MTV’s high profile celebration of pop culture returns to New York this year.
After a four-year stint out west, the 30th annual Video Music Awards will take place at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, affirming the New York City borough’s growing role as cultural capital of the Big Apple.
“Bringing the VMAs to Brooklyn will mean hundreds of jobs as crews work on the production and provide a boost to the local economy as attendees stay in hotels, visit local eateries and experience all that Brooklyn and our City has to offer,” said Michael Bloomberg, mayor of New York City, in a statement.
The award show has previously taken place in either Los Angeles or Manhattan. The Barclays Center is also home to the Brooklyn Nets basketball team. The highly controversial construction of the stadium, which residents said displaced low-income neighbors and killed the neighborhood ecosystem of the borough, was documented in the award-winning film, “Battle for Brooklyn.”
The 2012 VMAs broadcast from the Staples Center in Los Angeles reached 8.9 million viewers on the night of its premiere, and logged the strongest social media traffic of any televised event at that point in the year, with more than 19 million mentions, according to Trendrr.
This year’s broadcast seems poised to generate even more buzz as MTV is likely to pull out all the stops for the big 3-0.
Max Lockie