06.07.2010 Live Entertainment Award moves from Hamburg to Frankfurt

Presentation to form the prelude to Musikmesse and
Prolight + Sound

Gala evening in the ‘Festhalle’ on 5 April 2011

Frankfurt can add another highlight to its calendar of events. The Live Entertainment Award (PRG LEA), which has been presented in Ham-burg’s O2 World Arena for the last five years, moves to Frankfurt am Main next year. With a gala evening in the ‘Festhalle’ of Frankfurt Fair and Exhibition Centre on 5 April 2011, the PRG Live Entertainment Award will form a glamorous prelude to the Frankfurt Musikmesse and the concurrent Prolight + Sound.

The Live Entertainment Award has been given since 2006 for out¬standing achievements in the event sector of the German-speaking countries. The PRG LEA showcases a branch of industry that has long since developed into an important pillar of the music and creative business and now, with an annual turnover in excess of € 3 billion, has outstripped the record industry, which used to dominate the cul-tural sector, by a wide margin.

The winners of the Live Entertainment Award are the people behind the scenes of stage entertainment, e.g., promoters, managers, agents and venue operators. The aim of the presentation is to spotlight the wealth of variety that distinguishes the German event scene in the field of live entertainment. At the show, the concert and show stars who normally gather awards themselves, reverse their roles by speaking in honour and congratulating their helpers and organisers.

After five years in Hamburg, during which PRG LEA developed into the city’s most important media event, this attention-grabbing awards ceremony will move to Frankfurt in 2011. “By holding the event in conjunction with the leading international trade fair for the music sec-tor, the Live Entertainment Award will not only be embedded in a set-ting with all conceivable connections and synergetic effects, it will also be the prelude for the fair and, as a social event, the crowing glory”, explains President of the Federal Association of the Event Business (Bundesverband der Veranstaltungswirtschaft) and LEA General Manager, Jens Michow.

“The City of Frankfurt is the ideal partner and venue for PRG LEA”, says Markus Frank, Head of the Economic Affairs Department of the City of Frankfurt am Main, welcoming the relocation of the event in Frankfurt. “Thanks to the link to the two leading trade fairs for the sec-tor, which we hold in the city, as well as the numerous companies from the event sector active in Frankfurt, we can offer an excellent location for the Live Entertainment Award – not to forget, of course, our ‘Festhalle’, which will ensure a sensational setting for the cere-mony”, adds Markus Frank.

Messe Frankfurt, the Musikmesse and the City of Frankfurt are ex-cited about this working relationship with the Federal Association and looking forward to holding the PRG LEA ceremony in Frankfurt, which will not only be a new cultural highlight for the city. “The PRG LEA perfectly complements the Musikmesse and Prolight + Sound, the world’s leading trade fairs for the musical instrument and event sec-tors”, says a delighted Detlef Braun, Member of the Board of Man-agement of Messe Frankfurt. “We are confident that this com¬bination will generate a host of valuable synergies for both sectors and our visitors”, adds Braun.

Since this year, the German Live Entertainment Award has been known as ‘PRG LEA’. The close working relationship with the world’s biggest stage-equipment supplier, the USA’s Production Resource Group (PRG), guarantees the optimum technical presentation of the show programme and simultaneously draws attention to the global-isation trends on the event market. According to Jens Michow, the compère of the first PRG LEA in Frankfurt next year will, as in previ-ous years, be multi-instrumentalist and entertainer Götz Alsmann.

The initiator of the German Live Entertainment Award in 2006 was the Federal Association of the Event Business, the trade association for the German event industry. The association represents the business interests of 320 member companies and, therefore, almost all Ger-man concert and tour promoters, concert agents and artists’ manag-ers. Every year, Germany’s event companies sell around 106 million admission tickets to 30.7 million visitors and generate an annual turn-over of approximately € 3.2 billion (2009).

Besides several major event companies and the Federal Association of the Event Business, the sponsors of PRG LEA also include the As-sociation of German Concert Organisers (Verband deutscher Konzertdirektionen) and ‘musikmarkt’ and ‘musikmarkt LIVE’ maga-zines.

You will find further information on the internet at www.lea2011.de and www.idkv.com.
More information about Musikmesse can be found at www.musikmesse.com.

Background information on Messe Frankfurt
Messe Frankfurt is Germany’s leading trade fair organiser, with 424 million euros in sales in 2009 and more than 1,660 employees worldwide. The Messe Frankfurt Group has a global network of 28 subsidiaries, five branch offices and 52 international Sales Partners, giving it a presence for its customers in more than 150 countries. Events “made by Messe Frankfurt” take place at more than 30 locations around the globe. In 2009, Messe Frankfurt organised more than 90 trade fairs, of which more than half took place outside Germany.
Messe Frankfurt’s exhibition grounds, featuring 578,000 square metres, are currently home to ten exhibition halls and an adjacent Congress Center. The company is publicly owned, with the City of Frankfurt holding 60 percent and the State of Hesse 40 percent.
For more information, please visit our website at: www.messefrankfurt.com