2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony Rescheduled For November

The 2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony has been rescheduled for Saturday, Nov. 7.  The show will be broadcast live from the Public Auditorium in Cleveland, Ohio, starting at 8:00 p.m. on HBO. 

It’s a year of firsts for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Four of the inductees were on the ballot for the first time. The inductions and the jams will be kicked out live for the first time in the history of the ceremony. This year also marked the first time the ceremony was postponed. The 2020 ceremony also marks the 25th Anniversary of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum.

HBO initially scheduled the ceremony to air on May 2 but concerns over COVID-19 but the breaks on it. In a statement at the time of the postponement, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame president Joel Peresman said “our first concern is to the health and safety of our attendees and artists and we are complying to the direction of the local and state authorities and common sense.”

The 2020 induction class includes Depeche Mode, the Doobie Brothers, Whitney Houston, Nine Inch Nails, The Notorious B.I.G. and T. Rex. This year’s Ahmet Ertegun Award, which honors songwriters, producers, disc jockeys, record executives, journalists and other industry professionals who have had a major influence on Rock & Roll, will go to Jon Landau and Irving Azoff. The Rock Hall has inducted nearly 900 individual artists over the past 34 years.

This is the first year The Notorious B.I.G. was eligible. He is the second solo rapper to join the Hall. Tupac Shakur was inducted in 2017.

This year also marks the first time Nine Inch Nails’ Trent Reznor paid attention to the Rock Hall. In 2018, he told Stereogum he “honestly couldn’t give less of a shit” about not being nominated for the classes of 2017, 2018, or 2019 even though NIN had been nominated two times before. “I saw somebody write something online or comment on Twitter like, ‘What could be less rock and roll than the fuckin’ Hall Of Fame.’ And that is authentically how I feel about it.” While he did admit “it’s nice to be appreciated,” he also said “a Grammy doesn’t mean a fuckin’ thing.” Reznor must have changed his mind after he inducted The Cure into the Rock Hall at the March 2019 ceremony.

The Rock And Roll Hall of Fame inductions have alternated between Cleveland and Brooklyn’s Barclays Center since 2018. Cleveland is home to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum, but The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation is based in New York.

The 2020 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be broadcast live for Saturday, Nov. 7.  at 8:00 p.m. on HBO.