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Less than five days after the organisers of reality TV show, Gulder Ultimate Search (GUS) announced its return, the rush for registration for auditions by Nigerians had crashed the servers so badly that it took 24 hours to make them function again.
No wonder, it’s been more than seven years since the last Gulder Ultimate Search auditions held. So, there must really be some thirst for what is arguably Nigeria’s biggest reality TV show.
Social media platforms such as Twitter, WhatsApp and Facebook were agog with comments, as young Nigerians looked for alternative ways of registering.
According to a source, the Nigerian Breweries Plc, the organisers took all precautions to make sure the infrastructure was resilient. “Who would have imagined that in 2021, a website so resilient like that of GUS would succumb to such pressure? We knew the rush would be massive, but no one prepared for the kind of pressure that came in within the first hour,” a brand manager said.
Really, Nigerians seem to love reality shows. Over half a million applied to participate in GUS between 2004 and 2014. Another show, which is totally different from GUS, Big Brother Naija, gets up to 10,000 applications annually. And this is not surprising because the shows promise a combination of fame, money, and escape from the labour market.
Gulder Ultimate Search, which borders on the survival instincts of contestants, began in 2004 and ran for 11 seasons before going off the screen in 2014. Since then many fans have been calling for its return. Now that it’s here, the organisers have tagged this year’s edition of the show , “The Age of Craftsmanship”.
