Leicester Asian Glitz Awards 2019: Winners & Runners-Up

Running for a third consecutive year, the Leicester Asian Glitz Awards (LAGAs) took place on September 28, 2019.

The prestigious De Montfort Hall were hosts of the glittery event for the first time. Previously, the Ramgarhia Community Centre, which had less capacity was the venue for the first two editions of the LAGAs.

The annual event provided a vital platform for recognising homegrown talent in one of the most multicultural cities in the UK.

During the evening, audiences saw face-offs between dancers, comedians and singers from Leicestershire.

Celebrity judges such as comedian Bharti Singh, director Sajid Khan, and singer Aditya Narayan the big responsibility of picking the winners.

Along with media and arts, individuals bagged a diverse range of community awards, courtesy of online voting.

Prior to the event commencing, VIP guests had a good time during the red carpet drinks reception. Guests had some delicious Indian snacks, including mogos and rassomalai.

As the official online media partner, DESIblitz were in attendance to highlight the event and outline the winners.

The Purpose

As per the norm, the 2019 LAGAs were organised by Jay’s Entertainment, a famous events company from Leicester.

The organiser, Jayesh Kotak, frequently came on stage and also sat next to the judges. His son, Nicken Kotak carried the evening through with his hosting prowess and jokes.

The LAGAs aim to nurture and reward homegrown talent in Leicester. The online voting platform gave the community to play their part in deciding the winners.

The audiences came to learn that there was a phenomenal response, with 20,000 votes coming in on the last day.

Winners came from eighteen different categories, recognising talent from the media, business and medical fields.

For the music, dance and comedy categories, performers had their chance to shine LIVE on stage. Following the performances, they got feedback from the judges in an X factor like format.

The charitable cause of the evening was Macmillan Cancer Support, helping to improve the lives of people affected by the disease.

The Performers

Singer Jayden from Coventry began proceedings in the evening with his covers that are trending on social media.

Returning back from the 2019 IIFA awards in Mumbai, Jayden also exclusively sang his version of ‘Roop Tera Mastana.’

Masti dancers from Birmingham came next, dancing to some hit songs from 2018 and 2019.

A Salman Khan lookalike also came to the act. His uncanny resemblance to Salman’s look, stature and dancing had everyone laughing in the audience.

Prior to assessing the acts, the judges from Mumbai had a chance to entertain on stage.

Bharti Singh, famous for featuring in The Kapil Sharma Show (2016) and Khatra Khatra Khatra did some hilarious interaction with audience members.

In the true spirit of comedy, she reflected upon the Gujarati and Punjabi communities.

She went onto challenge audience members on stage to repeatedly say a classic Indian tongue twister. Bharti also pulled the leg of Jayesh Kotak, particularly his quirky outfit.

Playback singer and TV host Aditya Narayan took centre stage performing the popular ‘Tattad Tattad’ from Goliyon Ki Raasleela Ram-Leela (2013).

He also broke into a few dance moves during his performance.

Housefull director, Sajid Khan was the last of the three judges to come on the stage. He had good banter with the audience too, engaging them with some quick-fire Bollywood trivia on them.

Members of the audience that came face to face with Sajid also seized the opportunity to have some selfies with him.

The Performance Winners

Celebrating entertainment, finalists were competing for ‘Best Male Singer,’ ‘Best Female Singer,’ ‘Best Male Solo Dancer,’ ‘Best Female Solo Dancer,’ ‘Best Dance Group,’ and ‘Best Comedian.’

The dance categories were quite exciting to witness LIVE. ‘Best Dance Group, Rising Stars, a young group piece male group, were peppy and energetic. Using various street styles, they had a good combination of humour and stunts.

‘Maher Girls Raas Group dance group specialise in ‘garba’ (Gujarati dance). This was rather fitting with the Navratri Festival beginning the next day.

Their garba piece had dynamic formations and even swords. They wore beautiful costumes, which they had custom made from India.

Similar to the dance group competition, the solo female dancers were also very contrasting. Runner-up Shree Savani did a traditional classical piece with dramatic expressions.

Describing her as a cross between Kiara Advani and Hema Malini, Sajid Khan said:

“When you dance, you reminded me of Hema Malini.”

Best Female Solo Dancer Ravneet Kaur did an upbeat, eclectic mix of Bollywood and Bhangra songs.

Bharti Singh and Sajid Khan had a joke joked about how she did more cardio than they can even dream of doing.

Yagnesh Tande who was the only contestant under the ‘Best Male Solo Dancer’ category did a hip hop sequence.

The feedback for many of the acts across the various genres was that they were too long.

Perhaps an idea for the future would be to standardise the length of the acts to allow for a fairer comparison.

The Community Winners

Talent representing the Leicestershire community across the fields of media, business and medicine also were recognised.

The ‘Lifetime Achievement Award’ went to Dr Sanjiv Nichani, a famous Paediatrician consultant in Leicester.

He is the founder of Healing Little Hearts, a charity that provides free life-saving heart surgeries to children across the world. They send volunteer doctors and nurses to various countries worldwide.

Dr Nichani revealed that every year, 1 million children in low and middle-income countries die from untreated heart diseases.

He spoke about the importance of sustaining their efforts for future generations, mentioning:

“It is not just about treating the children, but empowering the doctors and nurses that are there to continue this.”

Sabras Radio had a very successful night at the 2019 LAGAs.

The station claimed several radio presenter awards, including ‘Best Male Radio Presenter, ‘Best Female Presenter,’ ‘Best Punjabi Radio Presenter,’ ‘Best Gujarati Presenter’ and ‘Best Host.’

Awards List

Here is the full list of winners and runners-up at the Leicester Asian Glitz Awards 2019:

Best Sound & Lighting
Audio Visual Hire (AVH)

Best Online Presence
Biz Asia

Best Host Winner
Priti Raichura

Best Host Runner-up
Missy B

Marketing Personality Of The Year
Yeshee Tengur: Ria Money Transfer

Tourism Achievement Award
Baba Holidays

Lifetime Achievement Award
Dr Sanjiv Nichani

Best Gujarati Radio Presenter Winner
Priti Raichura

Best Gujarati Radio Presenter Runner-up
Shobha Joshi

Best Punjabi Radio Presenter Winner
Tony Bains

Best Punjabi Radio Presenter Runner-up
Daljit Neer

Best DJ Winner
3 Style Entertainment

Best DJ Runner-up
DJ Skipa Sandip Pithwa

Best Male Presenter Winner
Akshay Patel

Best Male Presenter Runner-up
Raj Baddhan

Best Female Presenter Winner
Missy B

Best Female Presenter Runner-up
Pam Sidhu

Best Female Solo Dancer Winner
Ravneet Kaur

Best Female Solo Dancer Runner-up
Shree Savani

Best Male Solo Dancer
Yagnesh Tandel

Best Female Singer Winner
Damini Chavda

Best Female Singer Runner-Up
Rupa Soni

Best Male Singer Winner
Hitesh Joshi

Best Male Singer Runner-up
Vijay Shinde

Best Dance Group Winner
Rising Stars Dance Group

Best Dance Group Runner-up
Maher Girls Raas Group

Best Comedian
Karsan Kaka

The Leicester Asian Glitz Awards 2019 has been an excellent way to encourage fresh and experienced talent, along with gaining feedback from the industry’s finest.

The glamourous evening was enjoyed by the audience at the De Montfort Hall. Well-known music producer Mukhtar Sahota was also in attendance.

Commenting on the success of LAGAs 2019, Jayesh Kotak of Jay’s Entertainment exclusively told DESIblitz:

“We are so delighted with the fantastic success of this year’s Leicester Asian Glitz Awards.”

“Congratulations to all of the winners and nominees. The show was a brilliant insight into the talent we have in Leicestershire. We can’t wait for 2020!”

DESIblitz congratulates all the winners of this unique awards ceremony and looks forward to its future events.