KYT Summer TV Line-Up Fest

(Miss Devil.)

It's the season for the local TV stations to announce their new Summer line-ups. KTS had their event two weeks ago, and now it's KYT's turn. At about Tuesday the week before, the workers started putting up the stage and the food booths, but there wasn't anything saying what everything was for. So, I was left guessing as to what the event was, and really hoping that the Kagoshima Music Fest hadn't been moved forward 2 weeks. Part of the confusion was that Dai Hanya, the big yosakoi dance fest and contest, would be on the same weekend, and they'd traditionally had some of their overflow dances held in Central Park. I didn't think these booths had anything to do with Dai Hanya, but I had no idea what else it could be.



Finally, on Friday, the workers had the walls set up with the TV show ads, and I could tell this was going to be for KYT. Fortunately, they also had the schedule on one of the panels, so I knew what the stage shows were going to be. Unfortunately, it was almost all advertising for the new shows, or the KYT TV hosts talking to each other. Very boring.



I had classes from 1-3 PM on Saturday, then a break and my final class at 7 PM.  I got out of the apartment right around 12:15, which gave me a couple minutes to swing by the park on my way to the school. Pictured above is the ninja version of the KYT TV mascot.



There were maybe 100-200 people at the time. The weather was good, and Golden Week was just starting, so families were out in force.



There were a lot of children's activities, including ball bumping.



Over at Tenmonkan, in front of Lotteria, we had an overflow space.



The overflow space included a practice set for children wanting to pretend to be a news anchor. There weren't many people early in the afternoon, but the place became a lot more crowded a few hours later.



Activities included making colored sand sculptures in a bottle.



And coloring in kids' book pages.



This balloon version of flying carp banners caught my eye.



I spent the majority of my break on Saturday down at Dolphin Port, watching Dai Hanya, and then shopping for milk for the week and having to bring that back to the apartment before the one evening class. The one time I was in Central Park, the only thing going on at the stage was a broadcast of the show hosts wandering around the food booths and pretending that the fast foods were worth the price mark-ups.



On Sunday, I swung by Central Park again on my way to Dolphin Port. I got in at about 2:30 PM, when there was supposed to be 90 minutes of live music hosted by Walk-In Studio. The schedule didn't show who was going to play, and when I arrived, one of the studio's staff was doing a sound check on the drums.

 

I figured I'd stick around long enough to see who the first group would be, and I took a few pictures of the drummer to have something to do. After a few minutes, one of the event staff walked up to me and said "no photos." Rather than bother getting angry with the guy, I simply left then and there, because I knew I'd be getting 3 solid hours of music and dancing at Dai Hanya.  Which I did. And believe me, I had a lot more fun at that than I ever would have at the KYT TV event. The crowds were bigger for Dai Hanya, too. In your face, KYT.