Washington:
The Critics Choice Association recently announced that the Award ceremony has been postponed in the wake of increasing Covid-19 cases. Now, the association has announced that the Awards will last for at least six weeks, moving the ceremony into late February or March 2022.
As per Variety, in a note to members on Thursday, the organisation said that it will also require both vaccines and boosters of all attendees and staff when it is rescheduled. Also, because the show has been moved into later in the awards season, voting dates will be pushed, too, “to be consistent with our tradition of having the final round voting in the days just before our awards ceremony,” the group said.
“We expect to announce these dates shortly, but final voting for the upcoming awards will not take place before mid-February at the earliest,” the group added.
The Critics Choice Association announced on Wednesday that it was not moving ahead with its planned awards ceremony on January 9, given concerns over COVID-19 and the fast-spreading Omicron variant.
The postponement came just days after it had sent out a statement proclaiming that the show would go on as planned. But a lot has happened in the last three days, as COVID-19 hospitalisations have dramatically increased in Los Angeles County and multiple Hollywood and New York entities have cancelled or postponed their events.
According to the Critics Choice Association, it was looking at having to hold the Critics Choice Awards show without any members in attendance: “That was what we were looking at after talking with officials from the Los Angeles Country Public Health Department last week,” the organisation wrote in the letter.
“With COVID-19 surging and prospects for things getting a lot worse before they get better, health officials urged us to cut back on the number of attendees and to discourage members from traveling to our event on January 9. In practical terms, this meant that virtually no members would be in the main room at the Fairmont Century Plaza,” the organisation added in its letter.
But even in late February or early March, the association said that it won’t have room to accommodate all of its members, and some of them will have to volunteer to watch the show from an adjoining ballroom.
The association is also considering holding a member lottery to determine who gets seats in the main ballroom (but, it added, all members will be invited to the pre-and post-event festivities).
“It is central to the Critics Choice Awards and the Critics Choice Association to have a substantial number of members in the main room with the honorees and studio executives,” the organisation said.
This year’s Critics Choice Awards winners were set to be revealed by hosts Taye Diggs and Nicole Byer on January 9. The ceremony will still broadcast live in person on The CW and TBS when the event happens.
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