Girls' Pageants - A question

[Luv Bunnies]

We just spent a long weekend at Disneyland (flew home last night after 3 days at the park!). Yesterday and Sunday, we saw a lot of girls walking around with "Miss Pre-Teen" sashes from various states. I just looked it up, and I saw that they had their national pageant over the weekend at the Anaheim Marriott.

Here's my question: Every girl was carrying a small glass (or probably plexiglass) box that held their crown. Since I'm clueless about these pageants, I'm wondering if there's some kind of protocol? Are they required to carry their crowns everywhere they go while they're at pageants? It looked awfully cumbersome to carry a glass box at Disneyland. They had them in their laps on rides, on tables at restaurants, and I even saw a few on the bathroom floor in stalls. I also saw moms and dads holding them, seemingly waiting while the girls were on rides.

Can someone fill me in here? I'm curious as to whether carrying the crown everywhere is required by the pageant? I've never seen anything like it before. (Let's not debate little girls' pageants. I know we all have our opinions about them, but I'm just wondering about all the crowns I saw.)

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

Just a guess, but perhaps it was for photo ops.


I watched an interview with Miss America one time. She carries hers in a box when she is headed to places where she will wear it. She doesn't wear it until it is time. It is uncomfortable to wear constantly.

With the girls, there is probably the added concern of keeping it in one piece and clearly some rides are not conducive to crown/tiara wearing. But for a picture with Minnie or Mickey? My guess is that is why they are carrying them.

 

[stmo1]

I can answer this one...

I used to do pageants growing up, and I know what pageant you mean I think.
It was "National American Miss" which goes to California for their Nationals around Thanksgiving.
They are a spin-off of "American Coed Pageeants", which has their Nationals in Orlando also at Thanksgiving week.
(I was a winner at ACP and was in Orlando in 2008 for the Nationals )

(First let me say that nomatter what your opinion on pageants, both of these pageants do not allow any makeup on girls under thirteen years old, and are very serious about being age appropriate and focused on interview and public speaking...it truly is different than what many of you would think of when you hear about child pageants...and now that I am done with my commercial, lol...)

We actually had some girls who asked us where in disney we bought our crowns and sashes because they wanted to go buy those for their disney souvineers too They did not believe us when we said we did not buy them at disney, we won them!

We wear the crown and sash into the parks, and often every where we go, because the pageant likes us to do these things in our crowns and sashes for photo ops.
And I'm sure it's a little self-serving in that it also brings publicity to the pageant

For most of us, disney tickets were part of our prize package

All the pageant girls go as a group on the same day, and then some also go on their own with their families on other days.

State directors give their winners these plastic boxes for our crowns to go in. We can decorate them if we want, add our title, add sparkly stuff or stickers etc. Some girls just leave theirs plain.

The purpose is to keep them safe, it's a good place to keep them when you go on certain rides... or when they just get too heavy (for us older girls the crown is usually fine, but it's just too heavy for the little girls to wear all day- they love the sparkly crowns and they love to wear it for a while, but then after an hour to two, they want to get those crowns off!)

Do we have to bring the boxes with us? No, but they are a solid, safe place to carry a crown....Do we have to bring the crown with us? No, but if you were lucky enough to win your state's pageant that year, why wouldn't you want to? It's a lot of fun...the older girls feel like celebrities, and the little girls feel like real live princesses.

The box is not just for crowns though...here is what we usually put in them:
-crown, of course, lol
-sash, if we are on a wet ride, we will fold up the sash and put it in there too
-brochure from the pageant, because we often get asked by girls how they can be a part of the pageant too
-camera
-anything we need to freshen up looks like mirror, lip gloss, gum etc
-a couple sharpies and some small glossies or cards (I know this seems weird but we actually do get asked a lot for autographs or to pose with with people for photos! Its really fun lol )

And of course different girls put in different things...some girls use it as a purse basically, but I always kept my "purse stuff" in my purse or backpack and only put my crown, sharpies, and small glossies in mine.

If you have any other questions let me know

 

[Luv Bunnies]

I can answer this one...

I used to do pageants growing up, and I know what pageant you mean I think.
It was "National American Miss" which goes to California for their Nationals around Thanksgiving.
They are a spin-off of "American Coed Pageeants", which has their Nationals in Orlando also at Thanksgiving week.
(I was a winner at ACP and was in Orlando in 2008 for the Nationals )

(First let me say that nomatter what your opinion on pageants, both of these pageants do not allow any makeup on girls under thirteen years old, and are very serious about being age appropriate and focused on interview and public speaking...it truly is different than what many of you would think of when you hear about child pageants...and now that I am done with my commercial, lol...)

We actually had some girls who asked us where in disney we bought our crowns and sashes because they wanted to go buy those for their disney souvineers too They did not believe us when we said we did not buy them at disney, we won them!

We wear the crown and sash into the parks, and often every where we go, because the pageant likes us to do these things in our crowns and sashes for photo ops.
And I'm sure it's a little self-serving in that it also brings publicity to the pageant

For most of us, disney tickets were part of our prize package

All the pageant girls go as a group on the same day, and then some also go on their own with their families on other days.

State directors give their winners these plastic boxes for our crowns to go in. We can decorate them if we want, add our title, add sparkly stuff or stickers etc. Some girls just leave theirs plain.

The purpose is to keep them safe, it's a good place to keep them when you go on certain rides... or when they just get too heavy (for us older girls the crown is usually fine, but it's just too heavy for the little girls to wear all day- they love the sparkly crowns and they love to wear it for a while, but then after an hour to two, they want to get those crowns off!)

Do we have to bring the boxes with us? No, but they are a solid, safe place to carry a crown....Do we have to bring the crown with us? No, but if you were lucky enough to win your state's pageant that year, why wouldn't you want to? It's a lot of fun...the older girls feel like celebrities, and the little girls feel like real live princesses.

The box is not just for crowns though...here is what we usually put in them:
-crown, of course, lol
-sash, if we are on a wet ride, we will fold up the sash and put it in there too
-brochure from the pageant, because we often get asked by girls how they can be a part of the pageant too
-camera
-anything we need to freshen up looks like mirror, lip gloss, gum etc
-a couple sharpies and some small glossies or cards (I know this seems weird but we actually do get asked a lot for autographs or to pose with with people for photos! Its really fun lol )

And of course different girls put in different things...some girls use it as a purse basically, but I always kept my "purse stuff" in my purse or backpack and only put my crown, sharpies, and small glossies in mine.

If you have any other questions let me know

That totally answers my question. Thanks! We did actually see a few girls signing autographs. I don't recall seeing any girls wearing their crowns. They just carried them in the boxes. Sounds like you had a great experience in the pageant. Thanks for posting!