WASHINGTON — The Kennedy Center Honors will move out of the Kennedy Center this year.
The annual celebration of achievement in the performing arts is scheduled for Dec. 7 at Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, D.C., a spokesperson for the center said Friday. Officials did not immediately provide additional details or explain why the event is being relocated.
Capital One Arena, which hosts the NBA’s Washington Wizards and the NHL’s Washington Capitals, can hold about 20,000 concertgoers. That is nearly nine times the 2,347-seat capacity of the Kennedy Center Opera House, the customary home of the honors ceremony since 1978.
The Kennedy Center has been closed to the public since Sept. 15, after its board voted to shutter the complex for renovations. The decision came after a federal judge blocked the institution from adding President Trump’s name to the building without congressional approval. Congress has allocated $257 million for improvements to the 55-year-old arts center.
That same day, Trump wrote on Truth Social that the planned renovation and reconstruction — which he described as a “very large and complex job” — could not move forward until the D.C. Circuit ruled on the board’s decision to rename the center.
Trump also said that if the appeals court issued an unfavorable ruling and the U.S. Supreme Court later overturned it, “the Reconstruction and the Renovation of The Kennedy Center will not take place.”
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The Kennedy Center board had earlier pointed to the partial collapse of a ceiling in the Grand Foyer as evidence that the building required immediate repairs and should be closed.
In a draft resolution recommending a two-year shutdown for construction, a consultant and the center’s director said the main building was unsafe for continued use. They warned that keeping it open could create additional dangers for visitors and employees.
Trump hosted the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors, where actor Sylvester Stallone and country music star George Strait were among those celebrated. Within days, the center’s board of trustees announced that it had voted unanimously to place Trump’s name on the building, following months in which he had suggested the possibility.
Congress designated the performing arts complex as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy in 1964, one year after his assassination. The law specifically prohibits the board of trustees from turning the center into a memorial for another individual or adding anyone else’s name to its exterior.
The name change was challenged in court, and a judge ordered Trump’s name removed earlier this year.
The recipients of the 2026 Kennedy Center Honors will be revealed at a later date.
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