American Idol 2020 Schedule: How Many More Live Episodes Are There?

ABC American Idol judges Lionel Richie, Katy Perry, and Luke Bryan

This week, the American Idol season continues with the announcement of the Top 10 contestants. Those contestants will then compete for votes from the viewers in hopes of moving on to next week’s episode. There are only three more episodes, including tonight, before the American Idol season finale.

Prior to the pandemic, the live episodes of Idol were due to start on Monday, April 6. After production was shut down in order to protect the health and safety of the staff, cast and contestants, Idol made the decision to air two American Idol: This is Me episodes that spotlighted each of the top 20 contestants. The specials consisted of pre-recorded performances and interviews with the contestants.

The search for the next American Idol continued last week with at-home performances from each of the Top 20. This week, the journey continues with the Top 10 being announced and performing for votes from the viewers.


The Season Finale Airs on May 17

While there has been no official announcement about how many contestants will be in the finale, we do know when the rest of the episodes will air. Here’s what the remainder of the season looks like:

Sunday, May 3: Top 10 Reveal and Performances

Sunday, May 10: Top Idol contestants compete for a chance to be in the finale.

Sunday, May 17: Three-hour season finale of American Idol, revealing the winner of Season 18.

There were originally going to be a total of six live shows, which would have started with a Top 14 show on April 12, a Top 10 show on April 18 and a Top 8 show on April 26; however, due to the circumstances, the number of live shows got cut down to just a four.


There Are Three Ways to Vote For Contestants

There are three separate ways to vote for your favorite contestants. First, you can vote at AmericanIdol.com/vote or download the American Idol text. The other convenient way to vote is via text message. For texting, you simply text the number of the contestant you would like to vote for to “21523.”

You don’t have to limit your vote to just one contestant or just one vote per contestant. Instead, you can split your 10 votes between contestants if you’d like. On the website or the app, you can split them up however you want. When it comes to texting, you just have to text 21523 the contestant’s number however many times you’d like to vote for them.

Vote up to 30 times per week. At the end of the voting period, the votes will be tallied, and the 10 contestants with the fewest number of votes will be sent home at the beginning of next week’s episode.

The season finale of the show now set to air on Sunday, May 17 when host Ryan Seacrest will crown the Season 18 American Idol.

Tonight’s episode of American Idol will feature celebrity guests Phillip Phillips, Stevie Wonder, Charlie Puth and Darius Rucker.

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