Brit Awards: This is what it takes to stage the biggest night in British music

Career-making performances, unexpected f-bombs and a cape malfunction that has gone down in music history - the Brit Awards have truly delivered over the past four decades.

Tonight, the event celebrates its 40th year and while it is the stars onstage (and occasionally in the audience) who grab headlines, the evening could not exist without the powerhouse, female-led team behind it.

With a week to go, production designer Misty Buckley is at the O2 Arena - which has played host to the Brits since 2011 - watching as the steel foundations for the stage and set are put in place. The design itself, which pays homage to the past 40 years in British music, has been eight months in the making and the final week (the event has a nine-day tenancy at the venue, in total) is as hectic as you’d think.

Buckley works on countless tours, festivals including Glastonbury and TV shows but describes the biggest night in music as “the most complex of them all.”

“It’s where all of the worlds collide,” she explains over the phone from the venue. “You have a live show, you have nine bands and this is a big performance for all of them.

“The ceremony is so prestigious and important in our industry that it can feel like an opening ceremony, and it’s televised so it has to look great on camera.”

Then add to this that her team designs not just the core set but also works with the individual artists, which can bring its own negotiating dilemmas: “You get, ‘We really like this,’ and I have to say to myself: ‘But you can't have that!’”

Meanwhile in her office, event manager Maggie Crowe is busy double and triple-checking plans for everything from the security and catering to keeping the Brits’ sponsors happy. Having led the whole team since 2005, she knows the awards far better than most.

“I'm the interchange for all of the departments,” is how she modestly describes her job, adding that the most important skill in dealing with so many people and megastars is: “I've learnt how to say no nicely.

“A lot of these people go in and out of the O2 and they have masses of people with them and they're one of one, because they come in and hold 18 or 19 nights on their own.

“But this is an awards show, you're one of 10 or you could be one of 12 and it's making the matrix work.

“We want to give them the environment in which they can give the performance of their lives and it's so hard.”

When it works, it works. The Brits hasn’t been without its hiccups and dud years but any music fan can name you their “Brits moment” - be it the Gallaghers’ feud with Blur, Beyonce’s surprise performance or the phenomenal Amy Winehouse at her peak - and very few of these unfold by accident.

It’s hard to imagine a time when Adele wasn’t a global superstar but while her debut album, 19, brought critical acclaim and topped the charts, it was the release of 21 in 2011 that sent her career stratospheric. A month after the album came out, Adele shunned filling the Brits stage with bells and whistles, delivering the vocal performance of a lifetime.

“The performances can be a real mishmash,” Crowe points out. “They don't have to be the winners, it's not that prescribed.

“[Adele’s performance] was an intimate moment. We'd just moved from Earls Court to the O2.

“She was just tipping over, the majority of the music industry knew of her but the public didn't.”

Adele’s success is also a victory for the Brits School, which isn’t just a training ground for singing superstars in the making, but visual artists, digital designers, lighting experts and everything in between.

The money made by the ceremony is diverted straight back into the Brits Trust, which in turn goes to the school, where the stars and experts of tomorrow are trained.

For Buckley, who is in her fourth year of designing the set, Rag’n’Bone Man’s moving 2018 rendition of Skin was “an absolute dream to do.”

“He was just extraordinary to work with,” she said. “For someone who doesn't really love being centre stage, he was really gracious and collaborative.”

Kanye West’s on-stage gathering of UK grime artists wasn’t quite as impromptu as the rapper has allowed it to seem and there’s a touch of urban legend to versions of the tale which include him turning up on the night with 40 collaborators in tow in 2015.

“That was fine, it was the day before [that we found out] and he reached out to them,” Crowe explains. “It's another logistical thing that is the challenge. if he wants to bring all of these people my main job is to make sure it's safe.”

West’s show-stopping performance would have the moment of the night had disaster not struck mere minutes later.

During what was due to be - and thanks to her unrivalled resilience, still managed to be - a triumphant closing moment, global superstar Madonna suffered what has become one of the world’s most famous wardrobe malfunctions, crashing down the steps mid-performance when her custom-made Dolce and Gabbana cape failed to undo.

"I held my breath,” Crowe recalls. “The whole room gasped."

The mishaps cannot be avoided but the stakes are rarely so high. Crowe watches the opening number from backstage, before moving to various working areas around the event, while Buckley watches the whole thing front of house.

“I can't relax,” she says. “The idea of sitting at a table fills me with utter dread.

“I'm not allowed backstage anymore, I get too panicky.”

The Brit Awards air on ITV at 8pm.

Read more

Lewis Capaldi leads male-dominated Brit Awards nominations list

Brit Awards confirm major changes for 2020 ceremony

Emily Atack has perfect clap back for body shaming trolls at Brits