After a shift to Nashville for two years due to COVID-19 issues, the Academy of Country Music Awards are heading back to their longtime home of Las Vegas in 2022. But there are some big changes happening.
Marking the 57th annual ACM Awards ceremony, the show will be held at the city’s gleaming new Allegiant Stadium on Monday, March 7, 2022. And for the first time, it will not be available on broadcast television.
Announcing the date and location, organizers confirmed last week that the next ACM Awards will be the first major awards show in history to air exclusively as a live stream. It will be carried by Amazon’s Prime Video in the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the U.K., as one of the country genre’s biggest nights adjusts to a new playing field.
“We are thrilled to return to Las Vegas to celebrate country music’s Party of the Year in this incredible brand-new stadium and on the Prime Video streaming service for the first time ever,” said Damon Whiteside, CEO of the Academy of Country Music. “We can’t thank the city of Las Vegas and Allegiant Stadium enough for welcoming us for the 57th Academy of Country Music Awards — a party so big only a stadium can hold it!”
Both the 2020 and 2021 ACM Awards were held in Nashville, with Keith Urban hosting in 2020 and the show occupying stages at the Ryman Auditorium, Grand Ole Opryhouse and Bluebird Cafe in September. That followed a postponement from its traditional date in April, and saw Thomas Rhett and Carrie Underwood crowned as the first ever co-Entertainers of the Year. The 2021 event followed just a few months later with Urban and Mickey Guyton co-hosting, naming Luke Bryan the year’s ETOY.
This year’s changes come as the industry opens up and regular travel for its stars resumes, and now makes room for a ton of fans to return to the celebration. The newly opened Allegiant Stadium is home to the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders, and has a game-day capacity of 65,000.
Meanwhile, the West-Coast based Academy of Country Music announced their big night’s move to live streaming in August, after CBS opted to drop the show in favor of the CMT Music Awards when CMT’s parent company, Viacom, merged with CBS. It had been on CBS from 1998 through 2021, and that’s also why the ACM Awards are happening about a month earlier than usual.
Stay tuned for the announce of the 2022 host and field of nominees, as well as ticket sales.