A WHISTLESTOP tour ­featuring the best the city has to offer has landed one of the top music events in the world.

In just 24 hours, some of the top operators in the music business were taken by seaplane to one of the world's top hotels, given a midnight tour of the stunning City Chambers and escorted round the dramatic new Hydro arena.

They were so wowed by what Glasgow has to offer that next year the city will host the glamorous 2014 MTV EMAs.

The MTV bosses came to town earlier this year before making the crunch decision on which city would host the prized awards.

"This was all about us proving that we can go the extra mile," ­explains Joe Aitken, head of major events at Glasgow City Marketing Bureau (GCMB).

His team was given 24 hours in June with which to impress bosses from New York, Los Angeles and Camden, London, including president and chief executive of Viacom International Media Networks, which operates MTV, Bob Bakish.

It was to include all the top ­hotels, the venue, of course, and other unmissable sights to give a feel of the city.

They were met by leaders of ­industry from across Glasgow.

Mr Aitken said: "Primarily they wanted to come in and go through the five-star artist's journey.

"They wanted to look at all the top five-star hotels within the city and also property outwith.

"What they wanted to do was ­experience what it would be like for the artist."

Transported by seaplane to Cameron House on the edge of Loch ­Lomond, first off the group flew over some of the most beautiful scenery Scotland has to offer.

On landing, Bruce Gilmer, executive vice president of talent and music programming/events for ­Viacom, knocked his designer sunglasses into the loch.

Assuming they were lost forever, he was over the moon when managing director at Cameron House Stephen Carter arranged for someone to go to the airport and present him with his Ray-Ban's after despatching divers to pick them off the loch bed.

Mr Aitken said Mr Gilmer was "blown away" with the gesture.

And it was little things like this that proved Glasgow could go above and beyond to impress its visitors.

That evening, they were treated to a surprise midnight tour of the City Chambers, led by the leader of the council and chairman of GCMB Gordon Matheson, which thrilled the visitors.

Scott Taylor, chief executive of GCMB, said: "This was about 11.30pm and security opens up the City Chambers and the leader turns the lights on and takes these four top executives into the Debating Chamber to show them what Glasgow can do, to show them what the city is like.

"They were truly blown away.

"They realised how serious we were, but also how much fun it would be if they brought the MTV European Music Awards here."

The short visit also featured a tour of the £125million Hydro, which opened in September.

In June, the 12,000-seater venue was still under construction but the visitors were given exclusive access for a sneak preview.

Mr Aitken said: "They walked through the SSE ­Hydro when it was still a hard hat tour and they were just blown away with the quality of it.

"The roofing and the rigging and what they could do up there, the get in and the get out, the feel of the venue, even then, blew them away."

The bid has been in the pipeline since 2006 - the year after the marketing bureau was launched.

Bosses laid out a 'strategic list' of all the events they hoped to attract and MTV was earmarked for a visit in 2014. Acting on initiative, GCMB sent a digital bid to the MTV bosses in summer 2012, outlining why the city was a worthy host.

This was the first time a bid had been submitted in this format and Glasgow managed another first when they persuaded MTV bosses to announce their successful bid at this year's awards in Amsterdam on Sunday.

Normally they don't reveal who will host the event until around nine months before in the host city, but, instead, in front of 700million viewers worldwide, Glasgow was named as next year's host.

The announcement was shared with more than 200,000 people within hours on social media and news of Glasgow's success was spread across Twitter.

matty.sutton@eveningtimes.co.uk