MTV awards hit right note as search now on for other gains from Belfast arena

BELFAST BRIEFING:The Odyssey venue may find itself thrust into the spotlight long before the arrival of MTV

BELFAST IS in the process of dolling itself up to take advantage of the economic potential in hosting one of the biggest music awards ceremonies in Europe.

The MTV European Music Awards in November will bring a host of pop millionaires and, hopefully, thousands of excited tourists during and after the event.

Hotels, pubs and restaurants, not to mention a legion of service providers, hope the star-studded music gig will deliver a major boost to the city.

As always, a little cash incentive helped paved the way for Belfast to beat off rivals, including Paris and Istanbul, which were also bidding to host the awards. The city council will contribute about £320,000 to the cost of hosting the event. The Northern Ireland Tourist Board and NI Screen will also foot some of the bill.

A campaign is under way to lure corporate sponsors on board with the promise of a potential television audience of millions across 160 countries on the night.

Early optimistic estimates suggest the MTV awards could deliver a £10 million lift to Belfast.

Edinburgh, host seven years ago, said the event produced a very significant return and left a lasting legacy. Ballpark figures suggest other hosts such as Copenhagen enjoyed similar strong investment benefits with a return of an equivalent £8.13 (about €9.40) on every pound it invested in 2006.

The awards will be held at the Odyssey Arena in east Belfast but the arena may find itself thrust into the spotlight long before the arrival of MTV.

The arena is owned by the Odyssey Trust Company (OTC), which has charitable status. It holds a lease on a 23-acre site, on which the arena is located, from the Belfast Harbour Commissioners.

As the owner and landlord of the complex, it is also responsible for the Pavilion, a retail and leisure mall which is the subject of an administration, W5, a science interactive discovery centre, and car park facilities.

The OTC came about following an initiative to create a landmark project to celebrate the millennium in the North. The Pavilion was funded chiefly by a local company, Sheridan Millennium, while the arena and W5 were financed by grants totalling £70 million from both the UK’s Millennium Commission and local public sector sources.

Among its chief backers were the Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure, the former regeneration agency in Belfast, the Laganside Corporation and the North’s Sports Council Lottery Fund. It receives no public subsidy and provides core funding to W5 with DCAL.

The arena has established itself as one of the island’s premier indoor venues in the last decade, attracting top bands and shows to Northern Ireland. Last December, the OTC signed a new long-term deal with SMG, the group that manages the arena.At the time, trust chief executive Robert Fitzpatrick heralded the deal as an opportunity to build on the arena’s success.

“This is a great result for both parties and puts one of Northern Ireland’s most important public assets on a very firm footing for the future – without any public subsidy or funding,” Fitzpatrick said. However, it is precisely the fact that a lot of people seem to agree that the arena is “an important public asset” which has now unwittingly thrust the OTC into the limelight.

Local political leaders have been embroiled in fierce arguments about the North’s budget for the next four years. Against the backdrop of more than £4 billion worth of cuts in public expenditure, the budget was passed last week, but it was with much debate about the need to raise revenue from other sources to reduce the pain.

Some in the political arena have now turned their attention to the Odyssey Arena as a potential cash cow. According to the SDLP’s John Dallat, a member of the Northern Ireland Public Accounts Committee, it is a public asset that might be leveraged to help contribute funds to finance essential public services.

The latest accounts for the OTC for the 12 months to March 2010 showed it had net assets of £56.9 million, a very healthy position for a charity. They also showed salaries and wage costs for the year amounted to £440,659 before pension contributions – generous salaries for a charity employing an average of 12 people over the year.

The OTC’s mission is to “establish, hold, manage, safeguard and develop” the investment in the Odyssey project for “the benefit of all of the people of Northern Ireland”. There are some who are starting to question if there is an opportunity to “benefit” Northern Ireland by finding a mechanism to use the Odyssey Arena to deliver a financial boost.

The Executive has received a direct approach from a major commercial organisation interested in exploring the possibility of “acquiring” the Odyssey Arena. The simple truth of the matter is that it is not the Executive’s to sell, particularly given its charitable status.

If, however, the arena does belong in the wider sense to the people of Northern Ireland, there may be no better time to investigate how events like the MTV awards could be used to hit an economic high note for everyone’s benefit.