ENTERTAINMENT: Almost live at ACM rehearsal

Keith Urban practiced the handoff — with a video camera, not a football.

You may see him do it on Sunday, as he did in a Friday rehearsal at the MGM Grand: panning the front row and then handing off the camera to a fan, who then will be invited up to add still another angle to the robotic cameras that fly over the audience on wires.

“It will give the audience a chance to actually participate. You know today with the world of video, everybody has one,” producer Orly Adelson says.

Adopting the hand-held aesthetic that runs through action movies may be one way to explain why ratings shot up 26 percent for the Academy of Country Music Awards last year. And that year was up 32 percent from the year before.

Or maybe it was a different interactivity, of “American Idol”-trained audiences getting to add their vote in key categories.

Or maybe it was Taylor Swift, leading a crossover pack of country singers such as Carrie Underwood and the vocal trio Lady Antebellum, pictured.

“The live shows are doing very well. It’s not a Tivo kind of show,” noted Adelson, who heads Dick Clark productions, which also saw ratings hikes for its American Music Awards, Golden Globes and “New Year’s Rockin’ Eve” productions in the past year.

At any rate, the modern trend in awards show is to pack in more performances and have less cue-card banter between presenters looking like deer stuck in headlights.

Lady Antebellum leads this year’s pack with seven nominations, but singer Charles Kelley said the trio feel less nervous than they did last year with one nomination.

“Honestly, there’s something about the vibe of this right now. It’s more excitement. There’s no pressure. Just go out there and have a good time and reconnect with a lot of our friends.”

“I about tackled Miranda Lambert backstage when I saw her,” added singing partner Hillary Scott.

“We’re trying to enjoy it and realize it will probably never be this fun again, because it’s all so brand new,” singer Kelley added, after the trio came off the stage following a Friday rehearsal at the MGM Grand Garden.

“You can’t say no to these things,” Kelley noted of a jet-lagging schedule that includes a recent visit to “American Idol” and a sit-down with Oprah Winfrey. “It’s busy, a lot of travel, but they’re all like these opportunities of a lifetime.”

Scott said fame hasn’t soaked in yet. “We’re really just completely normal people with a really weird job.” She does admit to checking out concert footage fans post on YouTube “to see if I’m doing anything stupid onstage I need to change.”

They measure fame in little ways. “John Mayer tweeted about us,” Kelley pointed out. “I’m a big John Mayer fan. I’m trying to picture John Mayer in his car listening to ‘Need You Now.’ ”

The awards show goes off live at 5 p.m. Sunday for ticket-holders, but runs on TV at 8 p.m. locally on KLAS-TV, Channel 8. Most of the stars return to the arena to tape a tribute to Brooks & Dunn that also runs on CBS next month. The live time for that show is 7:30 p.m. Monday.