ACM Awards 2026: Best Red Carpet Looks & What to Expect

Country music’s biggest night is here, and Shania Twain is making absolutely sure you know it. The Canadian icon stepped onto the 2026 ACM Awards red carpet at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas wearing a silver strapless gown from Falguni Shane Peacock — beaded palm-tree embroidery across the bodice, a massive sequin panther prowling across the skirt, and dramatic elbow-length leather gloves with grommet details finishing the whole thing off. It was, in a word, a lot. In the best possible way.

Twain, 60, is hosting the 61st Academy of Country Music Awards tonight, Sunday, May 17, taking over from Reba McEntire and making her hosting debut at an event she’s called a genuine bucket-list moment. “This is the biggest gig of my life,” she told Us Weekly ahead of the show. “You can expect a lot of excitement, glamor. We’re going to be very glamorous here in Las Vegas. You can expect that this is the ACMs Vegas style.”

She also teased that the fashion was going to be particularly elevated this year: “There’s going to be a lot of beauty because there’s more women on the nominees list this year. So that always brings up the fashion a little higher sometimes, I think. So you can see a lot of really fabulous, high fashion.”

She wasn’t wrong.

The Red Carpet Looks You Need to See

Twain’s entrance set the tone, but she wasn’t the only one bringing it on the carpet. Michael Bublé, on hand as a presenter, went full monochrome in royal blue — suit, shirt, the whole look — topped off with a pair of patent crocodile leather square-toe boots that had just enough personality to make it interesting.

Tyler Hubbard kept it relaxed in light blue jeans, suede boots and a tan blazer, while his wife Hayley Hubbard more than made up the glamour difference in a strapless olive-green column gown by Alex Perry, complete with a corset bodice and an eye-catching satin knot at the waist.

Old Dominion — Geoff Sprung, Trevor Rosen, Matthew Ramsey and Brad Tursi — arrived as a group and leaned into a neutral palette that let each member’s individual style breathe without tipping into coordinated-boy-band territory. They’re nominated for Group of the Year tonight, so looking good as a unit matters.

Shania Twain’s Fashion Legacy — and Why Tonight Feels Different

For anyone who’s followed Twain’s career across three decades, tonight’s silver panther gown is just the latest chapter in a long and genuinely iconic fashion story. She wore a Marc Bouwer sequined white turtleneck gown to the 1999 Grammys the night she won best country song and best female country vocal performance for “You’re Still the One.” She channelled punk-rock energy in reflective black vinyl at the 1996 American Music Awards. She gave fans a rhinestone-covered custom Levi’s denim two-piece at the 2024 People’s Country Choice Awards — matching long gloves included — that was essentially country Barbie come to life. And her 2023 CMT Music Awards look, a red-and-black butterfly-print Prabal Gurung gown worn with a flame-red hairstyle, reminded everyone that she never really went anywhere.

The leopard print, of course, is its own chapter entirely. “For better or for worse, I just really latched onto it,” she told Vogue in 2020. “It was a favourite.” She brought it back for the 2022 People’s Choice Awards with a leopard-print hooded shawl over a sheer black dress, letting her then-pink hair steal the frame.

Tonight marks the 30th anniversary of her first ACM wins — she took home Top New Female Vocalist and Album of the Year for The Woman in Me back in 1996 — and she’s arriving not as a nominee but as the host, which somehow feels bigger. “I am representing our genre,” she told USA Today. “I am there to represent the talent, to make them feel comfortable. So I think I’m just going to have a really fun time.”

She’s also been candid about what this moment means personally, coming off what she’s described as an era of mental liberation. “I was always like, ‘I need to be myself,’” she told Us Weekly for their March 2025 cover story. “Any artist’s greatest power is originality. I was insecure about lots of things, but I had conviction.”

What’s Coming Tonight: Nominees, Performers and More

The night belongs to women — for the second year running. Megan Moroney leads all nominees with nine, including her first-ever nods for Entertainer of the Year and Artist-Songwriter of the Year. Miranda Lambert — the most decorated artist in ACM Awards history — follows with eight. Ella Langley and Lainey Wilson each have seven.

Twain has made no secret of her excitement about meeting Langley tonight. “When I first heard her song come out, I thought, ‘Wow, this is the real thing,’” she said on the Today show. “I realized how much I had been missing hearing that authenticity. Musically, production-wise, her voice, her lyrics. So I’m very excited to meet her.”

The performance lineup is stacked. Kacey Musgraves makes her ACM Awards debut tonight, performing from her newly released album Middle of Nowhere — and yes, she and Lambert have officially squashed their long-rumored feud, collaborating on a new duet called “Horses and Divorces.” Also on the stage tonight: Blake Shelton, Dan + Shay, Kane Brown, Thomas Rhett, Little Big Town, The Red Clay Strays, Jordan Davis, Riley Green, Parker McCollum (performing “Killin’ Me” with Lee Ann Womack), and all Album of the Year nominees except Morgan Wallen.

A few awards were handed out before tonight’s main ceremony. Jessie Jo Dillon became the first songwriter to win the ACM Songwriter of the Year award three consecutive times. Stephen Wilson Jr. took home visual media of the year for “Cuckoo.” And Avery Anna and Tucker Wetmore were named new female and new male artist of the year, respectively.

The show streams live on Prime Video, the Amazon Music channel on Twitch and the Amazon Music app starting at 8 p.m. ET.

Twain dropped her new single “Dirty Rosie” earlier this week, and tonight she takes the stage she’s been building toward for thirty years. As she put it: “Hosting the ACMs is a very, very big deal for me.” The silver panther gown says she already knows it.