Grammys indefinitely postponed as Omicron spreads

This year's Grammy Awards ceremony honoring top performances in music has been postponed indefinitely because of the rapid spread of the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, organizers said on Wednesday.

The Grammy Awards have been postponed for a second year in a row, with organizers on Wednesday citing a surge in cases of the Omicron coronavirus variant.

The Grammys, which honors the top performances in music, was scheduled to take place at the end of the month.

Organizers had hoped for a return to a more traditional celebration, complete with a large audience inside the former Staples Center, now called the Crypto.com Arena.

Last year's celebrations were held in March instead of January and featured a mix of pre-recorded and live segments in front of a small, socially distanced crowd.

But the Grammys were not the only awards event disrupted by Omicron.

The Sundance Film Festival is going virtual following a cancellation of in-person events.

While the Critics' Choice Awards, meant for this Sunday, has been postponed with no new date scheduled.

"...Hollywood was not expecting this..."

Mark Malkin is the senior editor at Variety magazine.

"Hollywood has to be really careful with, if they're trying to bring back awards season, they can't look like they don't care. They can't look like they're not, you know, having empathy for all the suffering that's going on out there. So I think if, you know, they sort of take a few steps back with a bunch of these award shows, it's okay and then really celebrate at the Oscars, I think they could be forgiven."

Awards season traditionally ends with the Oscars, also known as the Academy Awards, which are expected to be held in late March.

 

 

 

 

REUTERS