The new 10-year agreement with the live sports and entertainment company AEG will involve significant enhancements to the nearly two-decade-old Peacock Theater
By Thomas Buckley and John Gittelsohn
The Academy Awards ceremony is moving to a new location at the Peacock Theater in downtown Los Angeles starting with the 101st Oscars in 2029.
The event hosted by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences has been held for the past 26 years — excluding one year during the pandemic — at the Dolby Theatre in LA’s Hollywood district. That deal is scheduled to end in 2028.
The new 10-year agreement with the live sports and entertainment company AEG will involve significant enhancements to the nearly two-decade-old Peacock Theater, including upgrades to the stage, sound and lighting systems, lobbies and backstage facilities, according to a statement from AEG and the Academy on Thursday. The changes will create more room for the famous red carpet arrivals and space backstage to help produce more elaborate shows.
The move will also allow the annual film industry showcase to accommodate a larger audience. The Peacock Theater, which opened in 2007 as the Nokia Theatre, seats 7,100 people, while Dolby’s capacity is less than half that number. The new venue has hosted numerous entertainment industry events, including the 2025 Primetime Emmy Awards.
“We are thrilled to partner with a global powerhouse like AEG,” Academy Chief Executive Officer Bill Kramer and President Lynette Howell Taylor said in the statement. “Their track record for building and operating technologically sophisticated live performance venues is unrivaled.”
The Peacock Theater, named to promote the streaming service of Comcast Corp.’s NBCUniversal subsidiary, is located in an area of downtown Los Angeles called LA Live, which is owned and operated by AEG. The 4 million-square-foot district is home to multiple venues focused on live events, including the home arena of the Lakers basketball team.
Naming rights to the Peacock Theater expire at the end of 2028, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named as the information is private. The association with the streaming service will run through the World Cup soccer games in Los Angeles in June as well as the Olympics in 2028, which will be broadcast on NBCUniversal outlets. The theater may be renamed thereafter. The move to the new venue comes with more opportunities to sell sponsorships, benefiting the Academy and AEG, the people said.
The change in venue also coincides with a change in broadcaster. After half a century on Walt Disney Co.’s ABC network, the Academy Awards are moving to YouTube in 2029, in a bid to reach a younger demographic and a greater number of people globally. The new venue will also make the show more technologically capable, with improved sound, seating, and the potential for split screens showing different images at the same time, a bonus as the program moves online, the people said.
AEG will work with the Academy “to re-imagine what the Oscars can look and feel like in the years ahead,” Chief Revenue Officer Todd Goldstein said in the statement.
The audience for the annual film awards, widely viewed as Hollywood’s highest honors, has dwindled with the declining popularity of traditional television and movie theaters. This year, the Academy Awards drew 17.9 million viewers, down 9.1% from 2025, when the audience hit a five-year high. Social media impressions increased 42% to more than 184.3 million, however.
