been any easier. We selected a bunch of songs, brought up the playlist, moved the order of the songs around and we were good to go. Adding more songs to the playlist, moving them around, switching from just music to singing with the artist and all that couldn't have been easier. I think that about covers everything anyone would need to know this place is, great and definitely a new favorite. read more

We celebrated our daughter's 17th birthday here! It's the perfect place for this age group and I'm sure any age! The girls had an absolutely wonderful time! August was so accommodating and kind! I give this place 5 stars and highly recommend it! read more

The desk staff spoke very broken English, the selection of songs to sing was predominately CHINESE. We got a small room, $67. We thought it was $48. Plus 15% music licensing fee and 8% sales tax. We spent 1/3 of our hour trying to navigate the CHINESE karaoke application. I would not go back. VERY disappointing. read more

I came here for my bachelorette party and had such a great time a brought my whole office for a team outing! It's a great deal, a lot of fun and you can even bring your own food and drinks! read more

Excellent service!! Very fun! We went on Saturday. We've been here before. It does have food if you want to eat.

This place allows you to finally freestyle on a track. I love it so much. Great selection of songs. I transcended social anxiety, with the mike in my hand, I was a glorious god. My milkshake brought all the boys to the yard. Your body is my party. Are you drunk right now? One, two step. Michael Jackson was a hit. read more

Worst experience I have ever had at a private karaoke. This place is a fraud. We called and they said a small room is $38. We booked it and were there within 30 minutes. When we got there the room was so small you could barely move. No standing room at all. The machine was horrible. Barely enough English to figure out what to do. Hardly any song selection either. We spent most of our hour trying to find something to sing. When we went to pay the guy told us it was $54. I told him when we called that they said it was $38. He argued with me about how it's the weekend and they add extra fees. DO NOT GO HERE!!! Waste of time and money. You'll thank me! read more

Had so much fun here for work outing. . Nice and clean and you can bring you own food and drinks!

Very fun!! The room themes were amazing and they have nice discounts. It took us around 30mins to figure out how to look up songs but we finally for the hang of it! It's good to come with songs already selected read more

Called this place to book a karakoe room and it took a while because it was loud in the background and their accent was so thick. We get there and find out that our booking was gone. They were nice enough to squeeze us in and get us a room for an hour. I knew asians liked karaoke but damn, this place was packed with asians and they LOVE karaoke. None the less it was a lot of fun but don't go on a weekend or else your paying the premium prices. I'd come back again. Wish they had booze. read more

Good for 2 person. Many new songs is updated， very suit for students and families to come read more

August Karaoke Box - Good for 2 person at a price of $34 per hour for mini - Karaoke Near Me - Tempe, Arizona

This is so fun!! I love the Victoria secret room!! :) my friends and I went and we had a great time

Great experience and customer service. Nice equipment and very recommend! Had a very impressive birthday party with my friend. Best birthday party ever and I love my best friends. read more

We had the best time! Everybody was really sweet and helpful. All of our group had a great time! We will definitely come back.