LOS ANGELES (REUTERS) – This 12 months’s Grammy Awards ceremony honouring prime performances in music has been postponed indefinitely due to the fast unfold of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, organisers stated on Wednesday (Jan 5).
The present had been scheduled to happen at an enviornment in downtown Los Angeles and broadcast dwell on the CBS community on Jan 31.
“Given the uncertainty surrounding the Omicron variant, holding the present on Jan 31 merely comprises too many dangers,” CBS and the Recording Academy stated in a joint assertion, including {that a} new date can be introduced quickly.
Nominations for the awards have been introduced in November.
Pianist and bandleader Jon Batiste led a discipline that spanned rap to jazz music and embraced newcomers from teen pop sensation Olivia Rodrigo to veteran crooner Tony Bennett, 95, who gained his first Grammy in 1963.
The 2021 Grammy awards additionally have been postponed due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The ceremony was staged in March as an alternative of January and included a mixture of pre-recorded and dwell segments in entrance of a small, socially distanced crowd.
Organisers had hoped to return this 12 months to one thing nearer to the standard celebration with a big viewers inside the previous Staples Centre, now known as Crypto.com Area. Late-night tv host Trevor Noah had been tapped to host the occasion.
CBS and the Recording Academy stated they consulted native officers, well being specialists and artists earlier than deciding to scrap the January date.
“The well being and security of these in our music neighborhood, the dwell viewers and the a whole lot of people that work tirelessly to provide our present stays our prime precedence,” they stated.
Different leisure trade occasions have been delayed or scaled again.
Organisers of this month’s Sundance Movie Competition in Park Metropolis, Utah, stated on Tuesday they’d cancelled in-person occasions and would transfer them on-line.
The Critics Selection Awards, which had been set for this Sunday, have been postponed with no new date scheduled.