Country Music Awards shows are in Texas state of mind

The Lone Stars are lined up for two Nashville-based country awards shows.

After testing the waters of the Brazos in 2023, both CMT and the Academy of Country Music are bringing their annual awards to Texas this year. The CMT Music Awards air April 7 on CBS from the Moody Center in Austin. The ACM, meanwhile, announces the finalists for its awards on April 9, with the trophy ceremony airing May 16 on Amazon Prime from the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco.

Texas hasn't traditionally been a big awards market, and for the country's industry — centered mostly on Nashville — it means a few extra nights away from home for the show and the main events. In return, awards producers showcase the genre's talent in one of the country's premier markets, where the fan base hasn't been depleted — as it might be in Nashville or Los Angeles — by regular proximity to multi-artist events.

“It's packed to the ceiling and the fans were wild and crazy and dancing the whole time,” ACM CEO Damon Whiteside recalled of last year's show, which featured co-hosts Garth Brooks and Dolly Parton. “It was probably more cowboy boots and cowboy hats than we've ever seen in our venues before, which was also fun. All I can say is that the energy and passion in the room was kind of off the charts.”

ACM and CMT arrived in Texas via different routes. The ACM took a risk in 2015 by presenting its awards at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, marking the first time a major awards show was broadcast from a stadium. By the time Whiteside arrived at the 2020 ACMs after a stint with the Country Music Association, the Texas talk was on the table.

The Dallas Cowboys, he says, “were very excited about the thought of bringing our show back.”

CMT, however, moved to Texas somewhat unexpectedly. The awards had been held on the eve of Nashville's CMA Fest in June since 2002, but when CBS' contract with the ACM Awards expired, the network rescheduled the CMT affiliate's ceremony as a spring event. This created conflicts with the host – producers needed access to Bridgestone Arena for at least 10 days, but the NHL's Nashville Predators took priority. Austin had courted CMT for years, and that foundation paid off.

“Austin is the live music capital of the world — that definitely played into it,” says CMT executive producer Margaret Comeaux. “If we were going to go anywhere outside of Music City, we wanted to make sure we went to a place that appreciated music as much as Nashville and CMT.”

Texas is fertile ground for country music. Both shows indicate that current Texas hitters Cody Johnson and Parker McCollum will likely have some role in their shows. The two artists will perform at the CMT Awards, which was also attended by his native son Lucas Nelson and former Houston Astros player Roger Clemens. McCollum will also host a golf tournament for the ACMs, who will make performance decisions after the nominees are announced. Last year, the ACMs tapped Frisco-based Corey Kent for the week's ribbon-cutting ceremonies.

Johnson and McCollum are alumni of Texas' red-dirt music scene, which has its own thriving concert scene, providing careers for acts such as Aaron Watson, Casey Donahew, Wade Bowen, The Randy Rogers Band and Bri Bagwell. The subgenre also has its own awards show: the Texas Regional Radio Report (T3R) Awards, named after the publication that produces them. His charts appear weekly on Billboard Country Update (see page 4).

The dominant community of the country “yet [doesn’t] fully acknowledge that,” says T3R events coordinator Tami Millspaugh, who also markets to red-dirt developers through her Fort Worth-based company, Texas Record Chick Promotions. “They're starting, in Nashville, more and more, because obviously they're picking up some of the talent from here.”

The T3R Awards, presented for the 14^u time on March 25, have been held in smaller venues – the 700-seat Arlington Music Hall and the Texas Live! — but the show, like Texas music, is in expansion mode. The latest ceremony was filmed for the first time and could end up on a cable station or a streaming platform like Netflix.

“We're going to have a show here in the next few weeks that we're going to pitch to different networks,” says Millspaugh, “and just show what we've done.”

The Texas Music Bureau is apparently eager to put together more trophy presentations. Both ACM and CMT received incentives from the state to bring their events to the city.

Austin has another event heading up as well. The city is in the path of totality for the solar eclipse on April 8. More than 1 million tourists are expected to descend on the Texas capital to watch, according to KVUE-TV Austin.

“A lot of people are worried their flights are going to be canceled, so they try to get out early,” Comeaux says. “I'm not one of them. There are a few of us who might stand out at the arrivals gate at the airport, watch it, and then go inside to board my flight.”

The ACMs, meanwhile, are tied to an ongoing Texas attraction. The Star is a 91-acre campus that houses the business center for the Cowboys NFL team. The built-in amenities — shops, restaurants, hotels, a golf course — are a comfortable getaway for industry attendees, many of whom are returning home after an awards show in Nashville.

“You have industry everywhere you go and you bump into people,” Whiteside says of the Frisco layout. “There are a lot of meetings for drinks at the Omni Hotel bar, where our board lives and is connected to the venue.”

ACMs, originally based in Los Angeles, spent about 20 years in Las Vegas, creating a similar temporary community on the Strip. It's possible CMT and/or ACM are at the start of another 20-year run out of town in the Lone Star State. But no one knows yet if these moves are permanent.

“There's a lot of excitement about the Texas market going forward,” says Whiteside, “but we haven't made a final decision yet.”