Where could the Postponed Grammys end up if the Crypto.com arena is booked?

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Even as the old year became the new, and positive COVID tests in Los Angeles reached their highest number since the start of the pandemic, Recording Academy officials were still hoping to find a way to keep the Grammys on the schedule. longtime January of the show. 31 date – and it’s not hard to see why there was resistance to the postponement. The most obvious reason: It will be nearly impossible to reschedule the show at its Crypto.com Arena home anytime before the summer months … and there are a number of reasons for virtually any other location to count from. LA as a substitute.

That’s why – now that the postponement has become official on Wednesday morning – there are rumors that the Academy and CBS are looking at Las Vegas as a wildcard to move to the Grammys. Strange as it may sound, this nuclear option makes more sense than virtually any scenario that involves insisting on keeping the show local … unless summer is truly chosen as a suitable time for the Grammys dance in the streets of LA.

The Grammys haven’t announced a new date, but it would almost certainly be in March, April, or May. Returning to that window would be hoping to arrive late enough that the Omicron Wave has done what it’s going to do and moved on, thus allowing the large in-person audiences whose show can’t afford to. move on in 2022. However, later than spring, and the show risks passing favorites like Olivia Rodrigo off for acts of nostalgia.

Packing and moving is fraught with contractual complications. The Recording Academy signed a new four-year deal with Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center) that began in 2019 and, under normal circumstances, would have completed this year, but the 2021 ceremony ended. eventually held at the Los Angeles Convention Center and probably did not count towards that total.

While the pandemic certainly counts as an extraordinary circumstance, it seems unlikely that AEG, which owns the arena, will allow the Grammys to go to a competing venue instead of rescheduling the show for the closest possible date on Crypto. .com, even so far into the future that might be. (Representatives of AEG and the Academy did not immediately respond to Variety’s requests for comment on the arrangement.)

However, Crypto.com Arena (formerly Staples Center, until just a few days ago) is perhaps the busiest arena in the country. A glance at the venue’s schedule in March, April, and May reveals times when it’s dark for even a single night – between Lakers, Clippers, and Kings games, not to mention concerts – not to mention the 10. or more necessary for a show as as massive as the Grammys as they are traditionally produced. Crypto.com Arena appears to have a rare seven-day window open from April 24-30, but you have to look as far as May 8-16 for a time slot where the venue has up to nine free days on its public calendar.

Consider, meanwhile, that Crypto.com Arena had blocked a 12-day period – January 21 to February 1 – for the Grammys prior to that deadline. This is a period of time the site did not open until the Sparks team ended their season in mid-August.

How about holding it earlier, but with little live viewing to speak of, on televised last year from the adjacent Convention Center? This show had mostly obscured the nominees entering and exiting the atrium where the awards were being presented, with the performances being a mix of live and prerecorded numbers in a variety of indoor and outdoor settings nearby. As well-received as the show has been by industry and the press, the entire audience may have heard the dreaded words “resized” and “downsized.” CBS isn’t eager to see a rerun of a show that will be presented to domestic audiences as compromised by COVID. Never mind a second year in a row losing millions due to a lack of sales of luxury tickets and boxes.

Would another place in LA work? The twitter sphere loves the idea of ​​the Hollywood Bowl, which sounds wonderful in theory but is probably a non-starter in practice. The weather is still unpredictable in March or April, and no one wants to see parkas on a Grammys red carpet. A bigger hurdle, however, would be where to put a red carpet. There’s a reason you don’t see the big TV shows hosted at the Bowl – it’s carved out of a narrow canyon, and the parking lot barely has room for the small town infrastructure built around the Grammys.

The weather would also be a consideration at Banc of California Stadium. Built on the site of the old sports arena, it’s new and underused, with almost nothing on the schedule. But it’s inconceivable that Crypto.com Arena will voluntarily allow an expiration of its exclusive contract to allow the Grammys to give business to a starving competitor who is practically next door. The same is probably true for any other competing facility, like the Forum or SoFi Stadium. (Honda Center? Imagine the reaction of the stars if you tell them they are going to spend the night in Anaheim.)

Moving outside of the greater Los Angeles area seems unlikely. The show only took place at a different location twice in the 20 years from 2000 to 2020 – both times at Madison Square Garden in New York City, an arrangement that lost the Academy approximately $ 5 million in 2018. , which is reason enough to remove this option from the list, even if it was available and achievable remotely in such a short time frame. (For anyone who fantasizes that this could finally be an excuse for a detour to Nashville, that city’s Bridgestone Arena is also booked through April.)

Which ultimately brings us back to Las Vegas, by far the most viable of all the non-Los Angeles options. It’s practically adjacent to LA when it comes to transportation, there’s more than enough hotel rooms for an invading army, there’s infrastructure, and there’s a Recording Academy precedent.

The Latin Grammys have been held there 12 of the past 13 years, in three different arenas, so the organization knows the city and its venues well, and the city is pretty much built for high-production shows like the Grammys. Since virtually every possible site is connected to large hotels or neighbors, talent doesn’t even have to leave the building. And – just as everyone is hoping to be relaxed about COVID again this spring – Nevada is the last place anyone would worry about anything that could be seen as onerous restrictions imposed as a last-minute surprise. .

Most inviting, perhaps, Las Vegas is overcrowded with arenas, some of them dark most nights. The T-Mobile Arena is the newest and most popular facility in town, but it’s too popular to consider doing anything there before April. But after the Golden Knights’ season finale at T-Mobile on April 24, the arena appears to be wide open until Eric Church performs on May 13.

An even wilder card among the jokers of Vegas: the 65,000-seat Allegiant stadium, which has a roof and air conditioning. If that sounds too big, consider the Academy of Country Music Awards televising there on March 5th. But while that sounds like biting more than an academy should be chewing on in a relatively short period of time, the city has arenas that are wide open. The Michelob Ultra Arena has about a full month between upcoming concerts, currently advertising the new edition on March 19, followed by J Balvin on April 23 and New Kids on the Block on May 29.

But the most practical option might be the 17,000-seat MGM Grand Garden Arena. It has only been two months since this arena hosted the Latin Grammys, so its benefits are well known to the Academy. Aside from being familiar, it also has the added benefit of being largely dark, as so much traffic has been siphoned off by the shiny new object that is the T-Mobile Arena. The MGM website does not show any public events booked between a John Mayer concert on March 11 and Nick Cannon more than two months later on June 25.

But there would still be a huge dilemma to overcome, getting out of town, even if Crypto.com Arena agrees to push back the Grammys’ contractual obligations for another year. That’s what happens with all of the programs leading up to Music’s Biggest Night, like the Clive Davis Gala and MusiCares’ tribute to Joni Mitchell, not to mention the less star-studded events the Academy is hosting in prep week. Would they move to Las Vegas too, or go the easiest route to stay in LA, possibly missing out on some of the talent that might already be out of town?

Knowing how all of this will definitely play out requires an omicron omniscience that even the best soothsayers in the Academy can’t handle. But in announcing the postponement, the Grammys promised that a new date would arrive imminently … and that can’t happen without a home base in mind. Time is running out: does anyone want to bet on Vegas?

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