It won’t be long before your favorite “American Idol” contestants of season 24 will need your votes to stay in the competition.
Final auditions air in a two-hour episode on February 16, 2026, but producers have some changes in store. Viewer voting will begin after the new Ohana round, but live voting — which will include social media voting for the first time — will start on March 30.
Voting Will Start After the New “American Idol” Ohana Round
DisneyAfter the auditions wrap up, it’s on to Hollywood Week, which is actually being held in Nashville this year. Judges Luke Bryan, Carrie Underwood, and Lionel Richie will have to cut the contestants down to just 30.
Two two-hour episodes will be dedicated to the iconic round, airing on February 23 and March 2. But instead of making contestants work together on duets or group songs, each contestant will give one solo performance, according to ABC.
The 30 singers who make it through Hollywood Week will all get to go to Hawaii, spending time with mentors at Disney’s Aulani Resort & Spa for a new “Ohana” round that was filmed in late January, scheduled to air on March 16. The top 30 will sing a song that “meant something to their family growing up and dedicate it to someone in their family,” executive producer Megan Michaels Woflick told Billboard.
She described the round as “a social experiment,” explaining, “In my mind, the Ohana round is the ultimate focus group. You have three groups of people. You have the Idols. You have the families and then we’ve curated a select group of influencers and music and industry experts to come in from their point of view. I wanted to see who would be the favorite in each of these groups.”
The contestants who move on will work with superstar mentors Keke Palmer and Brad Paisley before their big beach performances for the judges and audience. There will be two consecutive weeks worth of performances from contestants (in 2025, the episodes aired on back-to-back nights), and viewers are expected to get to vote on their favorite performances, with results revealed on March 30, when live voting begins.
How Will Live Voting Work on ‘American Idol’ This Year?
DisneyWolflick told Billboard that “social voting” will make live voting the “easiest thing ever” for fans.
“There’s going to be a pinned voting post on all platforms, where you will write your name in the comments section of your favorite Idol,” she explained. “It’s as easy as going on Instagram or wherever. You see the voting post and you type ‘Fred Bronson’ in the comments and that’s your vote. So it’s literally the easiest thing ever.”
“We’ve been working on this for five years,” she continued. “It has never been available until now, so it’s definitely been something that we wanted to push forward.”
