The CMT Awards are officially leaving Nashville for the first time in the history of the legendary awards show.
Music City has been the home to the CMT Awards since its inception. So the move comes as a shock to Nashville residents and country music fans alike.
This coming year, the awards show will be held in Austin, Texas. The venue will be the Moody Center, a brand-new venue in Austin.
The CMT Awards are a fan-voted awards show, specifically for country music performances on television and for music videos.
Why Did This Happen?
The reason for the move is a bit complicated. To make a long story short, the CMT Awards and the Nashville Convention and Visitor’s Corp. couldn’t find a venue for the event.
The CMT Awards made a move earlier this year to move their broadcasting from their own channel and MTV over to CBS. CBS has different protocols than the previous broadcasters, which caused some complications in the planning of the event.
Even though the event is only one night, the broadcasting team needs the venue for a whole week to do setup and teardown of the massive production. And Nashville simply couldn’t accomodate this year. CBS has a smaller window for booking the venue, and there simply wasn’t enough time to book it in Nashville.
So this marks the first time in CMT Award history that the ceremony will take place out of Nashville. The first awards took place in 1967 and were originally called The Music City News Awards.
The awards will be hosted by Carrie Underwood and will take place on April 2nd.
The CMT Music Awards are Austin bound! ðŸ¤
Hosted by @KelseaBallerini with 25x #CMTAwards winner @carrieunderwood taking the stage. We’re coming for you @MoodyCenterATX.
See you Sunday, April 2nd on CBS! pic.twitter.com/oaMiTicBJI
— CBS (@CBS) November 3, 2022
