In the years to come, the award ceremony for the Academy of Country Music (yes, that’s the single sound, mobile phone-carrying Grammy Awards) will likely include a parade of synthetic telecasts. On Sept. 15, the Academy announced that its next ACM Awards will be held in Las Vegas on April 6, 2022 at T-Mobile Arena. That’s being broadcast live to over 100 million Prime Video subscribers in all territories.
In the eight years since being staged at Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, the ACM Awards have shown increasingly that they’re willing to ignore their audience with a move up to a more traditional venue. After decade-plus home stays at Arlington, the 42nd annual ACM Awards shifted to New York in 2017, also on CBS, a network that will televise all the prime-time concerts at T-Mobile Arena in 2019.
It’s not entirely a surprise that the Academy decided to go back to Vegas. The tradition of outdoor concerts and parades has been alive and well there since the late 1950s.
We can probably safely say that there won’t be any problem moving the show into its new home. T-Mobile Arena, home of the NHL’s Winnipeg Jets, already hosts a handful of major events, including the NBA All-Star Weekend, the Major League Soccer All-Star Game and an annual blues festival that attracts Bill Clinton, Jerry Lee Lewis and Chicago blues legend Buddy Guy. And there is room at the arena.
Speaking of the Lakers, the concert venue where the annual Grammy Awards will now take place after a few weeks at the Staples Center was recently named the world’s most famous indoor concert venue by Pollstar, a global publication covering the live music industry.