AMERICAN MUSIC AWARDS

The American Music Awards is one of the most high-profile live television events in the entertainment industry, requiring months of meticulous planning and creative problem-solving. From performance stages to red carpet layouts, every element must meet the expectations of artists, producers, and a global audience often within tight timelines and shifting parameters. In the following interview, the production designer Andy Walmsley reflects on the challenges and complexities of this year’s show, offering insight into a process that blends technical precision with artistic vision under intense pressure. 

When Did You Start Working on The American Music Awards?

I started 5 months ago, Initially I was designing a much larger set for an Arena and was pretty much complete with the design process about to start drafting when the venue completely changed to the Fontainebleau Hotel Theater in las Vegas. The first few months your working essentially part time juggling other projects but this show is so intense that the final 6 weeks I was full time 7 days a week and the final 2 weeks I did 12 hour days every day with no days off… It was a lot.

What was the brief?

The brief is essentially a cookie cutter brief for all these Music performance based Award shows, You must have an ultra flexible performance stage area that can serve in the case of the AMA’s 11 performances sometimes its one person singing an intimate ballad and in other cases its a rock band with all the musical equipment that comes with that and theres always some bombastic performances with dozens of back up dancers, Pyro, Smoke, special, Giraffes , OK I joked about Giraffes but you'd be amazed what these performers pitch to me. So the Performances are about 2 thirds of the show with the other third of course being the actual Award ceremony so its crucial to design an acceptance stage where the speeches take place while the band looks are being struck and the next ones set… Oh and it has to look super contemporary and cool because its the pop / rock industry.

What is the process with the performers asks?

Lots of zooms, lots and lots of zooms, mostly with the Creative Directors for each Artist, sometimes the management and even record labels and sometimes even with the actual Artist.  Some just want a Grand Piano and a bedazzled mic stand but others ask for some pretty crazy stuff that I know we cant deliver partially financially but mostly due to the insane time we get to strike one band and set the next so theres a delicate dance of being very accommodating and me creating renderings then getting everything costed up but then disappointing them with budget issues so its then several rounds of revisions until we hit a reasonable budget but then sometimes the artist isn't happy that their vision has been watered down and has had a fantastic new idea in the shower and I have to start from scratch .. its very intense and most of these band look conversations are happening 1 or 2 weeks before load in so when everyone signs off the next issue is finding a scenic shop willing to build it in the 3 or 4 days remaining before load in .. its a tonne of pressure for me and the Art Dept.

What is your design process?

I always start with a Sketchup model and then renderings and fly thrus in Unreal Engine after everything is approved I hand off to my Art Directors.. Patrick Adair who is a brilliant lightening fast drafter and Chris Goumas who deals with a lot of the logistics.

What where some of the other challenges?

Time, Money and Space.  Time: although the process started 5 months ago a lot of the important decisions and all the performances all happen in the last 4 or 5 weeks,   Money: is of course always an issue theres never enough money to do what we all dream up, thats just showbiz right?   Space:  Doing a large scale performance award show like this 100% live to air you need a lot of backstage space, unfortunately once the decision was made not to do the show in an arena but to move to a Vegas Theater I had a lot of challenges to deal with, firstly the Fontainebleau Theater is a decent sized stage but theres very little wing space and almost no upstage space, we ended up with over 70 band carts, lots of props and scenic pieces, floor lights, special effects items like low fog machines, pyro etc and each performance uses perhaps x4 or 5 band carts and 20 floor lights etc so we have to be able to store all this backstage and x that by 11 performnces, I had no choice but to move the upstage of our set downstage quite a bit creating 16 feet upstage and then to keep the stage space large for dance acts etc I had to extend the front of the stage way into the house which in turn makes the seating capacity smaller when we are trying to get in all the nominees and their record labels / managers and so on.. but by far the biggest challenge is that the Fontainebleau Theater is on the 2nd floor and theres just one 10 feet x 20 feet freight elevator up to stage level with over 70 band carts we had no choice but to use that elevator to shuffle things up to stage and down again in the middle of a live show.. We had engineers from the elevator company riding in the elevators up and down during show just in case of a mechanical failure.

What was the most fun performance to design?

Oh thats easy, Gwen Stefani, her aesthetic is always fun, very Pop Art and she wanted all sorts of things including a field of Wheat, we had Green Set make us a lot of wheat and then she wanted a stripe glitter stage surface so we had rolls of Lino glittered and there where giant candy hand props and a big Vegas style staircase with lightbulbs and all this backed with a sun burst scenic piece with more glitter and lightbulbs.. it looked great and she was very happy and told me it looked so Pretty so thats always satisfying when the person at the top of the entourage is really happy with my work.

You designed The entire Red Carpet also?

Yes all 120 feet of it, walls, scenery, step and repeats, sponsor branding, LED screens the works, Why not pile more pressure onto myself on this job lol.

Where you happy with the finished product?

This was really a very very challenging show one of the most challenging I have done for so many reasons but at the end of the day theres hundreds of people working for months and millions of dollars being spent and 5 months stress all leading to a live 2 hour TV show and not only did it go without a hitch but it looked pretty impressive if I say it myself… because we where live at 5pm to the East Coast I was getting lovely texts from friends in New York and Miami in the middle of the show which makes it all worth while to know not only are millions of people watching but your buddies too.

Credits 

Production Designer Andy Walmsley

Art Director Patrick Adair

Assistant Art Director Chris Goumas

Lighting Director Tom Sutherland

Video Content Michael Zinman

Scenic Shops : Center Line Scenery, Goodnight and Co, Blue Line.

Rigging : Michael Stokely Kish Rigging