On January 18, The Recording Academy announced that they will be pushing the 2022 Grammy Awards to April 3, at the Metro Goldwyn Mayer Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas, because of the surge of Omicron variant cases that are taking on dangerous new statistics. Originally, the show was supposed to take place on January 31 at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles however, the potentially hazardous risk of exposure led the Academy to reschedule for a later date where they hope for safer conditions.

“After careful consideration and analysis with city and state officials, health and safety experts, the artist community and our many partners, the Recording Academy and CBS have postponed the 64th Annual GRAMMY Awards Show. The health and safety of those in our music community, the live audience, and the hundreds of people who work tirelessly to produce our show remains our top priority. Given the uncertainty surrounding the Omicron variant, holding the show on January 31st simply contains too many risks,” The Recording Academy and Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) said.

Each Grammys awards show recognizes the best recordings, compositions, and artists during the product eligibility period that ranges from September 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021 for this year’s show. Nominations were announced on November 23, 2021 and the host, Trevor Noah, was selected as well. The succeeding month, final round voting occurred until January 5 and the telecast was set to stream on CBS Television Network. In previous years there were 84 categories that selected winners, some of the most commonly known are record of the year, album of the year, and song of the year.

Major changes have also been announced for this year’s show including the voting process, a reduction in eligible voter categories, and two new added categories bringing the total up to 86. With the extension of the Best Global Music Performance and Best Música Urbana Album for Latin artists, more international artists overall have the opportunity of winning a Grammy. By decreasing the number of categories voters can cast in from 15 to 10 it ensures the music creators in that field are the most knowledgeable and qualified.

“This is a new Academy, one that is driven to action and that has doubled down on the commitment to meeting the needs of the music community. While change and progress are key drivers of our actions, one thing will always remain — the Grammy Award is the only peer driven and peer-voted recognition in music,” Chief Executive Officer of Recording Academy Harvey Mason Jr. said.

Before this year, most of the categories had 15 to 30 skilled music peers vote on their nominees and the votes would go back to the voting membership body. With these new changes, the Academy had over 90 percent of their members go through the requalification process to make sure that voters are highly involved in the industry. The new transparent rules and guidelines establish the new Grammys dedication to integrity in the award process.