Gremlins Visit The Waikīkī Festival

November 17, 2021 • Addison Ching • Festivals and Conventions

Gremlins paid a visit to the Waikīkī Steel Guitar Festival on November 6, 2021.

The 2021 festival was split into two parts, with an intermission between the two parts to avoid the hottest part of the day.

The morning session began at 11:00 AM and featured steel guitarists Steve Cheney, Kapono Lopes, Jeff Au Hoy, and Greg Sardinha. Backup musicians for the festival were Kaipo Asing on guitar and Helene Woodward on upright bass. Kimo Kahoano was the festival emcee, and hula was offered by Kapuanani Greene.

The afternoon session began at 4:30 PM. NextGen steel guitarists Enosa Lyman, Tai Misailidis, and Pono Fernandez were able to present their programs without issue.

Unexpectedly, a keiki hula halau comprising students from Manoa Elementary School showed up to perform. The group was previously scheduled vy the Royal Hawaiian Center to perform in the afternoon but were not notified that their performance was canceled because of the festival.

The keiki were inserted into the festival program after Pono's performance and thrilled the modest festival audience with their hula presentation that lasted for about twenty minutes.

The festival then resumed with Mālie Lyman's performance immediately after the keiki hula. Bobby Ingano and Alan Akaka jammed together following Mālie's performance to finish up the festival.

Both morning and afternoon sessions were livestreamed. However, due to unforseen changes in Facebook's livestream setup requirements, Facebook livestreaming was inconsistent and only covered a portion of the morning's performances.

Fortunately there were no issues with livestreaming on the Hawaiian Steel Guitar Showcase's YouTube Channel and both sessions were livestreamed there in entirety (less the keiki hula.)

According to Scotty Wong of Huana Productions LLC, HIMELE's livestream service provider, "I [now] have to create a new livestream event and stream key for each time I go live." Previously, Scotty was able to "reuse" a previous livestream setup profile by updating the setup with appropriate changes for the current livestream. He continues, "Now I have to create a new stream every time I do a live. [It's] doable but just a headache to have to start from scratch each time."

The process for Scotty apparently changed right after the Livestream Steel Guitar Saturday broadcast from Kaua‘i, according to him.

As with all livestream broadcasts, local copies of the stream are created during the livestream and can be used to recreate the livestream archive if necessary. Such was the case with the Waikīkī festival livestreams.

The afternoon livestream was stopped during the keiki hula presentation and resumed with a new livestream after the hula concluded. Guests following the livestream updates on Facebook and YouTube may have been confused by the three separate links to the festival livestreams during the live feed and for a short time thereafter./p>

Scotty was able to edit the two afternoon livestream segments and combine them into a single afternoon stream file for the DShowcase Facebook and YouTube archives.

The morning session YouTube stream was duplicated and uploaded to the Showcase's Facebook page archive, replacing the incomplete Facebook stream for the morning session. The edited afternoon stream was uploaded to both the Facebook page and the YouTube channel, where it replaced the two afternoon livestream files.

The 2021 Waikīkī Steel Guitar Festival morning session with Steve Cheney, Kapono Lopes, Jeff Au Hoy, and Greg Sardinha, can be viewed here.

The 2021 Waikīkī Steel Guitar Festival afternoon session with NextGen steel guitarists (Enosa Lyman Tai Misailidis, Pono Fernandez, Mālie Lyman), and the Bobby Ingano–Alan Akaka jam session can be viewed here.

Links to both streams on both Facebook and YouTube, as well as links to all other livestreams that have been presented, are at the Showcase's website Gallery page.