Miss World pageant looks at Rio for 2000

Miss World won't be crowned in Las Vegas this year.

But the world's most popular beauty pageant, watched annually by more than 1.1 billion people worldwide, is still negotiating to come to the city in 2000.

David Altman, president of Miss World-USA, said pageant administrators are in talks with representatives of the Rio hotel-casino in Las Vegas to stage the event and a preliminary pageant.

The 49-year-old pageant features 89 contestants from 89 countries competing for $100,000 and the opportunity for modeling contracts.

The pageant recently has been conducted in the Seychelles, a tropical island chain in the Indian Ocean off the east African coast. This year, the show is scheduled to be in London on Dec. 4.

"We are completely committed to producing this event from Las Vegas," Altman said. "The only reason we aren't able to do it this year is that satellite broadcast time is committed for the last two months of the year.

"There are so many big events in Las Vegas that we sort of got pre-empted."

Altman said he prides himself in being a good advance planner, but the impact of Millennium events on television, the heavy holiday schedule and the numerous bookings of events and major conferences in the last two months of the year in Las Vegas even caught him by surprise.

"It was like we'd check on one date and found there was going to be a boxing match, so we couldn't do it, then we'd check another date and found something else on the calendar and couldn't do it," Altman said.

"The show's producer, Initial (Productions), is in London and they have some other productions in December so we just decided to do it there this year. We always kept our options open to do the show from London. Frankly, I'm relieved. But we love Las Vegas. We think it's the natural home for this event."

Pre-Millennium time slots on television were acquired by sponsors as early as six or seven years ago, Altman said.

Mimosa Jones, president of the non-profit Entertainment Development Corp. of Las Vegas, said the pageant's timetable turned out to be too tight to arrange a move this year. Altman credited Jones and the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority with bringing the pageant management together with the city.

Altman said the pageant now plans to schedule the event in the summer of 2000 instead of the end of the year.

November and December calendars have gotten more crowded in Las Vegas. In addition to having to work around holiday broadcast production schedules, Las Vegas is home to the nationally broadcast National Finals Rodeo in December and city's largest convention, Comdex, in November.

Altman said pageant organizers also are making plans to conduct a preliminary event to Miss World at the Rio every year. The Miss World-USA pageant brings contestants from across the United States together to compete for the right to represent the country in the Miss World pageant.

Specific dates when the pageants could be conducted and what venues could be used at the Rio haven't been determined.

A spokeswoman for the Rio confirmed that there have been preliminary talks with the pageant organizers, but that an agreement is far from complete. Tyri Squires said there are no details available on dates or venues.

Plans for moving the pageant originally were announced in March. At the time, pageant officials said they hoped to stage the first show this fall.

Initially, the pageant was considering dates in October, November or December for the show in the MGM Grand Garden. Talks broke off between the MGM Grand hotel-casino and the pageant. A representative of the MGM Grand could not be reached for comment.

Jones said the primary benefit to Las Vegas would be the worldwide exposure the event generates. The show is broadcast to about 130 countries worldwide.

About 16,000 people would travel to the city as participants or organizers of the show.

Media exposure of the pageant is expected to be enhanced with a behind-the-scenes program about pageant participants. Jones said the pageant already has a contract with the E! network and Altman said an announcement is planned later this month on which network will televise the show itself.

archive