I went to the EMAs last night and watched from the audience. Here’s what I saw.
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1. All of the celebrities were seated in a pit that was just to the left of the main stage. They were seated on black sofas, but most of the time they were standing up and mingling with each other.
2. The celebrities were seated facing towards the audience, meaning the section that were standing close to them were continually taking photos.
3. At one stage a group of girls just sang the words "Ariana Grande" at her while she smiled and waved from the front row.
4. It was also pretty funny that all of the stars were sitting together, so the likes of Ariana Grande were mixing with the cast of Geordie Shore.
5. Nicki Minaj needed two members of security to help her down from the second stage after her first piece of hosting.
6. A team of about 30 production crew was required to set up Nicki Minaj's staging for her medley performance.
7. And they brought on the lettering for "Anaconda" separately from the rest of the staging, meaning that as Minaj finished off her new song, the letters were wheeled out behind her and placed into position.
8. The second the audience saw the letters being positioned, they screamed with excitement.
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9. However, by far the biggest screams of the night went to 5 Seconds of Summer and One Direction, despite neither band actually being there.
10. After coming off stage from winning her first award, Ariana Grande immediately handed her gong over to a member of security and walked the other way. I hope she remembered to pick it up later.
11. However, when she came off stage the second time, she stopped to sign autographs for a coupleof fans.
12. There weren't that many banners in the audience, but one girl was holding a sign that read "Ed Sheeran, can I have your ginger babies?" – unfortunately she was holding it upside down for the majority of the show.
13. You could see Sharon Osbourne crying as Ozzy Osbourne was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award.
14. Just before Nicki Minaj began to sing "Superbass," she looked to be struggling to get her ear-pieces into position. Luckily she managed to get it sorted literally the second before the introduction kicked in.
15. The show was set out for television. So when Charli XCX sang "Boom Clap," she performed a fair chunk of it positioned it on a little stand directly into a camera rather than to the audience.
16. In the same vein, the audience were encouraged to clap and cheer whenever an ad-break was coming to a close so that the show started up again, it opened to rapturous applause.
17. And during every advert break, the stage was swarmed by members of the production crew who were re-positioning staging for the next performance, sweeping the floors and getting dancers into position. When you watch an awards show on TV you don't think about the behind-the-scenes chaos that occurs to keep the whole thing running seamlessly.
18. Afrojack did a cute little excited dance on stage as the nominations for Best Worldwide Act were being read out, before he handed out the award.
19. Two members of security were needed to basically drag the giant dinosaur down the stairs after it appeared on stage behind Nicki when she was hosting.
20. And just before it photobombed her selfie, you could see the costume being moved through the audience into position.
21. It appeared that Ariana Grande left immediately after receiving her second award, just before the final performance of the night.
22. It has to be said that Ariana Grande's voice is fucking phenomenal – in terms of vocals, hers was the performance of the night from inside the arena.
23. And finally, the flames, fireworks and pyrotechnics during Slash's performance with Myles Kennedy and The Conspirators as well as Simon Neil from Biffy Clyro, were so hot it was like being in a furnace every time one went off. No wonder Simon performed topless.
