Billboard Music Awards

Charter a Private Jet to the Billboard Music Awards

So many music awards shows. Which one to go to?

You could go to the Grammys, where the awards are based on votes by those in the music industry.

You could go to the American Music Awards where fan votes are factored in with peer and industry votes.

Or, you could go to the Billboard Music Awards, given to the most popular songs of the preceding year. The winner is the fan favorite that stayed atop the Billboard weekly charts for the longest period of time.

We Can Get You There

It seems as if every year there is a big surprise at the Billboard Music Awards (remember Hologram Michael Jackson performing “Slave to the Rhythm” in 2014?). If you’d like to be among the fans at the show, which is held at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, Paramount Business Jets can arrange a charter flight into any nearby airport, including:

• McCarran International Airport, KLAS, LAS, Las Vegas, United States (2 miles)
• North Las Vegas Airport, KVGT, VGT, Las Vegas, United States (8 miles)
• Nellis AFB Airport, KLSV, LSV, Las Vegas, United States (12 miles)
• Henderson Airport, KHND, HSH, Henderson, United States (19 miles)
• Boulder City Municipal Airport, KBVU, BLD, Boulder City, United States (20 miles)
• Jean Airport, K0L7, 0L7, Jean, United States (25 miles)
• Sky Ranch Airport, K3L2, 3L2, Sandy Valley, United States (33 miles)
• Echo Bay Airport, K0L9, 0L9, Overton, United States (42 miles)
• Creech AFB Airport, KINS, INS, Indian Springs, United States (44 miles)
• Triangle Airpark Airport, AZ50, AZ50, White Hills, United States (47 miles)

A Little History

Long before there were Billboard Music Awards, there was Billboard Magazine – and its famous charts. The charts – then called the Hit Parade – began in 1936 in three genres: pop, rhythm and blues and country.

The magazine kept tracking records, but it wouldn’t be until 1961 that the Billboard Top 100, which everybody knows today, was born. It’s the measure of success to most artists.

It wasn’t until almost two decades later, in 1990, that the Billboard Music Awards show began. Michael Jackson won Top Album in that inaugural year for “Bad.”

Until 2006, the Billboard awards were based on year-end charts, published every December.

The show went on hiatus in 2007 after losing its television contract with Fox. In 2011, ABC (and Dick Clark Productions) picked it up.

It’s been there ever since – with one big change: the winners are not based on year-end charts anymore.

The digital age has made it so that it is no longer possible to judge a song based solely on radio airplay and record sales.

Today’s finalists, Billboard said, are chosen based on “album and digital songs sales, radio airplay, streaming, touring and social interactions on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Spotify and other popular online destinations for music. These measurements are tracked year-round by Billboard and its data partners, including Nielsen Music and Next Big Sound.” The awards are usually handed out in late spring or early summer for the preceding March-to-March or April-to-April year.

Image Credit: Billboard.com

Most Wins

• Drake, 34
• Taylor Swift, 29
• Justin Bieber, 26
• The Weeknd, 20
• Garth Brooks, 19
• Adele, 18
• Usher, 18
• Eminem, 17
• Kanye West, 17
• Whitney Houston, 16
• Mariah Carey, 15
• Beyoncé, 13
• 50 Cent, 13
• BTS, 12
• Carrie Underwood, 12
• George Michael, 12
• Rihanna, 12
• R. Kelly, 12
• Destiny's Child, 11
• Janet Jackson, 11
• Mary J. Blige, 11
• Imagine Dragons, 11
• Lady Gaga, 11

Billboard Trivia

• Seeing ghosts: It took months of planning and developing the technology that put Michael Jackson on the stage in hologram form in 2014, five years after he died. He performed “Slave to the Rhythm,” by starting seated on a gilded chair. Then he popped off the screen in his signature gold jacket and was accompanied by live dancers.
  

• Royal mashup: The tributes that have been made to Prince since his untimely death in 2016 don’t hold a candle to the real thing: his mashup of two of his hits, “Let’s Go Crazy” and “FixUrLifeUp.” at the 2013 awards show.
• Find Queen Bey: In 2003, Beyoncé performed “Me, Myself and I” with an army of backup dancers that looked just like her, all the way from the top of their blonde bangs to the bottom of their yellow pumps.
  

• The contest rules were changed in December 2014 to add number of streams of a song into the award-winner mix.
• Chance the Rapper was the first artist to make it onto the Billboard charts with a streaming-only album. “Coloring Book,” which debuted at No. 8 in 2015. He doesn’t sell his music. It’s free, he told Jimmy Fallon in 2016. “Trying to fit (my music) in a for-sale album is kinda obsolete.” How do you make money? Fallon asked him. I’m touring – but not festivals, he said. “I just kinda like to show up and do my thing.”
• Spotlight Award: Michael Jackson won Billboard’s first Spotlight Award in 1989 for having five consecutive Number 1 singles from one album, “Bad.” The next artist to do that – and win the award – was Katy Perry in 2012 for “Teenage Dream.”