Extensive parking bans and changes to public transport routes have already been put in place around the National Opera building, where a large tented frontage has been erected.
Statuettes will be handed out to actors, directors and other film industry workers in 21 categories on Saturday evening, though some of the recipients are already known.
Director Steve McQueen will be handed an Achievement in World Cinema award, Agnès Varda will receive this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award and Ed Guiney will get the European Co-Production Award 2014.
Culture ministers from Austria, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Kosovo will be among 1,000 guests at the opera, with another 500 at the “Splendid Palace” cinema where the show will be transmitted live.
Viewers keen to see who is handed what can also watch the event live on LTV in Latvia (from 1900 local time/1700 GMT), RTP2 in Portugal and SVT Flow in Sweden, or online at www.europeanfilmawards.eu.
Most attention will focus on the nominees in the category European Film 2014 which are: “Force Majeure” (Sweden/Denmark/France/Norway), “Ida” (Poland/Denmark), “Leviathan” (Russia), “Nymphomaniac. Volume I and II” (Denmark/Germany/France/Belgium) and “Winter Sleep” (Turkey/France/Germany).
The event will be one of the final events of Riga's year as a European capital of culture in 2014.
Details of the total cost of staging the event have not been made public.
