The Youtube FanFest kicked off on 20th May 2013, with an impressive lineup of stars.

Opening the show for us was local songstress that we have had the privilege to interview, Steph Micayle. She mentioned that she was nervous, but there was hardly any nerves shown during her four song setlist including one remix consisting mostly current Top 40 songs that was done tastefully. When asked which artiste would she love to collaborate with, “Christina Grimmie is my favourite” was answered without hesitation!

During the press conference, Steph mentioned that she never had the intention of getting famous when she first started out. It all started humbly by singing with her sister – which was something that they decided they want to do after looking at YouTubers and thinking “they sing really well, I really want to put my video up too”. The video got really positive comments from people, and so, Steph started continuing making videos, which slowly led her to fame.

Through this platform, a number of non-singing stars were featured and among them was a Japanese Youtuber, Hikakin. We were entertained by his rendition of Beethoven’s classic, Fur Elise, that was done purely by beatboxing. Given it was not as eloquent as the original composition, but it makes up for it with pizzazz and definitely uniqueness.

Hikakin mentioned that he realised he could beatbox at the age of 12. Just like Steph, Hikakin never had the intention of getting famous when he first started out. It was only after when his Super Mario beatboxing (which you can watch it here) video exploded, he began to have more expectations of himself and worked harder.

David Choi with his trusty guitar, crooned for us a three song setlist effortlessly. The audience was given an exclusive preview of his new video and song that was filmed while he was here in Singapore. Coming across as shy and reserved, he managed to avoid the host’s questions about his dream girl by giving a generic, “sense of humour and intelligent” as his answer. Good answer David!

The pleasant surprise for the night were the two guys, Marty and Moog, from Mighty Car Mods. Not only were they charismatic, they had a legion of followers from Singapore as shown in their presentation video of their meet and greet session here.

They acknowledged the modification of cars can be technical and dry, but with their sense of humour and exciting background music, they managed to capture over 44 million views for their videos. We could also sense that they truly fell in love with our tiny island and that they are very positive about coming back here for more Mighty Car Mods action or purely leisure.

The last act for the night was the sharply dressed Chester See. Jumping on stage in his three piece suit and tie, ad-libbing along with his piano, he captured the attention of the whole Ritz Carlton Grand Ballroom with his beautiful voice, performing God Damn You’re Beautiful.  Being the ever so charming man that he is, when asked the question about his dream girl, Chester subtlety described the host, “brown eyed, brunette, medium tan…” rendering her speechless. He ended his set and the whole event with a highly requested song from the audience, Nice Guy.

Day one was a success and left us wanting more. Stay tuned for day two highlights!