With music’s biggest night just weeks away, many are wondering whether the 67th Grammy Awards will be postponed due to the devastating wildfires sweeping Los Angeles.
The Grammy Awards are currently scheduled to be held on Sunday, February 2nd at the Crypto.com Arena in downtown Los Angeles. The Grammys are normally a glitzy event celebrating the past year’s biggest artists and top hits, but the city has bigger priorities at the moment.
Sources told The Hollywood Reporter that discussions are underway to postpone the CBS show (and all associated events) or turn it into a fundraiser. A TV executive said it was very likely the Grammy Awards would be postponed because of a fire caused by strong winds earlier this week and the citywide disaster situation still in place. .
Another music industry insider said what happens in the next few days will be key to determining whether the show actually goes on. Recording Academy head Harvey Mason Jr. is said to be considering multiple scenarios.
THR has reached out to the Recording Academy and CBS for comment.
Plans are also in the works for a benefit concert in the coming days leading up to February 2, featuring MusicCares, the Grammy’s own foundation dedicated to supporting music professionals in need. . Live Nation, the Azoff family and AEG Presents have announced an event at Intuit Dome on January 30th. Participating artists and broadcast partners have not yet been decided.
The complexities associated with a natural disaster of this scale extend beyond logistics. The Grammy Awards requires hundreds of hotel rooms for attendees, artists, and their teams, not to mention musicians whose instruments may have been damaged. Locally, many people in the music industry have been affected, from label staff to publicists for top talent like Billie Eilish and The Weeknd.
The Recording Academy has postponed the Grammy Awards twice in recent years. The 2021 show was moved from January to March due to the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19). The 2022 Grammy Awards faced a similar fate, having been postponed from January to April due to a surge in the Omicron variant of the virus. The Recording Academy is the first Grammy Awards to move its 2022 ceremony to Las Vegas.
Crypto.com Arena, home of the NBA’s Lakers and the NHL’s Los Angeles Kings, has also already postponed some games scheduled for this week “to focus on what’s most important,” the Lakers previously said. This was revealed in a statement.
Since Tuesday, when the first wildfire broke out in the Pacific Palisades and spread overnight to parts of Malibu and Santa Monica, first responders across Los Angeles have been fighting fires in the county, including the Eaton, Hearst, and Kenneth fires. We are working tirelessly to extinguish active wildfires that are occurring within the country. The Los Angeles Coroner’s Office announced Friday that the death toll had also increased to 11.
The Palisades Fire alone is reported to be the most destructive fire in Los Angeles history, destroying more than 5,300 structures, including homes, apartments, and businesses, over 20,000 acres. And thousands more lost their lives in the Eaton Fires in Altadena and Pasadena.
Thousands of Los Angeles residents have lost their homes to the fire’s destruction, and many have taken to social media to document the devastation and the fire’s impact on their communities. Among them are Mandy Moore, Anna Faris, Milo Ventimiglia, Paris Hilton, Jeff Bridges, Bozoma St. John, Mel Gibson, Billy Crystal, and Diane Warren, who lost their homes in the fire. This includes a number of famous people who have been burned.
As of Saturday evening, the Kenneth Fire was 90 percent contained. The Palisades Fire near the coastline is 11 percent contained. And the Eaton Fire was 15 percent contained. The Hearst Fire south of Santa Clarita is 76% contained.
