Miss Grand International

It consists of the annual national pageant Miss Grand Thailand, as well as the international competition Miss Grand International, to which participating rights are licensed to organizers in other countries. The franchise has been owned and run by a Thai stock exchange-listed company with the same name, also known as MGI PCL, since its inception in 2013, with Nawat Itsaragrisil as the president.

Miss Grand International

Type	International women's beauty pageant
Parent organization	MGI PCL
Headquarters	Bangkok, Thailand
First edition	2013
Most recent edition	2023
Current titleholder	Luciana Fuster  Peru
President and founder	Nawat Itsaragrisil
Vice President	Teresa Chaivisut
Language/s	English
Website	missgrandinternational.com

The current Miss Grand International is Luciana Fuster of Peru who was crowned on 25 October 2023.

Miss Grand International was founded in 2013 by Nawat Itsaragrisil, a Thai television host and producer. The pageant was founded in Thailand amidst a political crisis, inspiring the organizers to use the slogan 'No mob, Stop the Wars' as part of its identity, later rephrased to 'Stop the War and Violence' in the following year. The pageant aims to promote peace by being against all kinds of conflicts.

The pageant has primarily been focusing on humanitarian issues with the reigning titleholders dedicating their year to work as the organization's spokesperson as well as involved in the charity events related to the said campaigns. For instance, corresponding with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to raise funds available for humanitarian aid, visiting and donated necessities to the internally displaced people in the refugee camps, being the guest speaker at the related events and act as the ambassador of the NGOs (e.g., Catholic Medical Mission Board, Model United Nations), or taking part in any projects of the local charitable organization in the visited countries. Before 2021, the winner of the contest, together with all runners-up, often serve as the campaigners of the Tourism Authority of Thailand, to promote the tourism industry of the pageant-based country.

The contest features contestants selected by licensees in each country. Its first three competitions were held in Thailand under the sponsorship of the country's government and televised worldwide via Channel 7, while subsequent events have also taken place overseas, and was broadcast via the local television channels together with the social media platforms including its official YouTube channel and Facebook page.

In 2019, the pageant was being held in Venezuela amid the country's political crisis; several candidates withdrew from the competition due to security concerns and visa regulation problems, such as South Korea, Cambodia, and Laos. Later in 2020, the pageant was also scheduled to be held in Venezuela on 25 October but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the event was postponed to 2021 and the venue was moved to Bangkok, Thailand.

 

The contestants of each edition of the pageant were selected by the franchise holder in respective countries or territories, through either a national contest, internal casting, or being hand-picked. In its first decade, due to being a newly established pageant, almost half of the participating contestants were appointed; no national pageant was held. Nonetheless, in pageant-popular countries, especially in the Far East and the Americas, annual national pageants are usually being held to crown a winner for the Miss Grand International pageant. For example, Miss Grand Cambodia, Miss Grand Malaysia, Miss Grand Nepal, and Miss Grand Paraguay. Some of the participatants were the runner-up or obtained the title in other national pageants, e.g. the delegates from Femina Miss India (2015–2021), Binibining Pilipinas (2013, 2015 – 2022), Miss Mexico (2017 – 2020), Felvidék Szépe (2015 – 2017), etc.

Despite not being considered an economically popular event in Europe and Africa, many countries have conducted national pageants separately for Miss Grand, for instance, Albania, Kosovo, Spain, France, Italy, and South Africa. In Spain, Italy, and several countries in Asia, each administrative division (i.e. province, state, region) holds a preliminary competition to choose their delegate for the national pageant. Moreover, in some provinces of Spain, Malaysia, and Thailand, third-level divisions' pageants are also held to determine delegates for the provincial competition, in which winners hold the title "Miss Grand (Province)" for the year of their reign. Unfortunately, cultural impediments in the swimsuit competition have precluded some countries, such as ultraconservative and Muslim countries, from participating, while some countries have not participated because of a lacking of funding.

Although the title of Miss Grand pageant was global registered copyright, some national or local pageants unrelated to the Miss Grand International has been observed such as the Azerbaijan model search contest named "Miss and Mister Grand Azerbaijan" which was organized by Elxan Pashayev since 2018, '"Miss Zimbabwe Grand", headed by Farai Zembeni since 2019, the pageant finalists participate in various continental contests in Africa, as well as the local pageant in the Bahamas, "Miss Grand Bahama", established in 1970, which the name "Grand Bahama" refer to the third largest island in the northernmost region of the country.

Miss Grand International is the platform's annual international beauty pageant. Its inaugural edition was held in Bangkok in 2013 under sponsorship from Thailand's government and featured 73 participating countries; the inaugural titleholder was Janelee Chaparro of Puerto Rico. In 2016, the pageant was held for the first time outside Thailand, at Westgate Las Vegas, Las Vegas, US, on 25 October. Since 2015, the grand final is usually held on 25 October each year. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 and 2021 editions of the pageant were delayed, the 2020 edition was first scheduled to be held on 25 October 2020, but was postponed to 27 March 2021, and the venue was also moved to Bangkok, Thailand, similar to the 2021 edition which was held in December 2021, two months behind the traditional schedule.

The current Miss Grand International titleholder is Luciana Fuster of Peru, who was crowned on 25 October 2023 at Phú Thọ Indoor Stadium, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam making her the second woman from Peru to win the crown.

Pre-pageant activities

The pre-pageant activities of Miss Grand International usually consist of three main events, the swimsuit competition, a national costume parade, and the preliminary contest. The swimsuit competition is organized at a separate venue to determine the winner of the Best in Swimsuit award while the national costume and the preliminary round of each edition are usually held at the same venue of the grand final round. All aforementioned events are live streamed via the pageant's Facebook and YouTube accounts. In the preliminary round, all contestants will compete in swimwear and evening gowns in front of a panel of preliminary judges. Each round of the preliminary competition and the Swimsuit competition will determine the winner of Best Evening Gown and Best in Swimsuit awards which will be announced later on the final stage of the contest as well as the winner of other special awards including Best National Costume and Miss Popular vote. Moreover, the scores from all ancillary events, preliminary competition, together with a closed-door interview portion and the swimsuit competition, also determine the Top 20 finalists during the grand final telecast of the pageant.

List of the main special award winners in the Miss Grand International pageant

Edition	Best in Swimsuit	Best National Costume	Best Evening Gown	Miss Popular Vote	Country's Power of The Year	Best Social Media	Ref.
2013	Latvia	China	Dominican Republic	Myanmar	Award given since 2020.	Not Awarded
2014	Thailand	Vietnam	Indonesia	Cambodia		Japan
2015	Costa Rica	Philippines	Japan	Sri Lanka		India
2016	Bahamas	Indonesia	England	Korea		Jamaica
2017	Costa Rica	Indonesia	China	Indonesia		Paraguay
2018	Cuba	Peru	Thailand	Vietnam		Indonesia
2019	Panama	Ecuador	Peru	Vietnam		Not Awarded
2020	Brazil	3 Countries   Guatemala   Japan   Thailand	Mexico	Malaysia	Cambodia
2021	Puerto Rico	3 Countries   Angola   Malaysia   Peru	Thailand	Cambodia	Not Awarded
2022	Not Awarded	4 Countries   Peru   Thailand   United Kingdom   Vietnam	Mexico	Mauritius	Vietnam	Czech Republic
2023	Dominican Republic	3 Countries   Japan   Nigeria   Vietnam	Russia	Myanmar	Myanmar	Not Awarded

Grand Final

The grand final of the pageant is usually broadcast worldwide on television and the social media platforms of the pageant. As the tradition of the pageant, twenty semi-finalists are chosen from the initial pool of contestants through observation during the entire pageant, a closed-door interview, swimsuit round as well as a preliminary competition, which featured contestants competing in swimsuits and evening gowns. However, the "Country of the year" was first introduced in 2020 edition, which was selected by the audience on social networks. The winner of this category automatically enters the twenty finalists regardless of all previous scores. The Top 20 would then compete in a swimsuit competition, with 10 of them advancing to the Top 10, this number eventually was reduced to 9 with the 10th semi-finalist being the Top Popularity Winner determined through mobile voting, all 10 semi-finalists would then compete in an evening gown and give their speeches with a ‘Stop the War and Violence' theme.

After the speech round and evening gown competitions, the judges then select the top five to compete in the question-and-answer portion, where all entrants will be asked the same question about an ongoing global situation; such as the management of COVID-19 pandemic crisis, the 2016 United States presidential election, and the ongoing socioeconomic and political crisis in Venezuela. The judges will select the winner based on their answer and all previous accumulate scores, then the host will sequentially announce the fourth, third and second runners-up. The last 2 candidates of the top 5 finalists will stand in the center of the stage then one of them will be named Miss Grand International.

The summary of the pageant selection process is shown below.

Crowns and awards

As the tradition of this pageant, the crown of the title holders, known as the Golden Crown, has been set to be changed every 3 years, all versions of the Golden Crown are made of gold and brass for structural integrity, while the exterior is adorned by diamond, and emerald. Its first version was designed by a Thai jewellery design company, God Diamond, headed by Chawalit Chommuang, and was used for the first three editions of the pageant. The crown used from 2016 – 2018 (2nd version) and 2019 – 2021 (3rd version) was designed by an unrevealed company and George Wittels, respectively.

The latest version of the golden crown, which was going to be used for the 2022 – 2024 edition, was also made by a Venezuelan jewellery designer, George Wittels, who signed as the official jewel sponsor of the Miss Grand International Organization during 2019 – 2024. He additionally designed the crown for all four runners-up of the pageant since the 2019 edition, the first time that the organization provided the crown for the runner-up positions.

Since 2014, the organizer has also been offering USD$ 40,000 cash to each year winner for spending a year work as the organization's spokesperson in its campaign, the prize was increased from USD$ 30,000 in 2013; however, some Vietnamese media published that Nguyễn Thúc Thùy Tiên earned USD$ 60,000 for winning the contest in 2021. Furthermore, all four runners-up of each edition, also received cash prizes, ABS-CBN reported that Samantha Bernardo of the Philippines got USD$ 6,000 in cash after she had obtained the first runner-up title at the Miss Grand International 2020 pageant in Bangkok, Thailand, Vartika Singh of India received USD$ 4,000 for her second runner-up finish at the 2015 edition, and 3,000 and US$$2,000 for the third and fourth runners-up, respectively. Besides the finalists, the winner of each special award also received a prize; approximately USD$ 1,000 – 3,000 according to the 2013 to 2015 contests.

After relinquishing the crown to the successor, the immediate predecessor is provided with a replica tiara; the replica is usually produced by the same designer as its master.

Gallery of Miss Grand International crowns

•  
  The first edition of the golden crown, as worn by Miss Grand International 2014, Lees Garcia
•  
  The second edition of the golden crown, as worn by Miss Grand International 2018, Clara Sosa
•  
  The third edition of the golden crown, as worn by Miss Grand International 2020, Abena Appiah

Edition	Country	Titleholder	National Title	Venue of Competition	Number of Entrants
2023	Peru	Luciana Fuster	Miss Grand Peru 2023	Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam	69
2022	Brazil	Isabella Menin	Miss Grand Brazil 2022	West Java, Indonesia	68
2021	Vietnam	Nguyễn Thúc Thùy Tiên	Miss Grand Vietnam 2021	Bangkok, Thailand	59
2020	United States	Abena Appiah	Miss Grand United States of America 2020		63
2019	Venezuela	Valentina Figuera	El Concurso by Osmel Sousa 2018	Caracas, Venezuela	60

Country/Territory by number of wins

Miss Grand International's winning countries and territories by the number of wins   Color key:   2 titles   1 dethroned title   1 title   1 temporarily assumed title

List of countries by number of Miss Grand International wins

Number of win (s)	Country/Territory	Years
2	Peru	2017, 2023
1	Brazil	2022
	Vietnam	2021
	United States	2020
	Venezuela	2019
	Paraguay	2018
	Indonesia	2016
	Australia	2015
	Dominican Republic
	Cuba	2014
	Puerto Rico	2013

Continents by number of wins

Notes