{"id":2326217,"date":"2026-03-13T10:01:29","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/?p=2326217"},"modified":"2026-03-13T10:01:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T10:01:29","slug":"oscars-2026-photos-dolby-theatre-behind-the-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/oscars-2026-photos-dolby-theatre-behind-the-scenes\/","title":{"rendered":"Oscars 2026 photos: Dolby Theatre behind the scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Eight months ago, production designers Misty Buckley and Alana Billingsley began proposing new ideas for the 2026 Academy Awards stage. Three months ago, contracted companies started building sets for the show. Three weeks ago, the Oscars production team loaded its equipment into the Dolby Theatre: more than 800 lighting fixtures, a custom PA system and massive fiber optic cables that run underground. Now, with less than 72 hours until the ceremony, Oscars co-executive producer Rob Paine said their \u201ccircus\u201d is finally camera-ready. <\/p>\n

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Electricians run cables through underground manholes at the Dolby Theatre to power generators for broadcast trucks. <\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Paine, who will be working his 31st Oscars on Sunday, is part of the production team that returns to the telecast each year. For Paine, the camaraderie between the awards show veterans feels like a \u201cfamily.\u201d <\/p>\n

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The Oscars require more than 800 pieces of lighting equipment. <\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a very small group of people,\u201d Paine said. \u201cWe move from one show to another, and a lot of us have worked together for a long time. … They\u2019re all the best at what they do, and it just makes producing these shows a lot easier because it\u2019s really complicated. You have a lot to do in a very short window, so to tell somebody, \u2018This is what we need. This is the schedule,\u2019 and then have them go off and do it successfully, it\u2019s really important.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Production teams began planning designs for the 2026 Academy Awards stage eight months ago. <\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

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Sets are built off-site and shipped to the Dolby Theatre, where the Oscars team finishes installation.<\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The Dolby Theatre, formerly known as the Kodak Theater, opened in 2001 with the explicit purpose<\/a> of housing the Academy Awards. Every year, the production team looks for a way to reimagine the stage to keep viewers at home captivated, while still paying tribute to the traditions of the nearly century-old ceremony. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Oscars is the granddaddy of all award shows, so people expect something from the show that you have to honor,\u201d Paine said. \u201cYou\u2019re honoring films, you\u2019re honoring the people that work in film, but at the same time, you have to continue to evolve and be interesting and keep it interesting for viewers at home.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Electricians place lighting strips along the orchestra seats to illuminate the faces of Oscar nominees.<\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Conceptualizing and building out a new stage each year is a massive undertaking. Paine estimated that in the three weeks leading up to the ceremony, they had upward of 100 members of the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees on set every day. These workers control everything from individually steaming each stage curtain to rigging massive pieces of audio equipment. <\/p>\n

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The Dolby Theatre was built with the needs of the Oscars in mind. <\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

However, Paine believes that even with the hard work and multiple projects the team juggles, the grandeur of the Oscars makes it \u201cspecial to be part of.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been around the longest, and I think it\u2019s the show that everybody wants to be a part of that works in this little world,\u201d Paine said. \u201cWe have the luxury of time to be able to rehearse it promptly and put it together.\u201d <\/p>\n

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The Oscars will air Sunday at 4 p.m. Pacific. <\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s nice having Oscar be there for us year after year,\u201d Paine said.<\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

As Oscars Sunday draws near, the work Paine and the production team have put in over the last eight months is finally beginning to pay off, he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes you look at the schedule, and you look at the design and the budget and everything else together, it\u2019s like, \u2018Man, it\u2019s gonna be a challenge this year,\u2019 but it always gets done. It\u2019s really about the people that come together and make it happen for us,\u201d Paine said. \u201cThis is the best part of the show, once we\u2019re in the theater, actually producing what we\u2019ve been talking about for eight months.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The ceremony requires several audio mixers to control broadcast and in-house audio.<\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

The 2026 Oscars will air live Sunday on ABC, with streaming available on Hulu, YouTube TV, AT&T TV and FuboTV.<\/p>\n

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More than 100 stagehands help build out the Oscars stage in the three weeks leading to the ceremony. <\/p>\n

(Ye Fan \/ The Academy)<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div><\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.latimes.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eight months ago, production designers Misty Buckley and Alana Billingsley began proposing new ideas for the 2026 Academy Awards stage. Three months ago, contracted companies started building sets for the show. Three weeks ago, the Oscars production team loaded its equipment into the Dolby Theatre: more than 800 lighting fixtures, a custom PA system and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2326218,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2326217","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/Oscars-2026-photos-Dolby-Theatre-behind-the-scenes.com2F7b2Fd82Fc9da347c4d078f2fc367e0a0-scaled.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326217","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2326217"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326217\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2326219,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2326217\/revisions\/2326219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2326218"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2326217"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2326217"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2326217"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}