Just got back from Palace Hotel. All I can say is that I survived emceeing the ASFF Welcome Dinner...just.
Anybody who has ever been an emcee knows what it's like. You prepare for all eventualities and OTHER eventualities happen. But I suppose I should be happy because on the whole, the most important things took place according to plan, as listed below.
1) The VVIP gave his speech and we didn't mispronounce or miss important parts of his name or post.
2) The dinner began on time (despite the microphone hiccup!) and ended waaaaay ahead of time...hooray for us!
3) The right tokens of appreciation went to the right VIPs.
4) The cultural performances ended on a high note, Sayang Kinabalu sung by Asmin Mudin its composer.
I won't mention the hiccups because no-one seemed to notice except for those who planned the dinner and of course, the ones who emceed the function...LOL....
The Sri Lanka footballers sat next to us and seemed to be amused, watching Henry and I trying our best to coordinate events with the sound technician, the performance people and the floor manager while keeping our cool selves together and looking elegant. Although I did sort of teeter on losing my cool when the microphones went dead and when I made faces at the technician, he began by flipping buttons and ended up pulling at wires under his consoles. Most frightening sight...SERIOUSLY. I was imagining a night without the use of microphones... was I going to shout? Or use hand signals? Oh the horror of it...! But luckily, sound was restored just in the nick of time.
The loudest table seemed to be the Bruneian footballers. Perhaps because one or two of the performances were Brunei :) National feeling was running high at their table.
And I didn't realize that boys under 15 years of age were so tall....especially the Chinese.
Wonder what will be in store during the Farewell Dinner. Yes, I'll be emceeing that one too. But with Henry as a partner, I'm not worried. The best partner an emcee can have is one who keeps his cool no matter what and laughs at just the right times. Oh and says,"Let's have coffee!" when things get a bit too tense!
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