The Miss Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­verse Pageant will this year fea­ture new and ex­cit­ing el­e­ments that in­clude a re­al­i­ty tele­vi­sion se­ries, game chal­lenges and a fash­ion ex­trav­a­gan­za at the fi­nal.

Screen­ing for the com­pe­ti­tion takes place at the Hilton Trinidad, St Ann's on Ju­ly 6 and 7 from 9 am to 3 pm and 9 am to noon re­spec­tive­ly. Twen­ty con­tes­tants will be se­lect­ed to com­pete in the lead-up se­ries of events to­wards the fi­nal on Sep­tem­ber 7.

Af­ter pro­duc­ing the pageant for the first time last year, the team from Tribe Car­ni­val led by Dean Ackin is ready to move away from the tra­di­tion­al pageant style and in­tro­duce a new con­cept for the brand and show.

The changes have been ap­proved by the Miss Uni­verse In­ter­na­tion­al In­cor­po­rat­ed who liked the ideas put for­ward by Tribe.

The con­tes­tants will par­tic­i­pate in a se­ries of chal­lenges. Each chal­lenge will re­sult in the elim­i­na­tion of one or two com­peti­tors. There will be four chal­lenges, the first three be­ing; a pho­to shoot on lo­ca­tion at and in tan­dem with the shoot for Tribe's 2014 pre­sen­ta­tion. Con­tes­tants who per­form the best here will move for­ward.

For the sec­ond chal­lenge con­tes­tants will be test­ed on skills learned in the train­ing ses­sions for in­ter­views, walk­ing, pos­ture, move­ment, phys­i­cal fit­ness and oth­er ar­eas. The third chal­lenge is based on a char­i­ty project that the par­tic­i­pants will be en­gaged in.

The last chal­lenge will be in­cor­prat­ed in­to the fi­nal night when con­tes­tants will have to put the train­ing they re­ceived in hair, make­up and fash­ion to the test. The fi­nal will take the form of a fash­ion and beau­ty show. The aim is to de­part from the tra­di­tion­al and trans­form the Miss Trinidad and To­ba­go Uni­verse in­to an in­ter­ac­tive event.

The chal­lenges and oth­er prepa­ra­tions will be filmed to cre­ate a re­al­i­ty tele­vi­sion se­ries to air in the month lead­ing up to the pageant fi­nal. This will al­low the pub­lic to get to know the con­tes­tants and to de­cide which one they will root for on the fi­nal night. This TV se­ries is de­signed to cre­ate ex­cite­ment and al­so to drum up greater sup­port for the even­tu­al win­ner who will rep­re­sent T&T at the In­ter­na­tion­al Miss Uni­verse Pageant in Moscow on No­vem­ber 9.

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