The ACM Awards will take place just a few feet away from where 58 country music fans were killed at Route 91 Harvest festival, and the 53rd annual event will honor those lost.
In a statement, the Academy of Country Music reveals plans to “stand together to honor those whose lives were lost, those whose lives will never be the same and those who find comfort in the music.”
Host Reba McEntire tells Billboard taking a moment to acknowledge the victims of the massacre “is a very critical and important thing to do.”
“We will gather up and huddle up. We will hug. We’ll remember, we’ll cry and we’ll move forward, but never will we ever forget what happened,” she says, adding the ACMs will also “remind everybody that we are Americans and we do not let that shut us down.”
In a video online, ACM New Male Vocalist of the Year Brett Young echoes Reba’s sentiments, stating the importance of bringing the ACM Awards back to Vegas.
“You can't let something like that stop you,” he says.
The ACMs air live from MGM Grand Garden Arena April 15 on CBS.