ACM Awards returns in 2016; MGM Resorts FestivalGrounds to join party

Chris Pizzello / Invision / AP

George Strait and Miranda Lambert perform during the 49th Annual Academy of Country MusicAwards at MGM Grand Garden Arena on Sunday, April 6, 2014, in Las Vegas.

By John Katsilometes (contact)

Sunday, April 26, 2015 | 6:39 p.m.

The strength of hosting events in Las Vegas is the city itself. Tourism officials frequently remindpromoters of such spectacles as annual awards telecasts that the city can serve as a giant venue.

The facility in which the show is held, MGM Grand Garden Arena being a chief example, issometimes just one component of a greater stage. The Academy of Country Music Awards is anexample of such a citywide event. The ACM Awards telecast has toggled between Grand GardenArena and Mandalay Bay Events Center in recent years. Last year, the Linq Promenade's outdoorfestival grounds to the east of the High Roller were folded into the event.

The ACM Awards shifted to the spacious ATT Stadium in Arlington, Texas, on April 19 for its 50thanniversary, celebrated in Texas-sized fashion on CBS. After the show's hoedown in the big barn thatis home to the Dallas Cowboys, the show is back in Las Vegas for 2016 and is once more going tospan multiple venues on the Strip.

Specifically, the new MGM Resorts Festival Grounds will be abuzz with country stars during theACM Awards' return from April 1-3, 2016. A trio of headliners already is booked to perform overthree nights: Kenny Chesney, Carrie Underwood and Dierks Bentley.

This is the second event booked at the Festival Grounds after the upcoming Rock in Rio USA festivalthe weekends of May 8-9 and May 15-16. These ACM Awards performances are to be full concerts,each night, on the open 50-acre space, not abbreviated sets, as was the case when the Linq hostedthe ACM Party for a Cause last year.

Hunter Hayes did perform a full show on the Thursday night preceding the ACM Awards telecast,but the ACM Party for a Cause was a spree of 20 acts over 48 hours -- those performing includedRascal Flatts, Florida Georgia Line and Keith Urban.

Mandalay Bay Events Center will continue to be used as a "throw-to" venue for the April 3 telecast,meaning that Las Vegas is matching the 70,000-capacity ACM Awards telecast with a triumvirate ofindoor-outdoor venues, all on the Strip. The show from ATT Stadium drew high praise for the scopeof its staging, with crane-operated cameras sweeping over the huge crowd, but lacked any measureof coziness.

MGM Grand has always served as a versatile TV stage, and the additions of the outdoor venue withthe Strip backdrop should at least equal the dynamism of thousands of country fans cheering inArlington. It was a great show, for a one-off, but Las Vegas is saying, "We'll take it from here."

Mandalay Bay Events Center

3950 Las Vegas Blvd. Las Vegas, NV 89119

702-632-7777

Grand Garden Arena

Las Vegas, NV

Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow "Kats With the Dish" atTwitter.com/KatsWiththeDish.

http://lasvegassun.com/blogs/kats-report/2015/apr/26/acm-awards-telecast-returns-2016-mgm-resorts-fesiv/