Chapter 494 - A compilation of Guo Degangs crosstalks! (1/2)
Chapter 494: A compilation of Guo Degang's crosstalks!
The next day.
That afternoon, at Central TV's compet.i.tion grounds.
Today's recording location was a different set, not at the original, small recording studio they had previously been in. The location had been changed to a hall in the bas.e.m.e.nt that took up two levels, or you could say that it was more like an auditorium. All in all, it could accommodate an audience of about 2000 to 3000 people. This location was usually reserved for smaller scale gala events, but it had been reserved for the National Crosstalk Compet.i.tion today. As the compet.i.tion had reached the third and final round of preliminaries, all the teams had gathered here for the live internet broadcast. Those who pa.s.sed the first two preliminary rounds would draw lots to decide their order of appearance. This was why the last round would take longer than usual, as there were a hundred teams scheduled to perform. The estimated period of time for this final round was slated to last about three days.
The auditorium was filled to the brim with audience members.
Seated in the front row were some of the leaders from Central TV, the Crosstalk a.s.sociation's President, members of the Folk Arts world, and even some of the judges. Tang Dazhang and Xu Wenxiang were amongst those seated in front.
”Little Tang.”
”Master Xu.”
”Your two disciples are quite good.”
”Hur hur, they aren't quite there yet. They will still need a lot more practice.”
Many crosstalk actors were chatting amongst themselves as well.
An area had been set off to the side specially for the qualifying 500 teams of the first round, in which Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai were a part of.
The seats behind them and on the second level were made up of random people, whether they were fellow crosstalk actors, media, or staff from other agencies. There were also some lucky winners from the Weibo-held lucky draw and others who had gotten the tickets, as well as employees from sponsors.h.i.+p companies. They made up 80% of the audience and numbered in the thousands.
”I'm so looking forward to this!”
”Who do you like the most out of everyone?”
”Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai of course!”
”Haha, I like their crosstalk too. It's really good!”
”But looks like they will have some trouble today. The authorities had already warned them and their fellow actors are also boycotting them. Even the organizers have issued an ultimatum against them, so I wonder how they will perform today.”
”At yesterday's crosstalk conference, I heard they listed out Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai's '7 Deadly Sins'. They also said that Zhang Ye kept using the term 'father' to insult Yao Jiancai and his constant use of swear words. That bunch of people is really good at distorting the facts. I think that they're just jealous!”
”Will they continue their vulgar style of crosstalk, or will they compromise with an educational one? Teacher Zhang Ye and Teacher Yao Jiancai have probably already made their choice.”
In the middle row, Tian Bin had also gotten his hands on some tickets as a radio host of Central TV to watch his old colleague perform.
On-stage.
The hosts had appeared and they were a male and female duo.
”Leaders, guests, and members of the audience. Good afternoon to everyone of you!”
The first segment for today's show will be to reveal the second preliminary round's vote tally. Among the 500 teams, the top 100 teams would advance to the final round of preliminaries.
After a bunch of introductions and encouraging words, the results were finally revealed!
Coming in First Place: Team Nameless with a total of 1.28 million votes!
When this figure was shown, everyone in the auditorium drew in a cold breath of air!
Everyone was no longer interested in the vote numbers of the final 99 teams. The suspense had already been lost as the second ranked team had only garnered 31,000 votes, with the following teams getting 25,000, 9,000, 8,925 and 6,700....These figures were not noticed by anyone at all! The nameless team's votes had surpa.s.sed all of their votes added together by multiple times, so there wasn't anything to play for at all! Actually, in the past years, no team had gotten such low vote numbers before. They would at least score 80-90,000 votes or even 100,000 votes for the good performances, but this year, Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai were too good for the others. They hogged all the attention and votes for themselves and left almost nothing for their compet.i.tors to sc.r.a.pe off!
The whole set was filled with discussion.
Everyone knew Team Nameless was Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai’s team.
But the hosts made no mention of first place and their introduction t.i.tle only flashed for a second before disappearing. The hosts directly moved on to announcing the qualifying teams for the third preliminary round without mentioning Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai's names. They had skipped past them without a second thought. They could take part in the compet.i.tion, but Central TV Department 11 would not give them any promotions or airtime at all.
Half an hour later, the lottery draw for their scheduled appearances began.
On the right side of the seating area, Yao Jiancai turned slightly and whispered, ”It'd be better if we get to go early?”
”Yes.” Zhang Ye smiled, ”For today's performance, I think it's the best if we can go first.”
Yao Jiancai said, ”Yea, if it happens too late, then I'm afraid we won't even have the chance to perform. If we get scheduled for the third day, the crosstalk world members might even try to create issues for us and cause the program team to disqualify us.”
Zhang Ye squinted a little and said, ”Let's leave it to luck. It's the best if we can go first.”
His words had just stopped when the number on the big screen located on the stage came to a stop. Seeing the number it stopped left many people stunned.
The female host hesitated for a moment before announcing the number, ”The first scheduled performance will be by Division C, #8.”
They did not announce their names, but everyone knew. This was Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai's team number!
Yao Jiancai slapped his thigh loudly and smiled, ”Great one, old bro. We're starting the show? That suits me just fine. Haha, why do I feel that our luck has been extremely good these past two days?”
Zhang Ye knew that it wasn't exactly down to luck, but due to his activation of the ”skill” -- Lowering of Difficulty.
Over on the other side, the staff quickly looked for the two of them, ”Both of you, please go backstage and prepare.” Although the lottery draw was still going until all 100 teams appearance orders were decided, the first team still had to start preparing beforehand.
And so, with everyone's eyes on them, Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai proceeded to go backstage.
......
At the side of the stage.
A meeting was being held in the studio.
The program team's in-charge said, ”I will say it again! There must absolutely be no mistakes today! The SARFT has already given our crosstalk compet.i.tion a very stern warning! If we continue to broadcast anymore footage of a banned artist, we will all be left jobless, so all of you better get serious!”
”Understood.”
”Don't worry about it this time.”
Someone said, ”Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai will be appearing first, so shall we?”
The person-in-charge and the station had obviously had a discussion earlier on how to handle this, ”Commercials will be shown for the entire 10 minutes of their performance. We won't be giving them any airtime at all. They will be cut off 1 second before their performance starts!”
Everyone nodded, ”OK.”
The in-charge repeated, ”Don't ever, ever make any mistake this time!”
The previous two live broadcasts that Zhang Ye and Yao Jiancai had received had already left the management scratching their heads in anger. If it happened again, none of them could bear the responsibility, and all of them would be fired!
Another 30 minutes had gone by.
The National Crosstalk Compet.i.tion's final round of preliminaries had officially started!
Just before the host was about to announce the first performers, just backstage, the person in-charge gave his instruction, ”Right now, air the commercials and cut off the feed from the studio!”
A staff member quickly changed the controls and said, ”It's done!”
The person-in-charge was really afraid that things would go wrong again, ”Check it again.”
”The broadcast has already cut to the commercials.” That same staff member confirmed.
The person-in-charge said, ”All other positions, do a confirmation as well.”
Seven or eight staff members busily adjusted their controls to check and confirm that the commercials were playing, ”There are really no problems, leader.”
Only at this point did the person-in-charge heave a sigh of relief.
But it seems that Central TV was destined to have strange happenings occurring for these few days. A staff member was just making use of the free time that they had now to eat something from their lunchbox when, without warning, a portable charger exploded with a loud noise. The youth received a great shock from it and threw the lunchbox out of his hand, scattering the contents all over the equipment. His elbow reactively smashed into two b.u.t.tons on the control panel, bada.
The portable charger flew to the side, where everyone placed their clothing at and flames ignited from it, spreading very quickly!
”Ah!”
”It's on fire!”
”Put it out! Put out the fire!”
”Aiyah!”