For the second consecutive year, the Annie Awards will replace its live ceremony with a livestream virtual format for its 49th annual awards, according to Deadline.
What’s Happening:
- For the second year in a row, the Annie Awards, marking achievement in the field of animation as recognized by ASIFA-Hollywood, will forgo their live ceremony for their 49th annual awards, and will again be replaced by a livestream virtual format.
- The ASIFA-Hollywood board said that the changes are due primarily to the growing concern over the spread of the Omicron Variant, and will also be rescheduled from the original February 26th date, now taking place on March 12th at 7:00 PM Pacific.
- The ceremony livestream will be available to anyone who wishes to view it through their official website, and a recording will be available the following day.
- The nominees for this year’s awards were revealed in December, with Encanto, Luca, and Raya and the Last Dragon leading the pack, with each title nominated for at least 8 awards. You can see our full list of nominations from Walt Disney Company projects here.
What They’re Saying:
- Frank Gladstone, ASIFA’s executive director: “When we announced that the Annies would be in-person this year on February 26, the Omicron variant was not even on the horizon. But now it is here and so highly infectious that, after much debate and discussion, ASIFA’s board of directors has decided, in an abundance of caution, to once again move to a virtual ceremony. We’ve also moved the date of the event by two weeks to give our production crew time to gather and edit the huge amount of additional material it takes to construct the virtual ceremony.”