Three weeks in the past, as wildfires raged throughout Los Angeles, there was some query over whether or not it will be in good style to proceed with Grammy Weekend, even when it have been secure to take action.
But with the go-ahead from native officers, the Recording Academy and its broadcast companion CBS rapidly determined to proceed with a decreased schedule of occasions that might be remodeled into fund-raising efforts — and the outcomes of that call grew to become clear on Tuesday morning, as a rep for the Recording Academy tells Selection that it and its charity-focused companion, MusiCares, raised greater than $24 million for wildfire aid and different charitable causes, with nearly $9 million raised on Grammy Sunday alone.
That decreased schedule included the annual MusiCares fundraising tribute live performance on Friday evening, this 12 months honoring the Grateful Useless; the Clive Davis Pre-Grammy Gala on Saturday, which was remodeled right into a fund-raiser; and the Grammy Awards themselves, which featured a number of tributes to emergency employees and the folks affected by the wildfires. The present opened with a efficiency from the Los Angeles-based rock band Dawes, who misplaced their properties and all of their gear within the fires; they carried out a canopy of Randy Newman’s “I Love L.A.,” accompanied by Sheryl Crow, John Legend, Brad Paisley and St. Vincent; that recording was launched as a profit single on Tuesday morning.
But the aid cash raised wasn’t the one affect the occasions had on the neighborhood. Roughly 6,500 L.A.-area folks work on main awards exhibits just like the Grammys, which has an estimated affect on the native financial system of round $200 million.
“On the one hand, there’s the nice we are able to do with our platform,” Recording Academy CEO Harvey Mason Jr. informed Selection final week. “But when we have been to cancel or postpone the present, how would that have an effect on the 1000’s of people that work on it or round it?”
Winston added, “After COVID, post-COVID, two [Hollywood industry] strikes and the whole lot else, attempt to inform these stagehands, costumers, make-up artists, drivers, caterers, PAs and all these working individuals who make a residing from the Grammys that we’re not doing the present.”
So, in what has develop into a well-known state of affairs, the Recording Academy, broadcast companion CBS and Winston’s group started working. “On that Wednesday, I began the cellphone calls,” Mason recalled. “I used to be assembly or zooming with state management, native management, fireplace division officers, heads of tourism, managers of a number of the accommodations — and to an individual, all of them mentioned the identical factor: ‘You need to do the present — for town, for the folks, for the picture of our metropolis being open for enterprise. You have to do it.’ And likewise, after all, the music neighborhood wanted it, for the cash the MusiCares occasion will increase.”
These efforts have reached their success within the type of almost $25 million in wildfire aid and the music neighborhood.
