Stars gasp as temporary power outage strikes SAG Awards red carpet

The 2024 SAG Awards had the polar opposite of a bright start — but only for a few comical moments.

Stars at Los Angeles' Shrine Auditorium and Expo Hall for Saturday's awards show gasped as a brief power outage appeared to hit the red carpet just after 3 p.m. local time, just after PEOPLE and EW's team began interviewing attendees.

"Oh, we've got a little darkening of the carpet," EW's Patrick Gomez said during the moment, while PEOPLE's Janine Rubenstein observed that "the lights went out."

While the carpet was still filling up with the night's attendees, The Gilded Age performer Ben Ahlers could be seen reacting to the dimming of the lights behind Rubenestein and Gomez — the latter of whom remarked that "a wave of noise" swept over the stars on the carpet when the lights cut.

EW has reached out to the SAG Awards team for more information on the apparent outage.

In far more radiant news, the SAG Awards are set to host a wealth of famous presenters throughout Netflix's streaming event, including Meryl Streep, Anne Hathaway, and Oppenheimer nominee Emily Blunt holding a Devil Wears Prada reunion on stage at some point during the show.

Watch Gomez and Rubenstein react to the red carpet outage in the video above.

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV.

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