50th Mutya ng Pilipinas Pageant

2018 is a year of many firsts for Stratminds. For the first time ever, we’re commissioned by the country’s prime beauty pageant organization, Mutya ng Pilipinas, to be their official event organizer in partnership with Saga Events. We couldn’t be more honored to be part of their 50th year.

It is true that the journey to the crown is never easy. It’s not always about the glitz and the glam, nor the perfect gown and hair. It’s the tireless days of rehearsing, shooting, and rehearsing again to give the audience a flawless show that truly counts. This goes the same way for the people behind the pageantry. The village, the organizers, the production team. This year, the pageant organization went through a transformation – an overhaul of the whole pageant scene which we translated to the event proper. It is no secret that Mutya’s 50th year has a fresher, younger, and exciting take on the pageant show.

We treated the pre-pageant competitions as a show that puts the creations of the designers to the limelight. The production design for each of the events were made sure to be consistent: a golden look that was owned by Mutya ng Pilipinas. Even the lighting for all the events had a consistent design which gave all the events – Press Presentation, Pre-pageant competitions, Grand Coronation Night – a cohesive look. We have successfully achieved this all thanks to our event suppliers and collaborators.

One of the major challenges the event organizers had to face was the setup for the Grand Coronation Night. Besides the fact that we have a massive stage, there was concert the night before the event. This means our setup team had a limited time to ingress and to polish the setup. Instead of thinking that the setup was doomed, the setup team compromised and collaborated with the suppliers of the event before us.

Pageant fans always look forward to the grand opening performance because how you start defines the Grand Coronation Night. We took this as a challenge and succeeded in giving a smooth, entertaining, yet classy performance from the candidates. Another major challenge that we had was creating a program that’s fit for both live event and delayed telecast on TV. We want to drift away from the usual formula of having an actual gap on live event. The audience do not deserve to wait and anticipate for what’s next. So, we treated the event as if we’re live on TV. We timed everything for the telecast: commercials, costume changes, spiels, awarding, just to make sure we don’t have any breaks during the live event. By doing so, editing was limited and there were no segments needed to be removed for the airtime.

One thing to note was that unlike the previous pageants, this year had no special guest performers. Mutya ng Pilipinas webisodes were utilized in the program not mainly to buy us time for quick changes, but to give the audience a peek of the candidates’ adventures. Each step was calculated to ensure that we follow our own expectations. When you collaborate with the right people, everything is surely possible. So, expect more event collaborations for 2019.