Showsec Weave Their Magic in Madrid – International Event News

MTV EMA Awards

Showsec’s management consultancy team recently returned from yet another successful engagement with MTV for the 2010 Europe Music Awards. This year’s host city was Madrid on 7^th November, where a multitude of A list artists and celebrities gathered for the 17^th annual awards ceremony.

Lady GaGa was the night’s big winner after bagging a total of three gongs, including the prestigious Best Song award for Bad Romance. Live performances included Bon Jovi, Rihanna, Kings of Leon and Plan B. The glamorous Eva Longoria hosted the event from the Caja Magica.

There was a festival feel across Madrid with MTV hosting a number of events during the week. This culminated in a huge Outdoor Broadcast Show at the Puerto de Alcala, where a mammoth stage was built in front of the iconic landmark, in the middle of a roundabout. A complex security plan was agreed with the National and Municipal police, whereby a series of road closures and pedestrian control points created an audience area of up to 50,000 people. Saturday 6^th November was MTV Spain day with a line up of top Spanish pop acts, whilst the Sunday delivered a visually spectacular event featuring Katy Perry, 30 Seconds to Mars and Linkin Park.

Showsec used a team of 11 managers from the UK, who were each responsible for different areas of the EMA activities, liaising with MTV department heads and overseeing the local security.

Simon Battersby, Showsec operations director, commented “The EMAs grow larger by the year and are a fantastic opportunity for us to showcase our expertise and contribute to the success of this global TV event.”

This year saw a challenging set of circumstances in that a brand new international tennis centre was converted into the main awards venue, with different courts being used for different parts of the event.

Simon continues;

“The way in which MTV utilise the venue to make the space work for the event, always requires alternative solutions for security and crowd management. This year’s venue had additional issues in that it had no front of house security or customer service procedures in place. Therefore we had to work hard with the local promoter and import systems and expertise to create our own front of house operation including ticketing, access management, command and control systems along with security and ushering. All of the Showsec team, as usual, embraced the challenge and worked tirelessly with MTV to ensure the success of the event.”

Tags: Event Security, International Event, Showsec

Category: General Event Industry News