Steve Harvey gaffe at the Miss Universe Pageant was not what it seemed
Being in the event world and putting such an emphasis on MC’ing with my DJs, the Steve Harvey moment at the Miss Universe pageant last night seemed to be, on the surface, a very teachable moment for my crew. Steve had to have known this was the one thing to get right. How do you not take the 30-60 seconds to look at the cards and prepare before announcing the winner to millions watching on TV? Although it’s a on a much smaller scale, wedding party introductions carry the same type of magnitude. We spend the first half of our DJ training course on this specific area.
But that’s where this particular story shifts. As much as “live” TV tries to sell the general public that it is indeed live, those of us in the production world know nothing is left to chance on these sorts of things. It is always mapped out, especially when millions of people are tuned in. Think of any award show you have watched. Do the producers and directors let the host or presenters free-style? Of course not! It is scripted and placed on a teleprompter for them to read. So where I am going with this?
In an industry that demands I stay up on all the latest social media platforms, I stay connected to them all. If you’re not on Snapchat, then you may not have seen one of the snaps in the “Miss Universe” story. Steve Harvey was caught on video talking to the producers saying that the prompter showed “Miss Universe – Colombia”. Interesting enough when I went back this morning to look for it, that snap was deleted! Luckily, the web keeps all this stuff and I found the snap.
If this snap is indeed accurate, I give Steve Harvey a ton of credit. It would have been so easy to throw the production crew under the bus. Yet, he put it on himself. As MCs in the event field, we can take a cue from Steve on this. How many times does a bride/groom switch the wedding party order last minute or the planner calls an audible or a father of the bride demands we switch a song that will kill the dance floor? Do we blame someone else (though we’d have every right to) or do we take it on the chin and make it work. I’ll always go with the latter. Your thoughts? How would you have handled this?