Merrie Monarch 2009 Kudos

Now that I’ve recovered from the 2009 Merrie Monarch Festival I thought it would be a good time to appreciate those who were part of the great event.

First thanks to all of the halau who put in many tireless hours of practice. It seems as though the performances get better every year.

Thank you to those who put on the Merrie Monarch Festival. It was great to see founders Aunty Dottie Thompson and Uncle George Naope attend the final night. A big mahalo to Thompson’s daughter Luana who now runs the festival.

The crew behind the scenes that scrambled to put on the broadcast, in HD for the first time. KITV Engineering Director Rodney Shimabukuro was everywhere.

The broadcast talent was great as always, but here is where I really wanted to go. The biggest thanks and my amazement goes to KITV’s Paula Akana. Paula lost her father one week before the Merrie Monarch broadcast started.

She is made of sterner stuff than most. Despite her tragic loss, she managed to finish putting her Best of Merrie Monarch and Backstage at the Merrie Monarch shows together in the days after her father’s death. She then went on to show her professionalism by hosting the festival for six hours plus a night.

Paula has kept her pain private and is obviously still grieving, but she felt she couldn’t let down the public or the station by stepping down from the Merrie Monarch Festival broadcast. Send your thoughts, prayers and aloha.

Recovering From Merrie Monarch

The Merrie Monarch Festival is over and I’m recovering from posting livestreams, videos, stories and stats.

We had thousands of people visit KITV.com for the festival from all around the world. We receive dozens of e-mails from people who watch the event online.

“Our Hawaiian club, Hui o Hawai’i, at Stanford has been watching online together for the past two nights. It’s been great to be able to bring a piece of home here to California while we are away at school. We want to send our aloha to all our ‘ohana and friends at home. Mahalo.”

“Expat local here and I just wanted to say that I’m watching from Italy.  I had no idea that there was an online version, so it was nice to be tipped off by a kama’aina!”

“How lucky we feel to be sharing in this beautiful evening of hula and mele.  Last night was wonderful (and of course Miss Aloha Hula night) and tonight is starting out  so colorful, lyrical, and energetic.   Another 4am night,.. and we wish there were more nights to follow.”

 

Not everyone who wrote in was happy. Some couldn’t get the livestream to work and others couldn’t get audio. I apologize. We are working each year to improve the system.

We have another 12 months to work out more of our kinks.

Aloha-

Brent

Aloha Dancers; It’s Merrie Monarch Time

The 45th Merrie Monarch Festival is in full swing. Last night, KITV broadcasted the Miss Aloha Hula competition.

It is a huge feat to coordinate everything. We have crews in Hilo and back here we have our head engineer monitoring the broadcast.

I’m in charge of the live video stream. I’m constantly monitoring the feed and fielding questions from viewers from all parts of the world about how to watch or helping them troubleshoot their problems.

It always amazes me to see where people watch from. Last night we had viewers from Italy, Thailand, Mexico, Japan and of course all over the nation.

We have Hawaii club members at colleges getting together and watch until the dawn for some of them.

Some West Coast residents get together for a luau on Saturdays.

It’s our effort to bring a bit of the islands to everyone. We hope you enjoy it.

- Brent