Photo: HollywoodOutbreak.com

The street closures in Los Angeles for the Academy Awards are set to begin this Sunday evening and will be in effect until Tuesday morning after the ceremony.

What that means for residents is a bit more traffic in the area – OK a lot more traffic in the area – but city officials will tell you it’s all worth the inconvenience. Certainly the shop owners will get a boon from the exposure.

The Kodak Theatre sits on Hollywood Blvd. between Orange and Highland Avenues so that is precisely where the streets will be blocked off to traffic.

It won’t happen all at once though. The first closure begins Sunday, February 28th, 10:00 p.m. PT allowing for the press risers, fan bleachers and pre-show stages to get erected directly on the path of the red carpet. Then the streets will reopen at 6:00 a.m. March 1st…for a bit. They’ll close again at 10:00 p.m. PT that same night and stay shut until Tuesday, March 9th, 6:00 a.m. PT.

Photo: HollywoodOutbreak.com

The day of the Awards the Hollywood/Highland complex is shutdown – better yet, locked down - and without credentials the area is off limits. Shops in the complex take a hit financially during that time (the Academy doesn’t compensate for lost revenue), but they make it up in triplicate with all the free advertising from press outlets covering the enormous yearly event. And get this, the subway stop directly adjacent to the Kodak is bypassed from the time of the last train on Saturday night prior to Oscar Sunday and will not reopen until Monday, March 8th, 6:00 a.m. PT after the Awards. Yeah, movies are big business in this town and everyone rallies with the understanding of the long-term benefits to the industry (our biggest export by the way).

Fans can checkout the action – on foot anyway – but be advised, the day of the Oscars is set up like a fortress so getting anywhere near the theater within a six block radius is impossible without security clearance.

Photo: HollywoodOutbreak.com