Big events have been for sale for years. Sports competitions, with football as the great spearhead, are auctioned and disputed far from where they originate. Everything has an economic reason, brand expansion, tourism, propaganda after all. This week the music industry takes this gold train with the celebration of the Latin Grammys for the first time outside the United States: they travel to Seville for their annual ceremony.
In February of this same year, the agreement between the Latin Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences and the Junta de Andalucía was announced to host the awards gala on November 16 (broadcast on TVE), as well as a series of activities and concerts taking place in the city since this past Friday. A festival that, in its 24th edition, will meet at the FIBES Congress and Exhibition Palace in Seville to the most popular Latin artists of the moment: from Shakira to Rosalía and many others.
The Andalusian Government, chaired by Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla (PP), stated that it would invest 18 million euros in the actions planned around the event. And the ‘Infolibre’ portal published thatThe regional government will pay 22,748,000 euros as sponsorship to the Academy for the three years of association that marks the signed agreement. This would be, according to the contract to which the aforementioned media had access, the price of hosting awards that since their birth in 2000 have always been held in Miami except last year, which was held in Las Vegas.
On the day of the announcement, the Board estimated that the economic impact over the three years would be around 500 million euros. For his part, the mayor of Seville, José Luis Sanz, described this Thursday as a “historic opportunity” for the city the presence of the Latin Grammys and assured that they should correct “very upwards” their initial calculation of 50 million benefits for the Andalusian capital in this first edition. Between 10,000 and 12,000 visitors are expected during awards week, 3,000 of which are professionals. Other dazzling numbers reported by the organization are that the Latin music festival will reach just over 100 million people and that its broadcast leaves more than 10.5 million interactions on social networks.
A flamenco gala
Regarding the Latin Grammy gala, which will be presented by Paz Vega, Roselyn Sánchez, Dana Paola and Sebastián Yatra, it is known that, taking advantage of its new location, it will have a marked Spanish and Andalusian accent, with flamenco as a key ingredient. And one of the big draws in this sense will be the performance of Rosalía, who is nominated for Record of the Year for ‘Despechá’, during the ceremony.
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Beyond the Catalan artist, musicians such as Bizarrap, Rauw Alejandro, Maria Becerra, Ozuna, Alejandro Sanz, Pablo Alborán and Peso Pluma, among others, will star in the night – and the red carpet – in Seville. And outside of music, the actor Antonio Banderas will have his moment, who will receive the 2023 Presidential Award awarded by the Latin Recording Academy, which recognizes outstanding members of the Latin community for promoting and encouraging arts and culture in the world.
300 nominees
There are a total of 56 award categories for which there are up to 300 nominees, selected from just over 19,000 applicant entries. The artist with the most nominations is not, by any means, as popular a name as those mentioned above. It is the Mexican producer Édgar Barrera, who has 13 nominations – including producer of the year and composer of the year – for his participation in songs by Maluma, Bad Bunny… He is followed by seven artists such as Karol G, Bizarrap, Shakira, Camilo and Keityn (co-author of the popular song in which Shakira shot Piqué). And the Spaniard with the most nominations is Pablo Alborán, with six.