Tickets for the MTV Europe Music Awards ceremony, taking place in Leith, near Edinburgh, Scotland on November 6 next month, were sold out last week - 14 minutes after they going on sale. An exclusive hotline number was deluged by fans the moment the £34 tickets went on sale, at 5pm. Members of the public still hoping to get in to one of Europe’s biggest musical events will now have to hope to be lucky in competitions offering tickets as prizes.

The evening, to be hosted by the American pop star Christina Aguilera, has already attracted controversy, with accusations that very few Scots would be able to get tickets as the hotline applied to the whole of Europe, with no tickets reserved for sale locally. Also MTV had launched an inquiry following claims reported by the newspaper Scotland on Sunday of London ticket agencies purporting to guarantee customers entry to their 10th Anniversary star-studded music awards event for as much as £800, despite the fact that MTV at the time had not released details of how they would be sold. Agencies were said to be promising invitations for more than 20 times their likely face value.

It is believed up to 3,000 tickets were distributed to performers and their guests, agents, record labels and as part of corporate deals. Sponsors Vodafone Live!, American Express, Replay Blue Jeans and Foot Locker, are rumoured to have paid up to £3.1m to have their names linked to the ceremony and will have access to 1,500 tickets, some of which will be handed out in competitions to customers. So, presumably there were only 1,500 tickets to be made available to the public.

The awards ceremony reported in depth in our last Newsletter, will also star Beyoncé Knowles, The Flaming Lips and Travis, is to be held in a specially constructed arena holding 6,000 people. The only Scots act performing will be Travis, though Shirley Manson, the singer with the band Garbage, will be presenting an award at the show. Local Scottish music fans who were not lucky enough to get tickets will be able to see the live broadcast on MTV Europe, and could benefit in other ways as it has been suggested by local councillors that the stage, which has been erected next to Ocean Terminal specifically for the show, could remain after the awards and become a regular venue for bands. Also MTV has also organised an 8,000 capacity concert to take place simultaneously in Princes Street Gardens, co-produced by Pete Irvine, who heads locally based Unique Events, featuring The Chemical Brothers and Flaming Lips. The company yesterday said details of how to buy tickets for the Princes Street Gardens performance would be revealed in due course.

An MTV spokesperson said, “MTV is committed to offering its audience as many opportunities as possible to be part of the Awards. Due to heavy demand MTV Music Awards tickets sell out within minutes every year. However for the first time ever MTV Europe will be holding an 8000 capacity free performance similar to the Awards at Edinburgh’s Princes Gardens, giving those not successful when tickers went on sale another chance to be part of the celebration.”