PageantSmart Pageant Interview Consulting: Miss Universe 2014 comes to Miami ! Events leading up to Miss Universe....Part 4

January 21, 2015

PageantSmart attends Miss Universe Preliminary Competition & National Costume Pre-Taping

The much anticipated night of the Miss Universe Official Preliminary (Swimsuit and Evening Gown) Competition finally had arrived. As we pulled into the FIU Campus, you immediately could feel the excitement in the air. As with most events leading up to tonight, the largest group of supporters belonged to Venezuela, Colombia and Puerto Rico. As special guests of FIU, we were seated in great seats on the main floor. It was extra special to be able to share the evening with Ricky, Jackie, Maria and Anselmo.

The crowd went crazy as the first group of contestants took the stage! The contestants were all dressed in vibrant Sherri Hill cocktail dresses in shades of blue, yellow, pink , green and purple. I am pretty sure the girls were excited to finally start the competition after many tireless hours of rehearsals not to mention all the hard work up until this time. From the get go, Argentina, Australia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, France, Gabon, Guyana, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, Russia, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine, USA and Venezuela all seemed as bonafide contenders to make the first cut on their way to the crown.

Immediately after the introductions, the official preliminary evening gown competition started.
Lots of white, red and silver gowns. My favorite gowns were Colombia, Spain and USA.

One of those fun unexpected moments was during the pre-taped City of Doral segment, I caught a glimpse of a group of us on the big screen ....Rick, Debbie, Marie, Carlos, Lulu, Barby and me in the shades!

On to the swimsuit competition and as with most pageants, this separated the pretenders from the contenders. Best swimsuit bodies in my opinion belonged to Argentina, Colombia, Netherlands, Spain, Ukraine and USA

After the preliminary competition I had my top 3: Spain, USA and Colombia.

The pre-taping of the national costume competition was very interesting to observe. The national costumes ranged from overly simple & understated to tacky to colorful to spectacular. Amazingly enough sometimes it took 3 or 4 takes for a contestant to say their name and country! My favorite top 5 national costumes were Argentina, India, Russia, Guatemala and Nicaragua.

Argentina