WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center Honors are leaving the Kennedy Center.
This year’s annual celebration of the performing arts will be held Dec. 7 at Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, DC, a center spokesperson announced Friday. Few other details were immediately available, and an explanation for the change wasn’t given.
Capital One Arena, the home of the NBA’s Wizards and NHL’s Capitals, can accommodate roughly 20,000 people for concerts — nearly nine times the 2,347-seat capacity of the Kennedy Center Opera House, where the gala has been held regularly since 1978.
The Kennedy Center has been closed to the public since Sept. 15, when its board voted to shut down the building for renovations after a federal judge blocked the institution from adding President Trump’s name to the building without the consent of Congress, which has allocated $257 million to spruce up the 55-year-old building.
That same day, Trump warned in a post on Truth Social that “the Renovation and Reconstruction, which is a very large and complex job, cannot begin until such time as the D.C. Circuit rules on the Board’s approved name.
“If the ruling is a negative one, which it should not be, and is overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place,” he added.
The Kennedy Center’s board previously cited a partial ceiling collapse in the center’s Grand Foyer last month as evidence for the center needed to be immediately closed for repairs.
In a draft resolution proposing a two-year closure for construction, a consultant and the center’s director said they considered the main building unsafe for continued occupancy and warned of further risks to members of the public and employees if it remained open.
Trump hosted the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, at which actor Sylvester Stallone and country legend George Strait were among the icons recognized. Days later, the performing arts venue’s board of trustees announced it had “unanimously” voted to add Trump’s name to the building — after he had dangled the possibility for months.
Congress named the performing arts center as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy in 1964, the year after he was assassinated, and the law expressly forbids the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else or from putting another person’s name on the building’s exterior.
The addition of Trump’s name was duly challenged in court, and a judge ordered it removed earlier this year.
The 2026 Kennedy Center Honorees will be announced at a later date.
