Today stars Hoda Kotb and Savannah Guthrie had to face quite the struggle as they hosted a landmark episode of the show – but the problems they faced were welcome ones. The two friends and co-workers broke from tradition on Friday morning and began the show from outside the studio, where it quickly became evident there were huge crowds already assembled in anticipation of Columbian star Karol G's Independence Day weekend performance.
As Hoda and Savanah noted, the amount of fans in attendance at Rockefeller Plaza quite possibly broke the show's previous record for the most people present for a Today concert. But they also brought with them a lot of noise — which meant that the besties had to speak very, very loudly to be heard on-air.
Thankfully, the two anchors successfully managed to deliver the day's headlines without too much trouble.
Following their introduction to the show, Hoda and Savannah returned to the studio for the remainder of the first hour where they were later joined by the show's weatherman Al Roker and their fellow hosts Sheinelle Jones, Carson Daly and Dylan Dreyer. But eventually the gang had to venture back outside to address the crowds and get the musical celebrations underway.
Again, everyone dealt very well with the situation, with the whole crew managing to pull off a broadcast which was unaffected by the cheerful sounds of the excited group of 15,000+ Karol G fans assembled before them. One very moving moment came when Hoda picked out a 12-year-old superfan from the audience to join her hero on the stage.
"There are so many people who adore you, I just found a little girl, she is 12 years old, her name is Hannah, and she's been crying the whole time," the 58-year-old explained, before bringing Hannah up to Karol to speak with her. The young girl who was overcome with emotion got a hug from the 'TQG' singer, before getting to chat with her a little prior to her next performance.
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While she was up on stage, Hoda asked the young fan how much it meant to her to be up there meeting her hero. Hannah responded sweetly by asking her hero to translate the question, which Karol did, and then the young fan responded in Spanish by explaining it was a beautiful moment for her.
Another highlight from Friday's show came from Al Roker, who in order to take in the scale of the impressive crowd which had gathered for the 32-year-old singer had taken to the air via an elevated platform. "I can see folks all the way up 51st street and all the way to 48th street!" he exclaimed.
In all the excitement the 68-year-old almost seemed to forget he was also needed to host the show, but the faux pas was hardly noticeable. "I guess I should do the weather here!" he said, recovering from a slight pause. He then got on with explaining the weather along with the help of the enthusiastic gathering below him.