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Just Desserts for Beach Honey Contest Winner |
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Written by plui
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Wednesday, 22 August 2007 |
The smoke from the fireworks display clears to reveal Rainbow, an 18 year-old student wearing not much more than a bikini, standing alone, center stage at the Beach Honey Contest Grand Finale at Dino Beach last Saturday -- She's 100,000 rmb richer.
Over 10,000 people turned up Saturday to watch the contest and to cool off from one of the hottest summers on record. The crowd began to buildup around 3:30PM with a large queue and police directing traffic outside the main gate to the waterpark. By 5:00PM a buzz of nervous excitement filled the air as the 21 contestants, most in their late teens, made their way from the dressing rooms to backstage.
Beach Honey ContestThe contest took a head-to-head knockout format, with 2 girls competing against one another for the attention of the judges. In the event of a tie, the audience were polled to wave either a red or green colored program in the air to show approval. One-by-one the field of 21 contestants were eliminated to 16, then down to 8 then 4 and finally 3rd place, runner up and Miss Beach Honey 2007.
For Rainbow, the journey began in March upon winning a seemingly harmless dance contest at Bonbon. Each month a number of contestants advanced to a semi final round held in July. The Grand Final event was the culmination of 6 months of dance contests in which over 250 moslty Shanghainese, but also international girls competed. Two of the 22 finalists were European though 1 returned to her home country just prior the final event.
This was the 2nd Beach Honey contest in as many years. Starting out in 2006 with a first place prize of 20,000 rmb it appears that the Beach Honey contest is a hit with teens and twenty-somethings. The contest’s tight coupling to hip hop adds to the appeal towards the young crowd and performances by local breakdance crew DragonMaster and US recording artist/actor Coolio rounded out the contest Saturday night.
The event has turned out to be a windfall of success for the organizers as well who, after a relentless media blitz (over 1M rmb) that included all of the electronic billboards on Huaihai Rd, subways, taxis, elevators, have lined up a waft of corporate sponsors for next summer’s event. The Beach Honey contest’s popularity translates to bigger prizes as well. Next year’s grand prize is 200,000 rmb cash -- double this year’s grand prize, with a total value of cash and prizes well above 300,000 rmb for next year’s winner.
In an interview prior to her winning the grand prize, Rainbow was asked what she would do if she were to win and she replied simply “ To go have a nice dessert”. Congratulations Rainbow, Miss Beach Honey 2007, and enjoy that dessert!
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