The Oscars ceremony is leaving Hollywood, organisers have announced.
Coinciding with the previously announced broadcast switch to YouTube, the show will move from the Dolby Theatre on Hollywood Boulevard to the Peacock Theatre about nine miles (14.5km) away, in downtown Los Angeles’s LA Live complex, in 2029.
The Peacock Theatre has a capacity of about 7,000 – roughly twice the current amount.
It will come after more than 25 years of Oscars ceremonies at the Dolby Theatre, which has been home to the show since 2002.
The Academy Awards will mark its 100th anniversary at the venue in 2028, before the new-look show and broadcast begins.
“For the 101st Oscars and beyond, the Academy looks forward to closely collaborating with AEG to make LA LIVE the perfect backdrop for our global celebration of cinema,” the Academy’s chief executive Bill Kramer and its president, Lynette Howell Taylor, said in a joint statement.
AEG will make improvements to the venue as part of the deal, they said, including upgrades to its stage, sound and lighting systems, backstage and other areas.
Surrounded by the Walk of Fame, next to the celebrity handprints of The Chinese Theatre and with the famous Hollywood sign as a backdrop, the Dolby Theatre was developed by the Academy itself and seemed a perfect location for the biggest awards show in entertainment.
However, this is not the first move out of Hollywood. The show took place at various hotels throughout Los Angeles in the early years before a move to theatres in the mid-1940s.
The Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, a fine arts facility in downtown LA, hosted the ceremony from 1968 to 1986. It then alternated between the Chandler and the Shrine Auditorium, next to the University of Southern California, until the long-term move to Hollywood.
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