Festival Pageants
For your first pageant, start small. Pageantry is no different than sports. A high school coach would never consider putting one of his players in the Super Bowl game for their first time on the field. Same thing goes for pageantry. Before you start investing in all the equipment for this hobby sport, you need to find out if you like the environment.
For beginners, look for pageants that are free or have a small entry fee such as festival pageants. My mom borrowed everything I wore in my first festival pageant from my older cousin. It didn’t cost us a penny.
Smaller festival pageants usually last a few hours because they are just one of the many events included in the community celebration. Up dos and prom style hair is what you will see at festivals along with ball gown. There’s no overnight hotel expense or event tickets you need to purchase. For most festival pageants, you’ll arrive at the festival wearing your gown. When you check in, you’ll receive your contestant number.
If interview is part of the pageant, you will have it shortly after all the contestants have arrived. After interview, they will have the contestants introduce themselves onstage (usually on an outdoor stage so everyone at the festival can watch), do a short little modeling walk and possibly answer one more question in front of the crowd. Then the queen and her court are crowned. End of the event.
The one thing you will want to check out is how many parades the festival queen and her court are required to ride in for the year. In festivals, the entire court makes appearances, not just the queen. Festivals take place on weekends. If your family has many activities on the weekend, a better option would be to find a small pageant that doesn’t require any appearances after the crowning moment.
To find festival pageants, search the internet using the words “festivals in (insert your state)” For example, here in Ohio we have the Ohio Festivals and Events Association. When you go to this website, it has all the information listed for about fifty plus festivals around Ohio. The Department of Tourism for your state would also be a good place to find listing of the festivals. The best way to find out about smaller pageants is to go to a larger pageant and ask the contestants and their families what other pageants they can recommend.
