PageantSmart Pageant Interview Consulting: Miss Venezuela

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

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

Canada

Costa Rica

Guatemala

India

Indonesia

Korea

Nicaragua

Russia

Spain

USA

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Miss Universe 2014 comes to Miami ! Events leading up to Miss Universe....Part 2

January 10, 2015
Dance Salsa With Miss Universe Contestants
Solare Gardens in Doral, Florida

Saturday evening, January 10th, was another opportunity for the general public to meet and greet the Miss Universe 2014 contestants in a fun setting....taking a salsa class with the contestants and then putting your skills to work and dancing the night away. Sounds fun, right? Well not so much. The event although billed as a "dance salsa with the contestants" was smoke and mirrors by the organizers. When you arrived at the event, they were quick to take your money only to find that when you entered the event, there were metal barricades between the general public and the contestants unless you had press credentials or were lucky enough to know security detail to get you past the barricades. Needless to say while we were disappointed we decided to make the best of it. Luckily the contestants were super nice and would come up to the barricades and talk to the public. If you were particularly looking forward to meeting a certain contestant you could ask for them and shortly they would pop up and visit with you ! We shared the evening with our friends Steve, Kurt, Maria, Jackie and Isa and overall had a good time. Here are some pics of some of my favorite moments that evening! PageantSmart was happy to attend and make our own party !!!

Miss USA, Nia Sanchez