The 2024 MTV Video Music Awards, held in New York last night, marked the 40th anniversary of the culture-moving ceremony that contributed to the history of music video culture worldwide. From Madonna’s Like a Virgin performance to Britney Spears’ snake-wielding I’m a Slave 4 U and Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi, the VMAs have long been a stage for bold statements and creative expression, leaving a legacy of iconic moments that influenced pop culture for generations. 

To celebrate the 40th-anniversary milestone and pay tribute to the origins and evolution of the ceremony, the stage design has been assigned to Matt Steinbrenner, who worked as VMAs’ production designer for over a decade. To encapsulate the core theme of the show, the visual centrepiece conceived by Steinbrenner was a towering 60-foot-tall Moon Person emerging from a massive video wall reaching 55 feet into the room as if stepping out of the digital world into the physical, metaphorically referring to the event itself and the connection between its history and future. In a nostalgic yet modern spectacle, the over-sized MTV figure has also served as a canvas for projection mapping, showcasing clips and iconic moments of the ceremony’s four decades.