Out of about 1,000 youths who thronged the Oakland Hotel in Enugu to show their skills and win the title “The People’s Hero” and a grand prize of N7 million, only 11 have emerged to contest at the live shows in Lagos from this month.
The 11 were selected from 24 participants that had qualified from the first stage of the audition. It was a keenly contested audition as there were group and solo performances across all classes before the judges could settle for the top 11. And just like the judges had a tough time settling for top 20 at the previous audition, the judges could not limit their choices to 10 as initially planned because they are talents that cannot be denied the opportunity to vie for the title of The People’s Hero
The auditions continued in Owerri last Saturday and 24 contestants from another 1,000 hopeful made it to the second stage of the auditions. The contestants have survived the pre-selection stage and the judges have found them worthy to proceed to the next stage of the auditions. The 24 include four spoken word artists, seven singers, eight dancers and five actors. The Owerri 24 will go through another round of auditions for the final nine to emerge and join Enugu finalists in the house.
Encouraging the disqualified participants, Marc Swagz, one of the judges and an on-air personality told the them not to regard their disqualification as the end of their dream. He urged them to return to base and improve on their skills. Another judge, Tobechukwu Ejiofor aka Illbliss, also said the competition must be stiff as whoever emerges the People’s Hero must be acknowledged by the world in his or her craft.
The eleven participants are made up of three dancers, two actors, three spoken word artists and three singers. They will slug it out with the next nine participants who will emerge from Owerri auditions happening next week.
An initiative of Hero Lager Beer, The Peoples’ Hero seeks to identify best of talents in singing, dancing, spoken word and acting in the Southeast and South-south regions of Nigeria and to reward the winner with a grand prize of N7 million and consolation prizes of N2 million and N1 million for the first and second runner up.