Video Music Awards to be trimmer, showier

By NEKESA MUMBI MOODY

AP MUSIC WRITER

LAS VEGAS — This has long been a place for escape when life gets too boring. So after a spate of forgettable Video Music Awards shows and a ratings dive, MTV has planted the broadcast in Sin City.

Sunday night’s show is being beamed from the Palms hotel — home to the Playboy Club — and will feature the much-hyped comeback performance of tabloid queen Britney Spears, who hasn’t graced the MTV stage since she famously locked lips with Madonna back in 2003.

“The MTV awards have never been about the awards, it’s always been about the party and the music,” says Entertainment Weekly executive editor Lori Majewski. “What better place to party than Vegas?”

This year, MTV might as well rename the event to the Video Music Party instead of the Video Music Awards. There will be no host, the number of Moonman trophies doled out during the ceremony has been cut from 12 to eight, and the traditional awards-show format has been junked.

“The overall sort of feeling was, ’What can we do to blow this show up, because there are so many awards shows out there right now,’“’ says executive producer Jesse Ignjatovic. “Everyone felt like it was time to take some chances and really do things differently.”

Changes

Instead of a traditional audience — which in past years has included throngs of screaming fans in a pit close to the stage — this year’s event will feature only industry invitees sitting at tables with free-flowing liquor, a la the Golden Globes.

And while some of the evening’s performances will be beamed from the central stage, the main action is happening at four suites throughout the hotel — one hosted by Justin Timberlake and Timbaland, another by Kanye West, the third by the Foo Fighters and the last by Fall Out Boy, with cameras broadcasting the performances, parties and overall revelry from those suites throughout the evening. (50 Cent, Rihanna, Nelly Furtado, Lil Wayne and Lily Allen are among the show’s other performers.)