Rink during contractors routine repairs and maintenance. From July 27 to August 5 The London Music Festival '73 was held here. It claimed to be the biggest indoor rock festival ever staged. 1980s After the fire, the burnt-out shell of the great hall of Alexandra Palace was used as Victory Square in Michael Radford's 1984 film adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. The Sinclair C5 battery electric vehicle was launched at the palace in January 1985, one week after the closure of the 405-line television system that was inaugurated there 49 years earlier. In November 1989 the Stone Roses played their first major gig in the South of England at Alexandra Palace, notable particularly as the band sold the venue out before being featured significantly in the music press or making any national television appearances. 1990s Hugh Cornwell played his last gig with the Stranglers at Alexandra Palace in August 1990. This would be documented with the Saturday Night, Sunday Morning album and video. Blur performed a major concert at the venue in October 1994 to promote their album Parklife. The recording of the concert was released on video in February 1995 with the title Showtime and used as the basis for the video for the band's song "End of a Century". From 1993 to 1995, the Brit Awards were hosted at Alexandra Palace. In November 1996 it was the venue for the annual MTV Europe Music Awards. In 1996, the Palace hosted the inaugural London Model Engineering Exhibition which continued each year until 2021 when it was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 2000s In April 2000, the funeral service of the Labour MP Bernie Grant took place at the Palace. An estimated 3,000 people attended. The fourth Mind Sports Olympiad was held at Alexandra Palace in August 2000, with more than 4,000 competitors from around the world taking part in mind sports. In December 2002, The Miss World 2002 pageant was staged in the venue at short notice, having originally been scheduled for Abuja, Nigeria. In June 2007, a Hackday event was hosted at Alexandra Palace by the BBC and Yahoo! During the event, the building was struck by lightning, causing the fire vents to open (and then get stuck open), and it rained inside the building. Since December 2007, Alexandra Palace has hosted the PDC World Darts Championship, following 14 years from December 1993 to January