Ella Langley conquered not only the country world but the entire music world this year with her song “Choosin’ Texas.” But for Academy of Country Music Awards producers, this year’s show is all about choosing Las Vegas. Certainly, a fight with the Lone Star State, which has hosted the ACM Awards for the past three years, is not expected. But for the 61st annual telecast, the powers that be wanted the show to return to its roots…and in this case, and perhaps only in this case, country music roots mean the Las Vegas Strip.
The 2026 ACM will be available to watch live around the world, running exclusively on Prime Video, Amazon Music, and Amazon’s Twitch channel from 8-10:30 ET and 5-7:30 PT.
There’s a long story behind ACM’s involvement with the West Coast, from its founding in LA 60 years ago to its history of broadcasting primarily in Las Vegas since the turn of the century. But beyond these historical factors, there are also practical factors, such as the fact that many artists would rather take a flight to Las Vegas than Dallas, and some artists already feel more at home with a residency there. The visual and aesthetic possibilities for tying the show to Las Vegas are rich, and in a year in which global superstar Shania Twain hosts ACM for the first time, it makes some sense that she would embrace the country-casino crossover feel that she has embodied longer and better than anyone else.
Executive producer and showrunner Raj Kapoor may be known for his Grammys and Oscars (he’s signed on to appear in the show’s 2027 edition), but he has his own history behind how the two met.
“In fact, when Shania came back here, I was working on her first residency in Las Vegas, and now her bond is so deep that she has multiple residencies there,” Kapoor points out. “She has rehearsed for her tour in Las Vegas. She goes to all the shows and concerts and hockey games, so she loves this city and is part of its fabric. So, since she is the best-selling female artist of all time in this country, we thought she would be a good fit. She had never hosted the ACMs before.” Twain’s only previous hosting was at the People’s Choice Awards. “But we love working with icons. We loved working.” With Reba, Dolly and Garth, there are only so many big names we can go with, so Shania was at the top of the list for us. It is also unusual for Shania to bring new music to market. ” (she released her new single on Friday), “So it was perfect timing for us.”
But what could be more perfect timing than the perfect timing for a country music awards show to take place at the exact moment that rising star Ella Langley earns the top two songs in the U.S. with “Choosin’ Texas” at No. 1 and “Be Her” at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100, a historic feat for country for the first time in all genres. Country also has four of the top 10 albums on the Billboard 200 (Langley’s Dandelion, Kacey Musgraves’ Middle of Nowhere, and Morgan Wallen’s two). It may seem silly to say that country music is on the rise when it hasn’t been on the rise in so long, but Langley is now extending his influence even further into the brains of pop fans.
“She’s rocketing into space,” says Patrick Manton, one of eACM’s executive producers. “Ella is a great songwriter, both musically and lyrically, and not only is she a great artist, but she’s just great to be around. On Sunday night, she’s singing some really cool, brand new takes on her songs that no one’s ever heard before.” They won’t reveal which one will be chosen, but the hints make it sound like an ACM special arrangement of “Choosin’ Texas” is a strong possibility…although “Be ‘Her’ is also quite a monster at this point, so I doubt very many people would be disappointed if it were chosen. “She put a lot of time and passion into it. We love working with Ella. And when you think about it, she was our ACM New Female Artist just last year. When you look at what’s happened with that artistry, the public response, the streaming, the sales, it’s really crazy considering she was one of the biggest nominees on Sunday night.”
There’s a certain kind of insanity if you’re into female country artists, as ACM voters believe they are, almost inversely proportional to the percentage they control on country radio. There are four female superstars who particularly stood out in this year’s nominations. Megan Moloney leads the list with nine, followed by Miranda Lambert with eight and Langley and Laney Wilson with seven each. (The runners-up are Chris Stapleton with six, Zach Topp with five, and Riley Greene and Cody Johnson with four each.)
Three of the four female conductors will perform in the spotlight during the show. Moloney probably won’t be in Las Vegas at all. She announced on her Instagram that she was detained abroad to serve as maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding. But Wilson, ACM’s Defender Entertainer of the Year, will open the telecast with his latest single, the rocker “Can’t Sit Still.” And “crazy ex-girlfriend” Lambert herself, who also happens to be nominated for co-writing Langley’s breakthrough single and her own recorded work, will be making the live debut of “Crisco.”
“Miranda Lambert is going to go more disco, because her next album is going to be more disco-country,” said Damon Whiteside, the Academy’s outgoing CEO and executive producer. “So we’re going to have some fun with her on themes that people haven’t seen before.”
The final performer on the show is Blake Shelton. “It’s a little secret, but he’s going to do some classic songs that will make people stand up and sing along,” Whiteside promises. All Kapur would say is, “I think this is one of the most beloved songs ever written in country music.” Gwen Stefani has been announced as a performer, so it might be a safe bet that she could be part of the closer.
Musgraves hasn’t been a big presence at country music awards shows since she began her folk-pop shift eight years ago with her album Golden Hour, but her presence at the ACMs is big news, as her new Middle of Nowhere album marks a definitive return to pure country, both musically and visually. The song currently being promoted on country radio is “Loneliest Girl,” but she’ll also perform the raucous “Dry Spell,” her infamous song about being the singlest, but also the sluttiest girl.
Other performers include Zach Top, Cody Johnson, Kane Brown, Red Clay Strays, Thomas Rhett, Jordan Davis, Dan + Shay, Avery Anna, Carter Faith, Lee Ann Womack, Little Big Town, Parker McCollum, and Tucker Wetmore.
“We’re doing 17 shows, so we’re playing back-to-back,” Manton says. “We don’t yet know how we will achieve this turnaround. God bless our stage management team.”
That’s 17 performances in just two and a half hours. That’s about 30 to 45 minutes shorter than most other music awards shows. The ability to shave more than 30 minutes off regular airtime is a feature of streaming-only programming that doesn’t rely on all the commercials of network programming.
ACM was the first major show to feature a streamer rather than one of the traditional big three. It seemed like a gamble at the time, but now that Kapoor’s Oscar performance is on YouTube, there’s no doubt they were onto something.
“I feel like we were kind of guinea pigs because our first year was 2022,” Whiteside says. “We’ve been on broadcast TV since the ’70s, so it was a big, big change. But this is our fifth year with Prime Video. It’s definitely been a learning experience, and I feel like we’ve really been able to learn and grow as our company has been working with them. The first 1. It wasn’t easy because we had to seriously rethink the format of the show. That first year we didn’t have any commercials at all. So normally on award shows you have at least a break and you can reset the stage and you can play and there was no intermission and it was great for the fans too. It’s evolved a little bit over the years, but it’s still a good amount of time compared to broadcasting, so from a fan standpoint, it’s just wall-to-wall music.”
Last year, it went from 2 hours to 2 and a half hours, and that will continue this year as well. Whiteside acknowledged that some viewers felt the two-hour format was too short…one of the things he’s been told about the awards show so far. “It was almost shocking at first: ‘Wait, it’s over? What? You’re getting back an hour of your life that you normally get at awards shows.’ This year it’s two-and-a-half hours, but it still feels pretty tight and short because most of it is actual content, not commercials.”
How do you theme Las Vegas? “It doesn’t necessarily have a theme, but I think there are a lot of great moments now that we’re back at MGM Grand that make people feel like they’re actually celebrating the city,” says Kapur. “Even with the thing we did with Carter Faith, she did a great rendition of Faith Hill’s classic ‘Let’s Go to Vegas,’ and we used that a lot in the promotion. So we’re just going to have a little nod to Las Vegas throughout the night, including some really fun presenter moments with artists who are part of the Las Vegas landscape. The way we’ve designed the stage and the whole room will be a little nod to the Las Vegas experience that we’re trying to bring.” ACM is back. Celebration is back.”
“We actually loved being in Texas,” Kapur asserts. “So choosing one or the other was, in a way, an embarrassment of riches.” “We loved our time in Frisco, the audience there, the reaction from the community, the support of the Dallas Cowboys organization…we had a great time. But turning 60, it’s time for another chapter. The artists really love coming back to Las Vegas. Some of them have bars in Las Vegas now. And really seeing the whole dressing room area and the interaction between the artists, I think it’s going to be a really fun party and the party will continue into the night.” ”
Party is an unapologetically operative word for ACM, to the point that many of the awards are announced before broadcast time, with few on-air speeches that could free up that time for music. Whiteside said the no-stand-up aspect is part of the academy’s roots.
“Obviously this organization was founded in Southern California, but the whole mission of this organization was originally to support country music on the West Coast. So from that standpoint, it’s kind of nice to be able to maintain the footprint and presence of the organization on the West Coast, where we can really draw strength from a lot of states, like California, Arizona, the states around Nevada,” Whiteside says. “Especially now that our headquarters are in Nashville, we get closer to our roots, the origins of an organization based in Southern California. So that part is really fun.”
“The DNA of our show, and frankly our organization, has always been that we’re a rebel organization. That’s kind of how we were formed in the ’60s. We were formed to be a little left of center. So we’ve always tried to make our show more of a party. So I think it’s a really good fit for Vegas just because of the vibe of the show. Over the years, we’ve had a lot of crossover artists come on board, and that’s why we’ve had so many crossover artists. We feel like this is a really good home that fits the DNA of the organization.”
