The MTV Europe Music Awards, to be screened live from the Point Theatre, Dublin, on November 11th, will reach an audience estimated at more than 100 million.

The event means international publicity for the State and will bring enormous business into Dublin during the tourist industry's low-season.

Mr Brent Hansen, chief executive of MTV Europe, has confirmed the event will involve an investment in Dublin of "well over £3 million [€3.8 million]", with the main sponsors - Carlsberg, Diesel, Ericsson and Compaq - investing about £1 million apiece.

According to MCD's Mr Justin Green, marketing consultant for the awards, some 3,000 hotel rooms have been booked - to accommodate the likes of Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill, Robbie Williams, Britney Spears, Fatboy Slim and Madonna along with bodyguards, record company representatives, electricians and some 1,000 international music journalists.

Each room is booked for an average of four nights, at about £100 each - or £120,000 in total. Some 5,000 restaurant seats have been booked; the biggest chauffeur hire business in the city, Michael Devine Chauffeur services, has confirmed that every car is booked for the event and a spokeswoman for MTV said the organisation was importing limousines from Britain to cope with the numbers.

MTV Europe will host four large after-show parties across the city. The organisation is also employing several Irish production companies to make programmes around the event and has commissioned the Dublin audio-visual graphic design company, Dynamo, to design the animated sequences to be shown throughout the show.

Mr Jim Miley, chief executive of Dublin Chamber of Commerce, believes the event will bring "about £3 million" into the city immediately, but, as Mr John Brown of Bord Failte says, "the real value will be the huge positive publicity for Ireland".