Jo-Ann Strauss to host the Miss South Africa 2026 finale in Sandton

Jo-Ann Strauss will host the Miss South Africa finale on Saturday, 14 November. The organisers named the former Miss South Africa and Top Billing presenter on the pageant's social media on Wednesday, 21 October, and are keeping the identity of her co-host back for now, inviting followers to guess.

The finale also has a new home. Recent editions were held at SunBet Arena in Pretoria. The 2026 crowning moves to the Sandton Convention Centre. Tickets are on sale through TicketPro.

That is the news, and it is narrower than a pageant preview. A host has been named. A room has been named. A ticket seller has been named. A co-host has been deliberately not named. The Citizen reported the social-media announcement on 22 October.

A host who knows the stage

Since her own reign, Strauss has worked in television and business, first on the Afrikaans magazine show Pasella and then on Top Billing. Pageant hosting is familiar ground. In 2023 she was chosen to host the Miss Supranational final shows. The Miss South Africa announcement puts her back on a local finale stage, in a year when the winner will not go on to an international competition.

The organisers have not published a rundown, a song list or the length of the broadcast. What they have published is the name at the top of the show, and the fact that she will not be up there alone. The co-host is being held for a later reveal. Until that name is posted, any guess on the pageant's social feed is a guess. Former Miss South Africa Natasha Joubert was among those who publicly welcomed the news of Strauss as host. The report of that welcome does not include a statement of what Joubert said, so this article does not put words in her mouth.

Kuhle Adams and Kat Sinivasan will host the red carpet before the show. The show is broadcast live on S3. The red carpet is a separate booking from the finale host. A viewer who wants the arrival line and a viewer who wants the crowning are being offered two pairs of presenters, not one.

The move to Sandton

SunBet Arena in Pretoria was the room for recent editions. Sandton Convention Centre is the room for this one. The announcement does not say why the finale moved, how many seats the new room holds, or whether the Pretoria arena was unavailable. It says where to go on 14 November, and that TicketPro is selling the seats.

For someone buying a ticket, the practical change is the city and the seller. Pretoria is not the destination this year. Sandton is. TicketPro is the channel the organisers have pointed to. This article does not have a price, a seating map or a time of doors. Those were not in the announcement The Citizen reported.

The date is a Saturday, 14 November, which is three weeks from the Wednesday the host was named. The pageant has used that window to put the host and the venue in public, and to keep one name in reserve.

Nineteen finalists and a campaign at home

Minnie Dlamini unveiled the Top 19 on 19 August, narrowing the field from the Top 24 announced in June. The finalists include Makhosazana Azana Masango, the singer known as Azana. The field has been public for two months. The new fact in October is not the list. It is who will host the night those nineteen are reduced to a winner, and the room in which that happens.

The winner will not go on to compete on an international stage. That is the structural change in this edition, and it changes what the crown is for. Each finalist instead runs a campaign for Empower Youth Africa, the pageant's social impact programme. The programme covers skills and entrepreneurship, education, health and mental wellbeing, and civic engagement. The finale is still a crowning. The year that follows is a project at home, not a flight to another pageant.

The announcement of Strauss does not rank those campaigns or say which finalist's project is ahead. It does not say how the winner is scored, or how much of the score sits with the Empower Youth Africa work. Readers who want that weighting will not find it in the host announcement. What they will find is the constraint: there is no international competition attached to this title.

Azana's place in the Top 19 is the one name the field has put in front of a music audience. She is in the nineteen as Makhosazana Azana Masango. The host announcement does not give her a speaking role on the night. It records that she is among the finalists Dlamini unveiled in August.

What is still unannounced

The co-host is the gap the organisers have advertised on purpose. They have asked followers to guess. A guess is not a booking. This article will not fill the gap with a name that has not been posted.

Also unpublished, in the material reported on 21 and 22 October, are the ticket price, the start time, the reason for leaving SunBet Arena, and the running order. The broadcast home that has been named is S3, for a live show, with Adams and Sinivasan on the carpet before it.

What a reader can act on is short and checkable. Saturday 14 November. Sandton Convention Centre. Tickets through TicketPro. Jo-Ann Strauss as host. A co-host still to be named. Nineteen finalists, unveiled by Minnie Dlamini on 19 August from a Top 24 named in June, including Azana. A title that stays in the country, tied to Empower Youth Africa rather than to an international final. Strauss's own television record, as stated in the reporting, runs from Pasella to Top Billing, with the Miss Supranational finals in 2023 as the recent pageant-hosting credit.

The Citizen reported the host, the venue and the ticket seller on 22 October, from the pageant's social media post of 21 October. The Top 19, the decision to drop the international stage, and the Empower Youth Africa campaigns were already on the record from the organisers' announcements in June and August.