LAS VEGAS — The stage is set for Janet Jackson, whether it’s picking up a career award or headlining a career-spanning production on the Strip.

Jackson will be honored for 50 years in show business with the Icon Award at the American Music Awards on May 26. Jennifer Lopez hosts the show in its first appearance in Las Vegas at Fontainebleau’s BleauLive Theater. The broadcast is set for 5 p.m. PT on CBS, streaming on Paramount+.

Jackson’s Las Vegas production returns Friday and runs through May 31. Hers is the last show to play Resorts World Theatre before the venue is renovated to include a general-admission option. Plans are for a September reopening.

Jackson’s crescendo performance is driven by Production Resource Group, PRG in shorthand, which designs lighting, sound and scenic innovation for some of the most ambitious Las Vegas residencies.

The Killers and Keith Urban at the Colosseum; Carrie Underwood at Resorts World Theatre, Aerosmith and Maroon 5 at Dolby Live; and Pitbull, Shania Twain and Backstreet Boys at Zappos Theater/Bakkt Theater (now PH Live) at Planet Hollywood are all PRG shows.

It is the charge of PRG Senior Vice President of Music and Live TV Randy Hutson to “fill the funnel and bring artists to the stage.”

It’s like putting together a puzzle of lavish productions. Hutson has seen the duration of a residency shift and shrink over the years. Celine Dion’s Colosseum production “A New Day …” played 717 shows from 2003-2007, 200 just in the first year.

Jackson will play 16 shows in her series, which opened in November.

The dramatic shift in residency commitments is due to a saturation of superstars. The Dion model is no longer financially feasible in today’s Las Vegas ticket-buying market, with an abundance of similarly scaled, superstar productions.

The Jackson model is the trend, as a superstar plays shorter runs and keeps demand high among many headliner residencies.

“I’m looking every day at this, because we like to have a market share in all different genres in a market like Las Vegas,” Hutson says. “You have to have an artist that has staying power to do that right. Who can sell that many tickets, and who can capture the tourist schedule with everything else going on in town.

“You have a transient audience in the mecca of the entertainment world, and Las Vegas has kind of set itself up to where 10 to 12 weeks is a very long residency run.”

Resident headliners are getting older, reluctant to tour, with 77-year-old Sammy Hagar a leading example at Dolby Live, along with the Eagles and Dead & Company currently at Sphere.

Hutson hears it frequently, that artists see Las Vegas as a way to extend their live-performance careers without going on the road. “We see more people parking in Las Vegas than we used to,” the exec says. “That’s great for the industry, because we get to see them longer.”

Jackson is still a force on stage, running her Strip production right up to her 50-year lifetime achievement award. If she wants to return with an evolved “Metamorphosis,” the stage will be ready.

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