While the Oscars is one of the greatest TV spectacles of the year, what happens behind the scenes in making the awards ceremony go off without a hitch is almost as interesting as the night itself.
From home, we watch stars walk the red carpet, do short interviews, and the ceremony itself. Before any of that can happen, though, there are months of preparation, construction work and audits to ensure that the big night goes off without a hitch.
Take, for example, the red carpet. According to NPR, this custom “Academy Red” carpet is a truly staggering 3000 linear feet. To put this into perspective, that is around half a mile JUST of the carpet itself. Half. A. Mile.
How long does the Oscars red carpet take to install and remove?
So, according to NPR, putting down and removing the Oscars red carpet takes no less than 600 hours which is 25 days. Which did immediately leave me thinking (as somebody that lives in a very rainy city and not sunny L.A), what if it gets dirty?
Well, it is actually cleaned first thing on the day of the Academy Awards! Which really does make sense and also puts my frustrations with vacuuming my living room rug into perspective. It’s a big rug but it’s not quite half a mile long, you know?
As for the lighting of this glitzy event? Apparently 1500 lighting instruments and 18 miles of data and power cable are used to light the show.
Finally, the show itself takes 30 days to set up, load, and strike. A whole month of preparations!
I guess that’s why it rarely has any hiccups.