Dolby Theatre

The Dolby Theatre (formerly known as the Kodak Theatre, and temporarily renamed the Hollywood and Highland Center Theatre) is a live-performance auditorium in the Hollywood and Highland shopping mall and entertainment complex, on Hollywood Boulevard and North Highland Avenue, in the Hollywood district of Los Angeles, United States. Since its opening on November 9, 2001, the theater has hosted the Academy Awards ceremonies (the Oscars), initially held there in March 2002. It is the first permanent home for these annual awards ceremonies.

History
The theater is rented to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for weeks before Oscar night. During the rest of the year, it hosts numerous live concerts, awards shows, symphony performances, and other events. But since the 7,000-seat Nokia Theatre at L.A. Live opened in 2007, it has largely replaced the Dolby Theatre as L.A.'s premier auditorium, and some of the events formerly held at the Dolby are now regularly held at the Nokia, including the American Idol finals.

The theater was sponsored, until February 2012, by the Eastman Kodak Company, which paid $75 million for naming rights to the building. In early 2012, Eastman Kodak filed for bankruptcy protection, and thus ended its naming-rights deal. Then, the theater's name was temporarily changed to The Hollywood and Highland Centre, at the suggestion of the venue's landlord. On May 1, 2012, it was announced that the venue would be renamed the Dolby Theatre, after Dolby Laboratories signed a 20-year naming-rights deal.
Dolby updated the sound system first by installing Dolby Atmos. The company plans to continue updating the auditorium with newer technologies as they become available.