How the L.A. wildfires will change this year’s Grammys

The Grammy Awards will look a little bit different this week.

Each year, the Recording Academy hosts a multitude of events to welcome the music industry during Grammy week and record labels do the same. However, many institutions have canceled their plans—Universal Music Group, Sony, Spotify, BMG, and Warner Music Group among them—and instead are allocating resources to help those affected by the devastating Los Angeles-area wildfires.

The Grammys will still take place on Sunday at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles but now will focus its attention on helping wildfire victims.

How will Grammy week differ in 2025?

Within days of fires ravaging the Pacific Palisades and Altadena neighborhoods, the Recording Academy and its affiliated MusiCares charity launched the Los Angeles Fire Relief Effort with a $1 million dollar donation. According to a letter sent to members on January 13, thanks to additional contributions, they’ve already distributed $2 million in emergency aid.

Once the fund was set up, Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason jr. said they began focusing on reformatting what Grammy week would look like—many conversations conducted “on the road, mobile-y, virtually” as staffers had evacuated their homes.

“That process has really consisted of reaching out to just listen and learn from a lot of people—state officials, local officials, the governor’s office, the mayor’s office, the fire department. We talked to hotel managers, just really trying to get a grasp on what was happening currently. What did they project was going to happen in the next week to 10 days? Would be safe to have a show?”

Ultimately, the Recording Academy decided to condense its pre-Grammy week plans to just four events, each featuring a fundraising element.

On Friday, MusiCares, an organization that helps music professionals who need financial, personal, or medical assistance, will hold its annual Persons of the Year benefit gala celebrating the Grateful Dead.

On Saturday, the Special Merit Awards Ceremony and Grammy nominees’ reception will still take place, followed by Clive Davis’ pre-Grammy fundraising event.

Then the Grammys take the stage on Sunday.

Events like the annual pre-Grammy Black Music Collective event, Grammy advocacy brunch, and others scheduled to take place at the immersive pop-up Grammy house have been canceled.

“We thought consolidating the events would allow us to have more impact,” Mason explains. “And we just don’t feel it was the right time to have social gatherings or places to party or schmooze and just hang out. We wanted to have our events be places that could be purposeful and impactful. Some of the party settings, we decided to fold down into our fundraising efforts.”

How has the Grammy award show been reformatted?

“Obviously, we can’t have a normal show in the midst of people’s belongings being burned or loss of life or other things like that. At the same time, canceling would not have helped,” Mason says.

“We needed to raise money. We needed to show unity and come together around music. We need to support the city of L.A. (Over) 6,500 people work on our shows and ancillary gatherings. So, once we decided to move forward, it was really a conversation with (Grammy producers) Ben Winston, Raj Kapoor, and Jesse Collins and myself. And we started to think about, ‘How do we make the show have the greatest impact?'”

They decided the path forward was to still give out awards and host performances to give viewers and attendees a bespoke concert experience. But most importantly, the show could raise awareness, drive donations and resources to funds that benefit people in need.

And the conversations are ongoing. “We have some great things in the show that will definitely help to raise funds,” he assures. “It will honor some of the heroes that have been protecting our lives and our homes. It will hopefully shine a light on some people that need more help and more services.”

Don’t expect a traditional telethon, but he says the show will feature announcements and activations in the arena.

“Hopefully we’ll be talking about things that have been pledged from the sponsors or from the community,” he adds.

How many Recording Academy members were affected by the fires?

“We know right off the bat that we’ve got almost 3,000 requests for help from our members or people in the music community,” Mason says. “So that was just in the first few days.”

The immediate needs have been “the basics,” as he explains. “Food, water, shelter, the bare necessities to live.”

“The next phase will involve, you know, where they’re going to live, how are they going to replace maybe damaged or destroyed instruments, studios. How will they make a living? I’m sure there’ll be some mental health component that people may need assistance with. But it’s really across the board. But the early, immediate relief is around just the bare necessities.”

Has anything like this happened before?

There’s no shortage of natural disasters, and they affect the music community too. Mason brings up the COVID-19 pandemic as a recent example. With MusiCares, they were able to contribute “over $40 million to people who needed help.” They have the infrastructure to provide assistance quickly.

However, he notes, the Grammys are the first major award show taking place after the wildfires, which means “there’s no playbook for this.”

“But I’ve always said it all changes if the fires were to continue, or possibly got worse, or the winds changed. So, I always want to reserve that right. We’re not going to go blindly forward if things are unsafe or if it feels inappropriate,” he says.

But consider the fundraising, the economic and financial impacts, and the possibility of unity, “It all makes sense for us to move forward.”

For more coverage of this year’s Grammy Awards, visit: www.apnews.com/GrammyAwards

—Maria Sherman, AP Music Writer

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