KUCHING: Two Sarawakians made it to the Top 100 of the Astro Hua Hee Karaoke contest during the audition stage held at Premier 101 on Sunday night.
Lai Ming Kong, 25, and Kelly Ho, 17, are no strangers to the contest as they have auditioned before. Lai of Kuching was finally selected on his second attempt, while for Ho, from Bintulu, it was her fourth. There were eight participants in the audition.
The annual contest’s 8th edition hopes to capture more non-Chinese participants as they only need to know how to sing in Hokkien dialect, said one of the show’s judges, Vincs Huang, at a press conference on Sunday night.
“We are going to various locations in Malaysia to find the new Hokkien singing sensation. We will pick 100 from the auditions and from there we will choose 40, then 20 and the final eight. During the stages, a studio audience gets to vote for their favourite contestants while for the final, home viewers get to vote as well since it will be a ‘live’ show,” said Huang.
“When the participants are short-listed to the Top 20, they will be groomed in performance, dance and stage confidence, as well as given singing tips.”
The scoring in judging is 50 per cent by the judges and 50 per cent by the audience. Prior to the audition here, it was held in Kota Kinabalu where five made it to the Top 100, including a Malay man in his 50s.
The audition was conducted with Chanice Tan and Eng Yee Min as hosts, Huang, Xiao Miao and Wong Cheun Meng as judges.
The contest is open to everyone with no age limit.
The audition will move on to several locations in West Malaysia next.
The contest will be aired from May 31 onwards, every Sunday at 8.30pm on Astro Hua Hee Dai (Channel 333 and HD Channel 332).