Fans clamour for final MTV tickets

Hordes of music fans were expected to clog the streets of the Scottish capital today in a bid to snap up the final few tickets to one of this year’s hottest showbiz events.

Fans desperate to get close to the likes of Kylie, Beyonce and Pink began queuing at 9am yesterday to get their hands on the last 50 tickets to the MTV Europe Music Awards in Edinburgh.

A spokesperson for the Foot Locker store in Princes Street, where the tickets are being sold, estimated about 60 people had begun queuing at the close of business yesterday evening.

Foot Locker, the official event sponsor, has had to recruit security staff to maintain order at the store as fans clamour for tickets.

Tickets for the event were previously only available over a telephone hotline and sold out in 14 minutes.

Organisers were today also offering free tickets to the MTV in the Gardens concert.

Yesterday it emerged that organisers of Thursday’s awards in Edinburgh have hired more than 100 students to take the place of some of pop world’s biggest stars every time they leave their seats.

Whenever singers such as Justin Timberlake, Missy Elliott or Dido get up to go on stage, go backstage or even visit the bathroom, the students will be drafted in to sit temporarily at the stars’ tables.

An MTV spokeswoman said the idea was that when TV cameras pan round to film the audience, no seats will be empty.

Students from Queen Margaret University College, Stevenson College and Perth College have been chosen for the honour of mingling with some of the industry’s A-list stars.

The substitutes can only expect to occupy the seats for around 10 minutes and they may be called upon three or four times during the course of the night, the spokeswoman said.

She added that drafting in seat-fillers was common practice at all major awards ceremonies.