MTV Networks Europe has revealed that the 2005 MTV Europe Music Awards (EMA) will take place in Portugal for the first time on 3 November.
The venue for Europe's largest music awards event will be a stadium in Lisbon called Atlantic Pavilion. But the decision to move away from the temporary structures of the last two years will see many UK suppliers miss out on a substantial contract in a traditionally quiet time in the event calendar.
In November 2004, MTV took the EMAs to Rome. MTV Networks Europe had kept faith with the UK supplier core that helped Edinburgh receive a local economy cash-injection of £4m in 2003. Together they took inspiration from the Edinburgh stage, set and temporary village but recreated it on a much grander scale at Rome's Tor di Valle Raceway.
The main arena, supplied by De Boer Structures in 2003, was replaced with a 73m-wide building called the Valhalla constructed by UK firm Kayam.
The unit comprised over three acres of fabric supported on ten 25m-high masts with 300m of walls and 64 doors. De Boer was retained to construct a backstage village covering over 9,000sq m while other UK suppliers who rejoined MTV following Edinburgh included drapes and rigging firm Blackout, Arena Seating and sound specialists Britannia Row.
The suppliers agree that Rome was possibly the most challenging EMA contract.
Arena Seating sales director Dave Withey confesses that logistics ranged from translating Italian seating regulations to working in torrential rain during the build-up.
MTV Networks Europe executive producer Richard Godfrey admits, however, that this year's 11th annual event was MTV's most expensive show to date as it focused on enhancing the televised experience. XL Video supplied more screens to create a 360-degree experience and in addition to 3,000 seats, Arena installed nine staircases and over 150 tonnes of scaffold to create an elevated, tiered seating system further back from the cameras.
In Portugal this year, a five-week build up will be compressed to ten days. Temporary service suppliers are naturally disappointed to miss out on a lucrative pay-day but they're also focused on product development so that they can continue to compete for televised event contracts.
Says Kayam managing director Richard Abel: "We're building an updated Valhalla in an attempt to gain more height for camera positioning and rigging."
De Boer managing director Theo den Bieman is also about to launch his Colossus arch-shaped structure. He says: "We will miss not having an involvement as it's a large project. MTV knows how to look after its subcontractors but we will still be busy constructing Christmas party venues, ice-rinks and so on in November."
Arena's Withey points out that the decision of where to host the EMAs is based purely on location and if there's a venue that suits then temporary installation suppliers will always come second. "It makes one-off, annual events hard to budget for but fortunately they are increasing in number during the out of season months," he says. "November was one of our busiest times in 2004 and accounted for almost 15% of total hire turnover for the year."
MTV's Godfrey stresses, however, that the EMAs will return to a temporary structure in the future. "For 2006 we are looking at three locations and at least one of them would see a temporary village," he says.
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