Miss Hong Kong Pageant - Recruitment

Recruitment

All participants have to have a Hong Kong ID or be born in Hong Kong (with a valid birth certificate). The age requirement is 17-27 as of 2011, though the upper age was previously up to 25. It should be noted that early contestants, such as Deborah Moore competed at as young age as 16. While there has been other Miss Hong Kong pageants in prior years producing notable titleholders such as Judy Dann (1951), Virginia June Lee (1953), Michelle Mok (1958), Laura da Costa (1967) and Mabel Hawkett (1970), the current annual TVB pageant began in 1973. Apart from the top prize winner, first runner-up and second runner-up prizes, the pageant also has other consolation prizes that vary slightly from year to year. Many Miss Hong Kong contestants have gone on to have movie careers as it is quite typical for the top contestants to garner television contracts from TVB.

• Overseas Recruitment: Applications are available in New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, any TVB rental store in the US, Fairchild TV station, Ontario, Richmond, British Columbia, and any TVB rental store in Canada. Delegates have to send in their applications before the deadline. TVB, organizers of the pageant travel to cities in the US and Canada. They include: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Toronto, and Vancouver. TVB would choose a certain amount of delegates to interview and would call them to interview. Besides personal interviews, delegates have to wear swimsuits chosen by themselves and walk around in it. Delegates are chosen and return to Hong Kong in late May to compete.
• Local Recruitment: Hong Kong. Applications are available in Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, United Kingdom, and Europe. Delegates have to send in their applications before the deadline. Weeks later, primary and secondary interviews are conducted. Top interviewed finalists are chosen and they record a reality TV show (like 2006) to choose the deserving semifinalists to compete. They joined the overseas delegates to form the top event finalists.

The pageant is traditionally televised into two events, although this is not always necessarily the case in recent years. First, a preliminary event is held where 12 finalists are selected from a group of candidates, the number of which is usually around 20-25 (with 30 being the maximum). Then a final event is held, culminating in the announcement of the winner and the first and second runner-ups from the 12 finalists. In some years, the field is narrowed down to a final 5, from which the runner-ups and winner are chosen. Often several contestants dropped out of the pageant before the televised preliminary, thus there would be a candidate with #30 assigned to her, but only 25 or so contestants.