How Will Award Shows Work During The Pandemic?

By Anton Dedvukaj

With things slowly beginning to return to some semblance of normalcy, fans of award shows that were coming up were likely wondering how they would eventually come to work. After all, when sports, concerts, and other major events were cancelled back in March, surely award shows wouldn’t survive the pandemic. And sure enough, many award shows came to be delayed.

However, we are now well into fall, and fall and winter are usually when many of the biggest award shows, such as the Emmys, Oscars, and Grammys, take place. And while things are definitely trying to return to normal, it seems clear that the pandemic certainly hasn’t gone away by any stretch. So, how have award shows been trying to come back?

Well, I’ll point to two examples of recent award shows that have aired, the Emmys and the VMAs. Both of these award shows seemed to utilize a hybrid form of broadcast between live and virtual presentation. For the Emmys, strict guidelines accounting for the virus were put in place.

In fact, most nominees chose to attend the award show virtually, and accepted their awards from their home or another remote location, with only a few nominees attending the awards in person.

As far as the VMAs went, they also implemented strict guidelines, and it was decided that the initial location of the show, the Barclays Center, would be ditched in favor of outdoor performances. The awards were given outside, and the performance took place in a variety of places, from New York City to Los Angeles to even South Korea.

Overall, it seems as though one thing that both of these shows were able to get right in times like these was trying to accommodate for the existence of the pandemic by utilizing a hybrid of in-person and virtual elements to present the awards.

While many other awards shows are still coming up, such as the AMAs, Grammys, and Oscars, it’s not hard to imagine that similarly strict guidelines will be put in place when the time comes for them to be broadcast.

Overall, while it seemed difficult to continue award shows in the midst of the pandemic, the award shows seem to have figured out how to best accommodate for the pandemic and still present the awards.