Can the BBC Music Awards match the success of the Brit Awards?

The BBC Music Awards 2016 rounded off what has been a tremendous year in music on 12 December. Fearne Cotton, Claudia Winkleman and Gemma Cairney did the honours of hosting the third annual awards, which were held at ExCel London. But did the night manage to excel expectations? IBTimes UK were on the ground to watch all the action unfold live.

It promised to be a star-studded night with the likes of Emeli Sande, The 1975, Coldplay and Robbie Williams amongst act on the line-up. Stunning sets from the likes of Sande, whose stellar vocals ricocheted beautifully throughout the arena, and UK soul legend Craig David bringing the party with a brief medley of his hits past and present, carried the evening along nicely.

The nominations were star-studded with Adele, Calvin Harris and Justin Bieber up for some of the top awards, however, even with big names topping the bill, the ceremony was missing some of its star power.

Quite literally, at that. Adele was announced as first winner of the night, taking the Radio 2 album of the year award for her best-selling third LP 25. Unfortunately, Adele was not present at the ceremony – the Someone Like You hitmaker is still in the US after wrapping up her tour in November. Robbie Williams accepted the award on Adele's behalf and former Spice Girls star Geri Horner also received the singer's song of the year accolade for Hello.

Like Adele, British rockers Coldplay were also missing in action. Chris Martin and co are currently in Australia performing on their Head Full Of Dreams tour so accepted their British artist of the year award via video link. The awards also screened a performance of their latest single Everglow from one of their tour shows Down Under.

Aside from the disappointment of missing its leading stars, the BBC Music Awards did well in shining the spotlight on emerging talent. BBC Introducing winner Izzy Bizu lit-up the stage with her gorgeous breakout hit White Tiger while Lukas Graham had their chance to shine with their summer smash 7 Years. Proving her salt as the next big thing in pop, versatile Swedish songstress Zara Larsson gave a standout, full-throttle performance of I Would Like.

Cotton and Winkleman were charming and faultless in their presenting while BBC Radio 1 DJ Cairney went above and beyond to excite the atmosphere backstage.

As a relatively new event, the BBC Music Awards are of course going to experience some teething problems in its first few years. In the ever-growing sea of awards and ITV's Brit Awards to compete with, it still needs to pull it out of the bag to establish itself within the industry. With the channel's exclusive Glastonbury coverage and the impact its Radio 1 playlist has on shaping the pop industry, it can surely only go upwards for the BBC Music Awards.

Watch The 1975 perform The Sound at the BBC Music Awards 2016: