Feb 23 – Mrs Gibraltar Prepares For Its Third Edition With A Strong Commitment To Charity Work
The recruitment process for the Mrs Gibraltar contest started recently. The organisers, Ideal Productions, are keen to emphasise their important focus on charity as they prepare for the third edition of this competition. We spoke to Mark Andrades to find out more…
Mark mentions how the event has now firmly established itself in the Rock’s entertainment calendar. He welcomes the fact that people know more about Mrs Gibraltar and Mr Gibraltar – for a start, it makes his job much easier when looking for sponsors.
“The first year I had to knock on a lot of doors to persuade sponsors and people holding events to get involved. Last year I did that a little less but this year people are approaching us which is great,” he says.
This year, in order to make things run more efficiently, both competitions are running concurrently and the big nights take place on the same weekend: 14th July for Mr Gibraltar and 15th for Mrs Gibraltar.
Mark looks forward to creating another unique show but doesn’t give too much away: “The theme this year is going to be related to Gibraltar and it’s going to be very entertaining and spectacular.”
He adds: “We’re the kind of people who, if it isn’t 100%, we don’t do the show.”
Although it’s still early days, he reveals that about four potential contestants seem willing to sign up for a challenging but hugely enjoyable few months. If last year is anything to go by, they’ll be busy doing photoshoots and even taking part in police dog displays.
One change this year is that only one charity will be supported by the contestants, as opposed to previous years where each contestant supported a different cause.
Mark says that he is keen to correct the mistaken impression that the Mr and Mrs Gibraltar contests are just typical pageants which focus solely on physical beauty.
He says: “That’s one thing I don’t like about Gibraltar – when people ask why we need so many pageants. A pageant might be done to make money or just for the sake of doing it but ours involves hard work on behalf of charities. Some of the charities we work with had a record year last year because the Mr and Mrs Gibraltar candidates and winners helped out.”
In fact, he says that Ideal Productions don’t see themselves as producing a pageant at all but prefer the term “forum” – a place where “people can come together and speak about their experiences.” One example was last year’s focus on challenging topics like domestic violence.
He concludes by saying that the competitions are also good for the contestants’ personal development. He sees people join up who then go on to learn about themselves:
“They become role models,” he explains.
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