Awards News

Academy of Country Music Awards show will return to Frisco in 2024

Actress and aAwards show regular Kristin Cavallari at the 2022 ACMs.

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Dallas has landed the next Academy of Country Music Awards ceremony: According to a release, the 59th ACM Awards is set for May 16, 2024, and will take place at the Ford Center at The Star in Frisco.

Additional details, including award submissions and voting timeline, hosts, nominees, performers, and ticket on-sale details, will be confirmed in the months ahead.

UPDATE 3-4-2024: ACM Awards pre-sale tickets available starting on Wednesday, March 6; pre-sale tickets are available by signing up for a membership newsletter at ACM A-List. General on-sale starts Friday, March 8 at 10 am at SeatGeek.
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It follows the 2023 edition, a smash success that marked its return to Texas for the first time since 2015, when the ceremony took place at AT&T Stadium in Arlington.

In collaboration with the Academy of Country Music and producer Dick Clark Productions, Prime Video will again offer an exclusive livestream not only of the 2024 ceremony but also its milestone 60th anniversary in 2025. The 57th annual awards in 2022 was the first major awards show to stream live for a global audience.

Hosted by Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks, the 2023 show garnered more than 7.7 million viewers on Prime Video plus additional viewership across Amazon Music, the Amazon Music channel on Twitch, and Amazon Live, making it one of the most-watched awards shows of the year.

The night featured an all-star lineup of memorable moments, including 18 show-stopping performances from 25 artists, along with exclusive collaborations and unexpected moments that captivated fans worldwide.

The 2023 ACM Awards is still available on demand on Prime Video, Amazon Freevee, and Amazon Music.

“When Prime Video first streamed the ACM Awards in 2022, we were overwhelmed with the response from our global audience,” says Vernon Sanders, head of television, Amazon MGM Studios, in a statement. “After seeing last year’s show grow to more than 7.7 million viewers, we could not be more thrilled to continue our relationship with the Academy of Country Music and Dick Clark Productions for the next two years, and especially through the show’s milestone 60th anniversary in 2025. We look forward to continuing the success and bringing even more star-studded and captivating shows to fans around the world.”

Academy of Country Music CEO Damon Whiteside says that, “thanks to the biggest host pairing of all time, Dolly Parton and Garth Brooks, the comprehensive, cross-platform program with our partners at Prime Video and Amazon Music, and the dedicated fans in Texas and around the world, the May 2023 show was a groundbreaking success and illustrates that our pioneering and innovative move to streaming was absolutely the right one at the right time! We’re eager to see everyone back in Texas once again at the home of the Dallas Cowboys next May for another groundbreaking ACM Awards show!”

Ford Center at The Star in Frisco opened in 2016 and serves as the practice facility for the Dallas Cowboys, as well as the home for major sporting events throughout the year. Last year’s ACM Awards were the first awards show to take place at Ford Center.

Founded in Southern California in 1964 as a regional trade organization, the Academy of Country Music has grown in the almost-60 years since into a leading association for the country music industry. Now headquartered in Nashville and boasting record-high membership of nearly 5,000 nationwide, the Academy serves as an advocate for country fans, artists, and all facets of the business, as well as a supporter of philanthropic work.

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Book News

Barnes & Noble to open 2 new Dallas-area stores but will close Plano

Barnes & Noble

Barnes & Noble, new look.

There's good news and bad on the bookstore front: Two new locations of bookstore chain Barnes & Noble are opening in the Dallas area, one soon and one very soon, but a third is closing this week.

Closing
The store in Plano at 801 W. 15th St. is closing on Sunday, June 15. According to a company representative, the Plano store is an older, larger store model that the chain is turning away from, in favor of a new smaller model it's embracing for all new stores.

It also has three other locations within close proximity: West Plano, Allen, and Richardson.

Other DFW stores that still have that similar larger/older floorplan include Preston & Park in Plano; Prestonwood Center in North Dallas, and Lincoln Park in Dallas across from Northpark Center.

Opening
There are two new stores opening in summer/fall:

Rockwall, at 1009 E I-30, will open in late summer.
Prosper, at 1191 Gates Pkwy., in the newly developed Gates of Prosper, will open in the fall.

According to a spokesperson, the new Rockwall store will follow the chain's new design seen in their most recent store openings, featuring "all the best books, toys, games, vinyl, and gifts our customers have come to expect." It will also house a B&N Café.

The store is approximately 20,000 square feet and will be located in the space formerly occupied by Staples, which closed in January 2025.

The store in Prosper will be nearly 20,000 square feet and is anticipated to feature the same model and selection as the Rockwall store, including a B&N Café.

In August 2019, Barnes & Noble was acquired by Elliott Advisors (UK) and taken private. Elliott’s acquisition of Barnes & Noble followed its June 2018 acquisition of Waterstones, the largest bookseller in the U.K.

Barnes & Noble is experiencing a period of growth, the result of a strategy to hand over control of each bookstore to its manager. They're enjoying strong sales and have opened many new stores after 15-plus years of declining store numbers. In 2022, they opened more new bookstores in a single year than in the entire decade from 2009 to 2019.

They've continued to open more locations, including three in the DFW area in 2024: a store in Allen as well as stores in Flower Mound and Richardson — part of a wave of store openings that show the chain in the midst of a major comeback.

Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest retail bookseller in the United States. The company has more than 630 bookstores across the U.S., as well as its online bookstore at bn.com, the Nook Digital business which offers both e-books and an audio book subscriptions service, the SparkNotes educational service, stationery and gift retailer Paper Source, and the publisher Union Square & Co.

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