First Look: This Year's Grammy Awards Stage Captures One of the Biggest Color Trends Right Now — A Sunset-Like Ode to the Gramophone

"Every year, we focus on colors, textures, and patterns that appear in album covers, fashion, and architecture," Yellow Studio told us of the process behind its sensational Grammy Awards set design

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A digital rendering of a dimly lit, orange-tinted ceremony room with round tables, sculptural chairs, and lamps as centerpieces surrounded by flowers and a stage that reads "THE GRAMMYS".
Images for Yellow Studio's spectacular new Grammy Awards 2026 stage and lounge are out.
(Image credit: The Grammy Awards. Design: Yellow Studio)

Few cultural appointments are more exciting for music lovers than the Grammy Awards, and, as the world's music elite gets ready to gather in Los Angeles this Sunday for the ceremony, everyone is busy placing their bets on the artists most likely to take the coveted gramophone trophy home with them this year.

Competition is fierce, spectacle guaranteed. But as it's always the case here at Livingetc, what we're actually most looking forward to is catching a dose of design inspiration out in the wild. And that's exactly what we've got already waiting for you: an exclusive preview of the setting bound to make the Grammy Awards 2026 night even more unforgettable, brought to you by the trailblazing designers who imagined it all.

Spoiler: it comes packed with life, a palette of rich terracotta pinks and oranges, a color trend winking at the artworks of the biggest records of the year.

An aerial view of a performance stage with a sculptural, abstract structure of orange, red, and yellow swathes, foregrounded by a series of ceremony round tables with lamps as centerpieces.

Yellow Studio has crafted the sensational Grammy Awards 2026 stage and lounge, marking its fifth collaboration with the prestigious music platform. (Image credit: Kristina Bakrevski @kristinabakrevski. Design: Yellow Studio)

For the fifth consecutive year, New York-based Yellow Studio has crafted the set design for the Grammy Awards, the only peer-recognized accolade in music and the highest achievement in the field. Composed of an international team, in a little over two decades, Yellow Studio has cemented itself as the premier production design, creative direction, and art direction platform for the world's greatest TV and live events.

The studio was behind the ocean-blue, shape-shifting stage of the Grammy Awards in 2025, as well as that from 2024, which integrated a bespoke, CG moving artwork echoing the hypnotic look of liquid gold, created for the occasion by Australian artist David McLeod.

An aerial view of a performance stage with a sculptural, abstract structure of orange, red, and yellow swathes, foregrounded by a series of ceremony round tables with lamps as centerpieces.

A floral composition breaks with the sculpturality of the set design, anchoring the Grammy Awards 2026 lounge via organic tactility. (Image credit: Kristina Bakrevski @kristinabakrevski. Design: Yellow Studio)

Last year, it conceived the larger-than-life scenography for Shakira's Las Mujeres Ya No Lloran tour in the Americas and the beaming, sculptural setting for the British Film and Television Awards (BAFTA). Arguably, though, its most notable project to date remains the hug-shaped stage Yellow Studio devised for the 2023 Eurovision Song Contest, hosted at the Liverpool Arena in the UK on behalf of Ukraine — a prime example of how light, texture, and waves can be relied on to convey a message.

For the Grammy Awards 2026 lounge, Yellow Studio has leaned into the sun-filled atmosphere of California to envision a theatrical space that simultaneously honors its Hollywood roots and the legacy of the Recording Academy's gramophone trophy, as founder and production designer Julio Himede and creative director Damun Jawanrudi recount below.

What Role Does Set Design Fulfil During the Grammy Awards Ceremony?

An aerial view of a performance stage with a sculptural, abstract structure of orange, red, and yellow swathes, foregrounded by a series of ceremony round tables with lamps as centerpieces.

"Our set design for the Grammy Awards 2026 not only includes the performance stages, but also the nomination area placed directly in front of the stage." — Yellow Studio (Image credit: The Grammy Awards. Design: Yellow Studio)

"Our set design for the Grammy Awards 2026 not only includes the performance stages, but also the nomination area placed directly in front of the stage. Over the years, this layout has evolved into an intimate lounge. Our host, South African comedian and writer Trevor Noah, has increasingly made use of it live on camera, mingling and interacting with nominees and performers during the show. The result is an immersive community of musicians supporting each other in a celebratory and premium environment."

What Mood Were You Looking to Capture?

An aerial view of a performance stage with a sculptural, abstract structure of orange, red, and yellow swathes, foregrounded by a series of ceremony round tables with lamps as centerpieces.

The gramophone-shaped passageway serves, once again, as the distinctive trait of the Grammy Awards 2026 lounge, as it did in Yellow Studio's designs in the past years. (Image credit: The Grammy Awards. Design: Yellow Studio)

• Visual language — "When creating spaces for the Grammy Awards and the Grammy Awards 2026, specifically, one of the most important aspects is the development of a coherent visual identity. The fact that all interior pieces of the set communicate with each other, from digital content to physical interior pieces, colors, materiality, and texture are all part of one big 'painting' where every detail is part of one fluent language.

• Transformation and surprise — "Designing the stage in a way where screens can fly out and reveal entire performances, the gramophone reveals people, and internal lighting surfaces enable the transformation of the color palette of the entire environment, blurring the lines between digital and physical.

• Recognition — "The crown of our design is a modern sculpture of the Grammy Awards gramophone, which we nestled in the center of our space. This sculptural piece successfully frames the winners on stage, making it immediate and instinctual for the viewer watching the show at home to know this is The Grammys."

What's the Story Behind the Color Scheme?

An aerial view of a performance stage with a sculptural, abstract structure of orange, red, and yellow swathes, foregrounded by a series of ceremony round tables with lamps as centerpieces.

"This past year, we saw a repeating color scheme of earthy tones. We settled on the rich terracotta color as it complements the accents of gold repeated across the interior." — Yellow Studio (Image credit: Kristina Bakrevski @kristinabakrevski. Design: Yellow Studio)

"Every year, we focus on colors, textures, and patterns that appear in album covers, fashion, and architecture to keep the Grammy Awards lounge as timely as possible. This past year, we saw a repeating color scheme of earthy tones. We settled on the rich terracotta color as it complements the accents of gold repeated across the interior. These gold accents are a homage to the Grammy Awards gramophone itself, as well as a nod to being in Hollywood."

There's a Dynamic Feel to the Grammy Awards 2026 Lounge. What Brings It All Together for You?

An aerial view of a performance stage with a sculptural, abstract structure of orange, red, and yellow swathes, foregrounded by a series of ceremony round tables with lamps as centerpieces.

Much of the spectacle of the Grammy Awards 2026 lies in its shape-shifting screens, which, for Yellow Studio, "ties the entire room together". (Image credit: The Grammy Awards. Design: Yellow Studio)

"The design of the Grammy Awards 2026 lounge is reminiscent of timeless glamour. The beautiful velvet textures of the seats and tables add depth and variation to the chosen hue, framed by the gold details. Really, though it's the content on the screens that acts as scenic and ties the entire room together, stretching out toward the audience."

What Do You Hope People Will Remember From This Year's Design?

An aerial view of a performance stage with a sculptural, abstract structure of orange, red, and yellow swathes, foregrounded by a series of ceremony round tables with lamps as centerpieces.

All you got to do know is make sure to tune in on Sunday, February 1, for another year with the Grammys. (Image credit: The Grammy Awards. Design: Yellow Studio)

"We'd love it for people to think of the Grammy Awards 2026 as a positive and diverse celebration of music, presented on a stage that feels animated, elegant, and relevant to contemporary pop culture."

Watch the Grammy Awards 2026 ceremony on CBS Television Network, or stream it live or on demand on Paramount+.

FAQs

When Is the Grammy Awards 2026 Ceremony?

The Grammy Awards 2026 will broadcast live from Los Angeles's Crypto.com Arena on Sunday, Feb. 1, at 5 PM PT/8 PM ET/2 AM CET on the CBS Television Network and will be available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+.

Who Will Perform at the 2026 Grammys?

Several performers have been confirmed for the Grammy Awards 2026 ceremony, including nominees Addison Rae, Alex Warren, KATSEYE, Leon Thomas, Lola Young, Olivia Dean, SOMBR, and The Marías, who will serve as the protagonists of a special Best New Artist segment at the 2026 Grammy Awards.

Also set to take the stage are Andrew Watt, Brandy Clark, Chad Smith, Clipse, Duff McKagan, Lukas Nelson, Ms. Lauryn Hill, Post Malone, Pharrell Williams, Roba McEntire, Sabrina Carpenter, and Slash. Grammy-winning artists Doechii and Harry Styles, meanwhile, will be taking turns for the spotlight with Grammy Awards 2026 presenter, Trevor Noah, who leads the show for the sixth and final time.

If the Grammy Awards 2026 are the ultimate event for music lovers, then Il Sereno's Listening Suite on Lake Como makes for the definitive hideaway for audiophiles. I was there myself, and can't help but recommend it.

In for more entertainment? See how Art House lives on at Paris's coolest cinema yet, Élysées Lincoln.

Gilda Bruno
Gilda Bruno
Lifestyle Editor

Gilda Bruno is Livingetc's Lifestyle Editor. Before joining the team, she worked as an Editorial Assistant on the print edition of AnOther Magazine and as a freelance Sub-Editor on the Life & Arts desk of the Financial Times. Between 2020 and today, Gilda's arts and culture writing has appeared in a number of books and publications including Apartamento’s Liguria: Recipes & Wanderings Along the Italian Riviera, Sam Wright’s debut monograph The City of the Sun, The British Journal of Photography, DAZED, Document Journal, Elephant, The Face, Family Style, Foam, Il Giornale dell’Arte, HUCK, Hunger, i-D, PAPER, Re-Edition, VICE, Vogue Italia, and WePresent.