Post by kora on Apr 3, 2014 16:32:07 GMT -5
ACMs to take one-year hiatus from Las Vegas
By MIKE WEATHERFORD
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL
If George Strait can sell out 100,000 seats basically on his own this year, maybe the Academy of Country Music awards show can do it with the rest of Nashville next year.
Academy president and music promoter Bob Romeo says the annual ACM awards will celebrate the academy’s 50th anniversary with a one-time move next year to the Dallas Cowboys’ home field, AT&T Stadium, in Arlington, Texas.
But Romeo says he’s already putting in arena hold dates for a Las Vegas return in 2016 and vows to “drive this back to Vegas.” He hopes the new arena near the Monte Carlo will be built by then and wants to continue expanding citywide events beyond Sunday’s awards in the MGM Grand Garden.
Ever since Romeo floated the possibility of a year in Texas, those of us who like things just fine the way they are on ACM weekend in Vegas kind of chortled at the idea of selling those upper-deck stadium seats and smugly imagined a stadium filled with radio phone-in winners.
But then Strait sold out the stadium for the final June 7 date of his “Cowboy Rides Away” farewell tour in just one day.
The ACMs came to Mandalay Bay in 2003 and moved to the larger MGM arena three years later. As it is now, seating is much like the Super Bowl: 90 percent of about 11,000 tickets go to the record labels and corporate sponsors, Romeo says.
Most paying fans attend a companion event at Mandalay Bay Events Center that started four years ago. But this year’s biggest bargain seems to be Monday’s “ACM’s Salute to the Troops” which offers most of the big stars, including Strait, and was being discounted on Groupon a few weeks ago.