LOS ANGELES (AP) — The Oscars are leaving Hollywood.
In 2029, the year the telecast moves from ABC to YouTube, the ceremony itself will move from its longtime home at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood to downtown Los Angeles and the Peacock Theater, 9 miles (14.5 kilometers) away. The Academy announced Thursday that it has reached a 10-year agreement with AEG, which operates the L.A. Live complex where the Peacock Theater sits.
It’s a surprising move, given that the Dolby was developed by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences itself, expressly as a home for the Oscars. The ceremony has been held there since 2002 (with the exception of the COVID-driven downsized show at Union Station in 2021) and has provided an especially steady home for the Oscars, which have never stayed in a single venue for such a long stretch. The awards bounced between various LA hotels in its early years, before moving up to theaters in the mid-1940s.
The downtown Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, a fine arts facility that is home to the LA Opera, became heavily identified with the Oscars when it hosted the ceremony from 1968 to 1986. The ceremony then alternated between the Chandler and the Shrine Auditorium, next to the University of Southern California, until the long-term move to Hollywood.
The Dolby will continue to host the show as it airs in its final years on ABC, concluding with the 100th Academy Awards in 2028.
The Peacock Theater is next to the Crypto.com Arena, home to the Los Angeles Lakers and Kings. The theater has hosted the Emmy Awards nearly every year since 2008 and, in recent years, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremonies.
The academy says in its announcement that, under its agreement, AEG will make major upgrades to the theater and its tech setup, and will “collaborate closely with the Academy to incorporate bespoke design elements needed to accommodate the Oscars ceremony.”
The Peacock Theater, previously known as the Nokia Theatre and Microsoft Theater, opened in 2007, as the then-Staples Center site expanded to become the L.A. Live entertainment complex. It hosted concerts from the Eagles and the Chicks to celebrate its opening.
The theater’s capacity of about 7,000 is about twice that of the Dolby. And its plaza is bigger and more open-air than the Dolby’s Ovation Hollywood complex, which has more of an enclosed shopping mall feeling. Like Hollywood, L.A. Live also has multiple hotels, essential to the logistics of the Oscars.
And there is a cinema at the site, though its Regal theaters multiplex lacks the historic patina of the TCL (formerly Grauman’s) Chinese Theatre next to the Dolby on Hollywood Boulevard.
“For the 101st Oscars and beyond, the Academy looks forward to closely collaborating with AEG to make L.A. LIVE the perfect backdrop for our global celebration of cinema,” the academy’s CEO Bill Kramer and its president, Lynette Howell Taylor, said in a joint statement.
