The 49th Kennedy Center Honors will leave the institution’s traditional Potomac River venue for Washington’s Capital One Arena on Dec. 7 as the performing arts center remains closed amid a continuing court fight over efforts to recognize President Donald Trump on the building.

By yourNEWS Media Newsroom

The Kennedy Center Honors will move out of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts this year and into Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, shifting one of the nation’s most prominent cultural ceremonies away from its longtime home as legal and financial disputes surrounding the center continue.

A Kennedy Center spokesperson confirmed Friday that the 49th annual ceremony will take place Dec. 7 at the downtown arena, according to The Associated Press. No explanation was immediately provided for selecting the new venue, and the center has not yet announced the 2026 honorees.

The Honors, established in 1978, recognize performers and other artists for lifetime contributions to American culture through the performing arts. The ceremony traditionally has been held inside the Kennedy Center’s Opera House, making this year’s relocation a significant break from decades of practice.

The move follows the September closure of the Kennedy Center’s main building, which has become the subject of an extended legal fight involving President Donald Trump, the center’s board and federal law governing the institution as a memorial to President John F. Kennedy.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper ruled Sept. 15 that the center’s board could not place Trump’s name on the building or rename its grounds in his honor without congressional approval. The ruling was the second time Cooper had blocked an effort to add Trump’s name to the institution.

“Simply put, Defendants cannot install memorials for President Trump or anyone or anything else at the Kennedy Center without Congress’s blessing,” Cooper wrote. “The board resolution bucks a federal court order and a statute Congress enacted.”

Congress designated the center as a living memorial to John F. Kennedy in 1964, one year after the president’s assassination. Federal law specifies the institution’s name and prohibits the board from turning the center into a memorial to another person or placing another person’s name on the building’s exterior.

The Kennedy Center board had previously approved adding Trump’s name to the building, and workers began installing it before Cooper ordered the name removed earlier this year. The board later approved a different proposal that would have placed an inscription on the exterior crediting Trump with restoring and renovating the center and would have renamed the surrounding grounds the President Donald J. Trump Plaza.

The administration argued that the proposed inscription was recognition of Trump’s role in securing funding and support for the institution rather than a formal renaming. Cooper rejected that distinction, ruling that the proposed changes were inconsistent with both federal law and his earlier court order.

The legal dispute has become intertwined with the center’s financial condition and plans for a major renovation.

Congress has allocated $257 million for repairs to the aging performing arts complex. Trump and Kennedy Center officials have argued that extensive work is needed because of structural deterioration and deferred maintenance, concerns that intensified after part of a ceiling fell inside the building earlier this year.

Administration lawyers also argued in court that Trump’s involvement was important to attracting private financial support needed to preserve the institution. Cooper said the government had not demonstrated that donations depended on placing Trump’s name on the property.

Hours after Cooper’s Sept. 15 decision, the Trump-aligned board voted to close the center, citing safety and financial concerns. It was the third time since February that trustees had approved plans for a roughly two-year closure and renovation.

Trump subsequently said repairs should not proceed unless the appeals court allows the board’s naming plans to move forward. The Justice Department has appealed Cooper’s decision.

The president has also said he personally helped raise money to support the center. During the September board meeting, Trump said $17 million had been deposited into an account associated with his fundraising effort, although that figure has not been independently verified.

The September shutdown followed a partial ceiling collapse that renewed concerns about the building’s physical condition. Kennedy Center officials said immediate action was necessary to protect employees and visitors while engineers and contractors assessed the property.

The fight over the center began after Trump returned to the White House and replaced members of its governing board with his own appointees. The reconstituted board subsequently selected Trump as chairman and made sweeping changes to the center’s leadership and programming.

Trustees also voted to name the opera house after first lady Melania Trump and later moved to add the president’s name to the broader Kennedy Center property, prompting legal challenges from opponents who argued that Congress alone possessed authority to change the identity of the national memorial.

Rep. Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, an ex officio Kennedy Center trustee, became a leading plaintiff in litigation challenging those actions. Cooper sided with Beatty in May when he first ruled that the center could not legally add Trump’s name to the building and ordered it removed.

The September decision addressed the board’s subsequent attempt to recognize Trump through a new exterior inscription and plaza name.

The legal dispute has continued while the center remains closed to the public. Trump has maintained that substantial renovation is necessary to address the building’s condition and has tied his support for the project to recognition of his role in rescuing the institution financially.

Opponents maintain that the center’s status as a congressionally established memorial to Kennedy prevents trustees from using the building to memorialize another president without Congress changing the law.

The disagreement has now affected one of the Kennedy Center’s signature annual events.

The Honors have traditionally brought together prominent figures from music, theater, dance, film and other performing arts for a gala inside the landmark building overlooking the Potomac River.

Trump hosted the 2025 ceremony, whose recipients included actor Sylvester Stallone and country singer George Strait. At that time, Trump said he intended to rename the institution the “Trump Kennedy Center,” and his name was subsequently installed before the court ordered its removal.

Capital One Arena provides a substantially different setting for this year’s ceremony. The downtown venue normally hosts major sporting events, concerts and large-scale entertainment productions, while the Kennedy Center Honors traditionally have taken place in the more formal Opera House setting.

Kennedy Center officials have not said whether the move is intended only for 2026 or whether future ceremonies could also take place elsewhere while renovations continue.

The center also has not announced who will host the Dec. 7 event or who will be honored this year.

For now, the relocation ensures that the Kennedy Center Honors will proceed despite the closure of the institution whose name the awards carry.

The ceremony’s departure from the Kennedy Center building comes less than three months after trustees closed the facility and little more than two weeks after Cooper reaffirmed that Trump’s name cannot be placed on the congressionally designated Kennedy memorial without lawmakers first authorizing the change.

Original article