The initial thrills of the TVB Star Awards Malaysia promotional blitz in Penang quickly turned into a never ending session of cursing, frustrations and eye-rolling for two freaking days. Overall, lousy event execution and the extremely hostile security team worsens the situation. Two groups of celebrities were assigned to cover Ipoh, KL and Penang. Team A is made-up of Ruco Chan, Sisley Choi, Ali Lee and Lai Lok Yi (Ipoh and KL), while Team B (Elaine Yiu, Nancy Wu, Joel Chan and Ngo Ka Nin) heads to Penang island. Ali suddenly bailed due to illness and Ruco only appeared at the KL stopover. B squad is supposed to visit Armenian Street and Icon City in Bukit Mertajam on Saturday, followed by Gurney plaza on the following day. Just one look at the agenda, question marks started to fill my mind about the feasibility of holding the function at Armenian Street during this time of the year. Will the celebs be roasted under the scorching sun ??!
Armenian
Street is a hot tourist spot due to the famous murals. When the artistes arrived, it would be silly
to expect tourists and other bystanders to stand aside and just watch obediently. From the countless events I have attended,
the security this time is the worst !! They really behave like bouncers and
keep shoving the fans away, acting as if they are secret service escorting the
US president !! WTF ! They were not only damn
rude and deliberately blocked fans’ view, too. If the security is so paranoid
about fans, then don’t hold the promotion at public places ! Just organise a closed
door function will do. I thought the
whole idea of picking public places is to enable artist-fans interaction ???!
Worst of all, it didn’t seem like an event to promote the upcoming TVB Star
Awards Malaysia show. There were zero media presence except for the organizer’s
official photographers. If one had not
known better, we would have assumed the stars were there to promote Penang
tourism !
Icon City is the latest “it” place to hang out in Bukit Mertajam and the stars were supposed to visit four different cafes in the area, to fish for votes. Second
stop is Icon City and this gets even more preposterous ! I was at Sangkaya,
which is the second café the artistes are supposed to drop-by. Most of the patrons have to make reservation
in advance at these eateries. The
artistes arrived at the first café, "Clash On". We continued to patiently wait for the stars at Sangkaya….soon, the proprietress and other patrons started to get restless.
Suddenly, they broke the bad news to us and apologized profusely. Showed us a text message from the event
organiser –“ Event cancelled due to overwhelming crowd”. And they had the nerve
to inform the proprietor about ½ hour after they had left the venue. The café owners were fuming mad at the
unprofessional way the organiser had handled the whole affair. Icon City was obviously selected because of
the huge crowd. Adequate plannings and security measures should have been taken and considered before selecting these venues.
Sunday’s
event was no saving grace either. Originally, the event is supposed to be held at
the new wing extension but was changed to the main concourse, which is fine but
do they have to barricade such an enormous perimeter ? As a result, the space in
front of the stage was limited. Usually, VIP guests or the media would be given first few front rows seats. However, the media were allocated the last row of
seats instead. First row was taken up by Astro Circle winners. Some of the media
members walked to the front to get a closer/better shot of the artistes
but the brainless security shooed them away.
A few of the journalists were pretty mad at the ridiculously shabby
treatment ! U assholes security, stop treating everyone like would-be
terrorists who want to harm the TVB stars.
After
the outcry at the recent Singapore Starhub TVB Awards, I really hope that
result of the Malaysia award would be “less porky”. Elaine hoped that everyone
would vote for Kent & Kate as the favourite couple and Joel Chan for favourite supporting
actor. Ngo Kah Nin came with the “The
Unholy Alliance” members but he was actually nominated for his role in “Mind Hunter”. Aside from that, Nancy and Elaine were elated
about the inclusion of “The Sisterhood Travelling Gang” in two categories –
favourite variety program and favourite hosts.
Urging the fans to vote for the “胡說八道真情” if they wish to see Myolie,
Selena, Mandy and Paisley during the award ceremony. Joel was super nice in person and he did an
awesome job in “The unholy alliance”.
Can’t think of anyone more deserving than Joel.
