ACM Awards return with three days of outdoor country concerts

Dierks Bentley is having nightmares. Kenny Chesney and Old Dominion might wave at each other from passing limos on Industrial Road. Drunk dudes may be in “Dudette Ranch” heaven, while the ladies may wonder where all the guys in tight jeans went.

The Academy of Country Music Awards come riding back into town this weekend with big changes, big question marks and at least one big “Maybe next year.”

Sunday’s awards show on CBS returns to the MGM Grand Garden after leaving Las Vegas last year for a packed broadcast from AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas.

And it returns with a major new component: three days of outdoor concerts on the Las Vegas Festival Grounds, the site at the corner of Sahara Avenue and Las Vegas Boulevard broken in by last year’s Rock in Rio fest.

“The challenge was, how do we come back to Vegas and make things bigger and better?” executive producer and academy head Bob Romeo says. Unless they moved the awards to Sam Boyd Stadium, “We knew we were going to have to focus on our Party for a Cause and make that our event to bring fans in.”

Carrie Underwood opens the Party at the top of an all-female artist “Girls’ Night Out” on Friday. Dierks Bentley, who also will be busy as the TV awards co-host, heads the bill on Saturday. And Kenny Chesney takes the top spot on Sunday. Both single-day tickets and three-day passes are available.

“We’re at a site now where we’re not going to run out of room,” Romeo says with a laugh. While about 22,000 tickets had been sold, there is room for at least twice that many on the festival grounds. All of it benefits Lifting Lives, the academy’s umbrella organization for emergency relief, music therapy and veterans programs.

With so much going on that Chesney will be performing at the same time as the awards air on the West Coast (they actually happen at 5 p.m. Pacific time), fans may or may not miss a few things that did not return this year: a companion “Fan Jam” in the Mandalay Bay Events Center, a Monday night tribute to a music legend that typically would air in May, and fan voting for some of the ACM awards.

“I’ve had fans sending me notes saying, ‘Are you a moron?’ ‘Are you just an idiot?’ ‘Did you get screwed up on your calendar?’ ” Romeo says of the third day’s Party running concurrently with the TV awards.

But the awards show is a tight ticket, and in reality, relatively few people would be torn between the concert and the broadcast. Most TV viewers outside Las Vegas won’t even realize the conflict, he says.

And with the broadcast starting at 5 p.m. (KLAS-TV, Channel 8, will air them on a delay at 8 p.m. Sunday), Romeo figures he can get Chesney early on the bill, out of the MGM and to the site well before he goes on at 7:10 p.m. On the other hand, Old Dominion — already announced as new vocal duo or group of the year winners — will head the other direction after performing on the Party main stage at 1:55 p.m.

Romeo says Chesney was up for a live cutaway from the broadcast to his outdoor stage, but “it’s expensive to do outside,” with a six-camera shoot needed for one song. “It just financially wasn’t panning out.”

Maybe next year, he says. Or one of the Party nights might be filmed for the May TV special, or perhaps Sunday’s Party will pause for a big-screen broadcast of the awards show, followed by an after-concert.

“I’m open for input,” Romeo says. “We’re either going to say it worked or, ‘You know what? Let’s come up with something different on Sunday night.’ ”

As for the main event, Bentley steps in to co-host with Luke Bryan after Blake Shelton informed the academy he would be too busy with “The Voice” and other commitments.

“Luke threw out the name of Dierks and we also had thought about that internally,” Romeo says. What they didn’t realize was that Bentley would be so fired up about the gig that he would film promotional videos on his own dime to release on social media, including one where he dreams he is hosting the event naked (Jason Aldean does not look amused)”

“As this video shows you, you do see a humorous side of him a lot of people might not see,” Romeo says. “I think this hosting thing will help him show that side of himself.”

Over the years, the ACMs have dialed back on award presentations and thank-you speeches in favor of more music. This year’s announced performers include Underwood, Bentley, Aldean, Shelton, Charles Kelley, Little Big Town, Eric Church, Brett Eldredge,Tim McGraw, Chris Stapleton, Keith Urban, Chris Young and Florida Georgia Line.

The female vocalist of the year nominees include Underwood, Jana Kramer and Kelsea Ballerini, who are part of Friday’s all-female Party for a Cause roster. Romeo says Underwood’s manager suggested the all-female lineup.

Stapleton and Ballerini have been pre-chosen as the new male and new female artists of the year. When you add in breakthrough artists like Sam Hunt and Thomas Rhett, “you’re going to see a lot more new artists than I think you’ve ever seen in the past,” Romeo says.

“To see them all with performance slots on the show, I feel like we’re finally seeing a changing of the guard coming, with some of these new acts filtering into the pipeline. I think that’s exciting for the format.”

One thing you won’t see this year is fan voting. While social media can do wonders when it comes to boosts like Bentley’s nightmare video, or getting the word out that Katy Perry and Dolly Parton will perform on the show together, Romeo says it was “affecting our vote” and “causing strife between the artists.”

“We just didn’t want to make it a popularity contest of who spent more money to win the vote.”

Fans can vote by applause at Party for a Cause. Tickets are $75 per day, $175-$349 for three-day pass.

The lineup

Friday: Gates open at 3 p.m. with Cam first up on the main stage, followed by Maddie & Tae, Kelsea Ballerini, Kellie Pickler, Martina McBride and Underwood at 10:25 p.m. Kelleigh Bannen, Lauren Alaina, Jana Kramer and Brandy Clark play the second stage.

Saturday: Gates open at noon with Brothers Osborne first up on the main stage at 3:20 p.m., followed by Chris Janson, Frankie Ballard, Dustin Lynch, Chris Stapleton, Chris Young, Lee Brice and Dierks Bentley at 10:10 p.m. Courtney Cole, Chris Lane, Jackson Michelson, A Thousand Horses and Chase Bryant play the second stage.

Sunday: Gates open at noon, with Old Dominion starting the main stage music at 1:55 p.m., followed by Chase Rice, Brett Eldredge, Kip Moore, Sam Hunt and Chesney at 7:10 p.m. Maren Morris, Lindsay Ell and Granger Smith play the second stage.

Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com. Follow him @Mikeweatherford.