SINGAPORE, Sept. 10, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — A brand new interactive virtual tour series, "Celebrity Tour with the Stars Live! – Hawkers’ Untold Stories Edition", debuted on HyperLive.tv last Sunday, raising $2,136 in food sponsorship to help support local hawkers and provide delicious local food to the elderly at Geylang East Home for the Aged (GEHA).
Ms Tin Pei Ling (Center) with volunteers at GEHA
The show is an innovative new concept with celebrity hosts acting as virtual tour guides for live viewers online. Each week, a celebrity host will travel around Singapore to feature local food and businesses in Singapore, while actively engaging and interacting with the audience during the live broadcast.
As part of the SGLive initiative launched by local startup HyperLive Entertainment, the series aims to promote local hawker culture and encourage the community to help one another amid the challenging COVID-19 environment. In the Hawkers’ Untold Stories edition, various celebrity hosts will take viewers behind the scenes to learn about our unsung hawker heroes and their struggles to cope with the pandemic situation.
The pilot episode saw popular local artiste Marcus Chin visit Golden Mile Food Centre to interview 73-year-old Mr Tan Chong Siew, a second-generation hawker who runs Liang Seah Street Prawn Noodle with his brother. During the show, Tan shared personal stories from when he started helping his father in 1957 – a time when they were still operating as a street hawker along Liang Seah Street. He also described how the pandemic had adversely affected his business and daily earnings had plummeted to less than a hundred dollars during the lockdown.
To help hawkers like Tan and support the local community, the show plans to purchase food from the hawkers and provide the less privileged with hearty local meals – a win-win situation for both parties. Viewers can also contribute to the cause by sending e-gifts to the hosts during the live stream.
This was made possible by HyperLive’s immersive platform technology. The company intends to take live events and entertainment to the next level by allowing viewers to engage and participate actively through highly interactive features such as e-gifting, polling and live shopping. In particular, all proceeds collected via e-gifting during the show will be used to sponsor meals.
The amount of $2,136 raised during the 79-min long session was used to purchase food from the show’s featured hawkers for the elderly folks at GEHA over the past few days. A total of 80 packets of prawn noodles were ordered from Tan prior to the show, which were then personally delivered by Chin to GEHA. During the 15-minute-long journey, Chin continued to entertain viewers by singing classic Mandarin and Hokkien tunes on the request of the viewers, garnering more e-gifts being sent in support of the show’s cause.
When he arrived at the Home, Chin was greeted by GEHA’s Chairman Mr Eric Wong, who expressed his appreciation for the hard work and effort put in by the organisers to help the elderly at the Home.
The event was also graced by Ms Tin Pei Ling, Member of Parliament for MacPherson SMC, who came to support the cause and spent the afternoon helping the organizers to distribute the food.
The second episode of "Celebrity Tour with the Stars Live! – Hawkers’ Untold Stories Edition" will be streamed live on Sunday (Sep 12, 3pm).
About HyperLive Entertainment
Launched in August 2021, HyperLive.tv is the ultimate entertainment platform to watch live shows and events. HyperLive.tv combines music, entertainment, lifestyle and exclusivity with highly interactive features that makes for an engaging viewing experience – HyperLive has created a unique and exciting way to broadcast and watch content live. Registration to HyperLive.tv is free where viewers can access all the exclusive #SGLive shows and more.