Party in the Street

The pre-Molson Indy street party on John street

With the Molson Indy just around the corner. Molson (canadian beer company) closed off part of John street just south of CityTV to put on a street party. The main area of activities was fenced off to keep the beer drinkers in and the under aged kids out. On display there were some cars, girls standing in front or along side the cars, girls serving beer, girls serving food, and just girls with Molson Canadian labeled shirts.

One of the activities offered was allowing a person to see how fast he or she could change tires using a power wrench that one might find in a pit at the race track. There were two setups so you could race someone else. I wonder if people did this for drinks? It would be interesting to see a power wrench in a person's drunken hand. Maybe not.

In the middle of the street in front of the Lucid lounge a stage was set up for some pre show musical talent, prize give aways, Salad (a feature band), and of course a Molson Indy Girl talent search. Translation: Girls in Bikinis. For the most part the street in front of the stage wasn't too crowded. At around 8:30pm about a half hour before the "girls" came on the crowd started to gather. While looking for Simon and waiting I met a few other photographers. Some pro some hobbyists.

I found out through these guys that this model search had been going on for the last month. The girls had been weeded out down to these last few. These were the cream of the crop. The search had taken place at a bunch of various bars through out the month of June. Some of the photographers were showing pictures of their work from the previous venues. It gave me inspiration. If these guys can get work on a regular basis then why can't I?

The girls would eventually parade out in Molson Indy Red and blck and white checkered bikinis. Following that they would change, show up on stage in some themed bikini garb (Baywatch suimsuit) with music that they picked out themselves giving the judges and watchers a sample of their character.


contestant number 9 - Dawne Furey with her "Surfer Girl" theme.

Doing some research later I found that the bathing suit that each girl wore was something they had to buy or own already. Also they had to apply their own makeup and buy their own shoes. The shoes actually had to meet a corporate level of shoe critria. There's actually a web site that has examples of good shoes and bad shoes (drat the site has been updated and the shoe section taken off otherwise you would have seen a link for it here). One would think that if a girl wore bad shoes (and people noticed) that would give her lower points on her final score.

Also after shooting a fashion show I would have thought that there would have been make up artists for a contest like this. It could be that the judges want to know the girls personality through their application of makeup but I think it's just a way for them to be cost effective. Then again good make up and wardrobe can improve one's attractivness and I suppose if the girl didn't know how to do either, well, she could end up with a pretty low overall score. So okay no help from external sources.

Girls that have no shoe sense? For some reason I can't imagine this but hey you never know. It's good to know that a beer company sets a standard for things like this. Because if a beer company doesn't set these standards who will? (He says with a sheepish grin)

At the end of the day I don't drink beer (of any sort-too gaseous) but if invited to a party will gladly buy a pack for friends that do (provided they request it) and what name will I think of? Molson Canadian of course. Those beer guys know what they're doing.