In four days time a new Miss Guyana/Universe will be crowned in what is expected to be one of the most spectacular pageants staged at the National Cultural Centre.

The members of this year's Miss Guyana/Universe committee have put their heads together and come up with innovative ideas, which are making the event 'one of a kind'. The pageant is being held under the theme `The Quest'. While everything so far has not turned out the way the committee would have planned, one being the swimsuit competition held last Sunday, the ideas were fresh.

Yesterday, the committee held a media briefing at the Waterchris Hotel on Waterloo Street which was shared by the franchise holder, Odinga Lumumba and other committee members along with Miss Universe 1999, Mpule Kwelagobe of Botswana; first runner-up in last year's Miss USA contest, Liane Angus and other persons from abroad, who the committee has invited to assist in the preparation of the grand event.

One of the new ideas that this year's committee has introduced is holding the swimsuit and intelligence competitions of the pageant prior to the crowning finale. The scores for these two segments are not being made public before the night of the pageant and the idea is a good one as it means the crowning night would not be unduly long.

The intelligence segment of the pageant was to have been held last night between 8 pm and 9:30 pm on GTV 11 with Walter Green as the moderator. The contestants were expected to select their questions from a bag.

Lumumba said that the scores from the swimsuit and intelligence contests are being kept by the chief judges for those segments and come Saturday they would be presented to the Ram & McRae accounting firm to be audited and all the judges would compare the scores with their notes to ensure that the figures were not tampered with. The names of the judges for last night's segment were to be made public just before the event, but the chief judge for the swimsuit competition was Kwelagobe.

On the night of the pageant the delegates would be judged in two segments, their introduction and evening gowns, after which, there would be a 15-minute intermission, during which the scores would be tallied and the five finalists selected. The lucky quintet will then all be asked the same question and the scores from this segment will determine the final ranking.

The stage setting for Saturday night is expected to be something indigenous - indications are that its theme would deal with the rainforest -- and the reigning Miss Guyana/Universe, Morvinia Sobers, who was crowned in 1999, is expected to play a role.

The event on Saturday night is expected to last three hours and Lumumba said that it would begin at 7 pm sharp. The night's proceedings are expected to be spiced with performances from foreign and local artists and an international fashion show.

The franchise holder said yesterday that tickets were "going fast" and it is expected that the National Cultural Centre would be packed on Saturday night.

Questioned about the national costume that the queen would be required to take to Puerto Rico for the Miss Universe contest, Lumumba said that the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sport would pay for it. After the contest, pageant designers would be invited to come up with ideas and based on these one of them would be selected.

Lumumba said that every commitment his pageant committee made would be fulfilled and he acknowledged that some might not be to perfection, but promised that next year would be better.

Referring to the swimsuit contest held at Splashmin's Fun Park and Resort on Sunday, the franchise holder described it as being "a little unfortunate... I think it was grand and I think it was lovely. There was a little problem with the sound system, but that couldn't be predicted. It was a technical problem that had to be sorted out." He contended that the sound system did not destroy the concept of the swimsuit competition as the emphasis was not on speech but on the movement of the ladies' bodies and not hearing them would not have affected the judges' scoring.

The paying audience at Splashmins had however gone there to hear what contestants were saying and many left dissatisfied.

Guyanese were urged to move beyond heckling and booing the delegates while they were on stage as this tended to throw them off their routine. This was evident at last Sunday's event and at many previous pageants.