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"Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for coming this evening!" the announcer boomed, striding onto the stage. Marinette recognized him as Gabriel's publicity director, and also the person who had been in charge of actually running the contest. "We welcome this year's finalists and their families, as well as all of our other guests! For those who don't know, these are the top twenty designers of this year's contest. Our judges deemed their designs good enough to actually take off of the paper and bring to life, and we'll be seeing those designs tonight and hearing about more of the process behind designing and sewing these outfits. There's been a lot of work that have gone into each of these spectacular pieces, and I for one can't wait to see each of them going down our runway!"
Cheering and applause filled the room, and Marinette couldn't help but beam as she glanced out over the audience. Her mom and dad were there with her Nonna Gina, all of them sitting to the side so that her dad wouldn't block of too many people's views. Alya had come as well, and of course Adrien was there, sitting alongside his father. Madam Chamack was there too, officially there just to cover the event but unofficially there to support Marinette as well.
"We're going to start with a few words from the head designer and CEO of Gabriel, Mr. Gabriel Agreste himself," the announcer continued, beaming. "Followed by our contestants giving short presentations about their design and creation process. After that, our contestants will go dress their models while our judges give us their thoughts about this year's contest entries and what they're looking for. Then we'll have our runway, followed by close-up judging and dinner, and then the results! We're going to have a busy evening, folks, so let's get started!"
Everyone applauded as he finished, stepping aside as Mr. Agreste stepped up onto the stage. Marinette sat up straight as he addressed both contestants and audience, doing a brief intro to the event and talking about what they had been looking for in the submitted designs. He finished with a tense smile, then stepped off of the stage. The announcer took over again, introducing the first of the contestants. They had picked a random running order earlier by drawing names out of a hat, and Marinette had been thrilled to land fifth in the line-up. She thought that it was a nice place to be- first would have been nerve-wracking, and last would have given her too much time to catastrophize.
The first presentation went well, and soon Marinette found herself wishing that she had brought a sketchpad and pencil along to jot notes down. There had been some advanced techniques that she wasn't familiar with used in some of the other contestant' designs, and she wished that she could take notes. She had her tablet, of course- she needed it so that she could plug it in to the projection system and show her PowerPoint directly from it- but she didn't want to mess anything up last-minute like presenter number three had.
At least there would be a video of the entire evening available online once the contest was over. She could always go back and re-listen later on.
As the fourth presenter got up and started her presentation, Marinette set up her phone to watch the stream from the video cameras, making sure the app was muted before starting the stream. The footage hitched for a second before smoothing out, maybe a little grainy but good enough for her needs.
