First Emcee-ing Exp

This is going to be quite a long and detailed post because I never ever want to forget this monumental day of my life. It’s really a day of new experiences and it totally changes my life.

First, I met Uly at Stadium MRT, we were really tired and supposed to think of a story for stage games afterwards but ended up not being able to think of anything. So we decided to scrap that, and discussed about the general flow of the first part of the programme.

FIRST PART

Reached Dhoby Ghaut green, Uly terrorized some more poor volunteers/ planning comm ppl. Got briefed about what to do, talked a bit, the people started streaming in. It was drizzling which wasn’t cool, but what can you do? Started off with general announcements, got them to settle down according to their waves. Did some warm-up exercises with them such as the Kallang wave (I HAD TO RUN ACROSS THE STAGE SPASTICALLY!), stretches, vocal exercises (Hey…HO, Explorally Oiiiii, Bomb-bomb). For the bomb-bomb, the losers had to do a forfeit set by the group that bombed them. The first group did a chicken dance, the second had to do 15 pushups. Poor Uly the emcee was requested to do the pushups with them while I stood by and commented. HAHA. He seemed to have a lot of fun doing so XD

Then proceeded on to the facts about Explorally Logo, some other random fun facts. Then the GOH Mr Puvan arrived, and Mr Raymond the Chief Heartware Officer came up to do his speech, then Mr Puvan, then WK and FQ for the briefing. Mr Raymond talked a bit more. He coordinated the photo-taking. By now it was raining SUPER HEAVILY. People in the tent, including me, were getting a bit drenched and splashed at. Tried to hide behind Uly so I wouldn’t get the rain so much while emceeing at the same time.

FLAG OFF TIME. Had to get everyone organized, get their score cards, wear ponchos, get ready for flag-off, remain high etc. Played music and had to jump around a bit to the music in the hopes of getting some other people to do so. Did some more vocal exercises, general announcements, got the first wave up and ready, Mr Puvan did the horning and Three Two One GO! The same went for the second to fifth wave, with 10 minutes in between the flag-offs, so had to delay and entertain them for some time. Shared some fun facts, gave them free and easy time. Mr Puvan (NE Deputy Director) was on stage and me too so I spent the 10 minutes in between for networking with him and SECURED an INTERVIEW for PROJECT WORK!! OK, that was super cool! Finished with the flagging off with everyone relatively active and enthusiastic even though there were delays and it did rain (ohh by the fourth flag-off, the rain stopped and sun came out).

REST TIME (FINALLY)

Was really glad about the first part being over and successful, and got some really good positive feedback that totally boosted my self-confidence by a lot! Really need to thank them for the encouragement and compliments. Uly and I went to the toilet and when we came out, we bumped into Alex outside Mr Bean. He was really grateful to us for keeping everyone hyped up and wanted to treat us to something, but we didn’t want anything yet so we went to outside The Cathay with him to visit a station. At that station, there was this super cool simulator on a truck. It looked like a little room with table, clock, fridge and all inside, and it was an earthquake simulator. We really wanted to try it out but it wasn’t ready yet. Went to do the fire extinguishing with CO2 instead. After that, Uly and I went to The Cathay to look at the movie timings. We felt that it was such a pity that we didn’t bring the free tickets we had gotten from Youth Entrepreneurship Symposium. Then I mentioned that Alex wanted to give us a treat right? Maybe… a movie? (I was just joking). Then Uly and I started to like the idea more and more and in the end, the task was up to me to call up Alex and be thick skinned and ask for a movie treat for the both of us. (Uly exploited the fact that I said I was going to be forever grateful to him for printing out the scripts and stuff for me). So Alex agreed to that happily, we were happy, and went to buy the tickets to Knight and Day. Went back to the Dhoby Ghaut Green tent for catered lunch, didn’t really feel like eating so just had a bit, continued learning how to play the guitar, then left for the movie at 12.55pm. Got into the theatre at about 1.05pm.

The movie was actually much better than either of us had expected. Liked all the humor injected into the scenes, there was action, there was scenery, there was a nice island that looked kind of like what our dream island would look like! The ending was really good and funny. But after the movie, we were really tired so we just sat there in the large cushy comfortable seat until we realized that we were the last people there and the clean-up auntie was waiting for us to leave. Walked back to the tents, grabbed the guitar and went to the amphitheatre at Dhoby Ghaut Green. Just lay down on the steps and rested while Uly played the guitar upside down.. felt really sleepy. Was really comfy there on the steps so we didn’t want to get up, but ultimately had to.

SECOND PART

Had to report back at 4pm, got briefed about the general flow and waited for people to get back. Got everyone settled down according to their sectors (Jurong, Sentosa, Ubin, Tekong) and got them to squeeze. Some general announcements, then started the stage games. By then everyone was kind of dead and tired from all the running around so the participation was not that good, but still good enough such that it wasn’t THAT awkward. Played guess the blank, gave out some prizes. Played air band with two groups of people. That was more well-received. Played some rock music from Uly’s iPhone, got them to pretend to play/sing/be drama. We had to join in as well to get the mood going. Then somehow everyone jumped off the stage and the band disbanded along the process. I was the only person left on stage, so I stopped it, got everyone back up and ended it. Then it was the camwhoring game where we got photographer Li Wen to stand there with his two huge cameras to take photos of the people on stage. About nine shots each. Uly and I demo-ed first (omg, doing stupid things on stage) and then got in total, about 4 groups of people up. The last group was of volunteers and they kind of gave us a heart attack. Once, after ONE TWO POSE, two guys grabbed each other’s face and pretended to kiss. And me and Uly were like Urghhhhh!!!!! Then another time, the three guys carried the last guy, walked all the way to the front of the stage, and accidentally almost dropped him off the stage. Horrifying. Luckily they caught him before he fell off. Then had the NE quiz, about 3-4 questions which didn’t go very well because almost no one wanted to come up to answer the questions. Understandable since they had a long day.

Mr Raymond came back to the event, took over our mikes and spent a bit of delaying time getting participants to come up and share their moments, while we got the results and wrote it down. Went up and announced the top 10 groups. They came up, got their medals, took photos, looked happy, and then they were DISMISSED. Volunteers had to stay back for some photo-taking session and ‘debrief’. Then we could go!

ENDING

Uly and I went to have dinner and took a long time deciding (as usual) and the fact that it was a Saturday night and everywhere was filled to the brim with people did not help. Had wanted to go to Just Acia initially but there was a super long queue. After wandering around for about half an hour, got da-baoed food and went to the amphitheatre at Dhoby Ghaut Green to eat. Met Fang Qi and her gang. Li Wen and some other planning comm people were still there and as Uly and I ate, we realized that we got our very own paparazzi in the form of Liwen the photographer who was pretending to ‘test his eyesight’ while pointing his huge camera lens at us. (Stalker! Privacy! Personal rights!). Met my mum and bro at Dhoby Ghaut MRT and we all went home after a uber fun but tiring day.

THE END

FEELINGS/ COMMENTS

I was pleasantly surprised when this whole thing started because I didn’t feel the least bit of stage fright, no heart rate increase, no sweaty palms, no anxiety or nervousness. Instead I really felt very confident, like I actually belonged on the stage in front of all the 500++ people. It’s really shocking for me cause I thought I would be totally freaked out about having to impromptu the whole thing. Instead of worrying and stressing out, I had a lot of fun, even/especially while doing the stupid stuff. I think I was really lucky that my first attempt at emcee-ing was at this kind of event, because it was more informal, so I didn’t really have to think much and just say out comments or anything that came to my mind. And mistakes would be overlooked because it is informal and an outdoors event, and the participants (students) won’t really notice any mistakes. The organizers and planning comm people were good to work with because they were friendly and encouraging, not the kind that would blame you or scold you if you made a mistake. I felt really relaxed with them, no stress. And then I was lucky that I got to work with an experienced and pro person (Uly), because if I got stuck or I needed any help on stage he could just come in and take over. And he had good ideas that we really needed at times. And there wasn’t so much responsibility on me since I had someone else to depend on which meant that I could really treat this entire thing as pure fun. And I thought it was super awesome that Uly and I kind of clicked and had a lot of fun together even though this was only the third time I talked to him in person.

FEEDBACK

+ the impromptu parts, I seemed natural and comfortable, didn’t seem like I was actively thinking about what to say next

+ I was confident enough that no one thought I was a first-timer

- the part where I was reading out a list to the participants so they knew where they were supposed to go to for their first station, pauses were either missing or not strategically placed such that many people didn’t catch what I was saying. I was reading it like an oral examination instead of communicating with the crowd. (For improvement: look at the audience after each word/ phrase during the pauses to communicate better)