Boycotting is alive and well as a protest tactic. Based on ticket sales figures leaked to The Washington Post, Kennedy Center audiences are voting with their feet and staying away.
Sales appear to be cratering. Here’s the damage:
- Single ticket sales down 50% in April and May as compared to last year
- Theater subscriptions are down an eye-popping 82%
- Dance subscriptions are down 57%
- Subscriptions for performances for young people are down 82%
The Center’s constituent arts organizations are suffering as well, with the National Symphony Orchestra’s subscriptions down 28% and the Washington National Opera down 25%. It’s just two weeks into the subscription campaign, but the staffer who provided the documents to The Washington Post said they thought it would be nigh impossible to reach last year’s numbers with this kind of start.
The results aren’t surprising, considering that the Center’s audience is made up mostly of people from Washington D.C. (where 92% of votes went to VP Kamala Harris in the 2024 Presidential election) and surrounding areas. Much of the audience likely works for the federal government or an adjacent industry and President Trump’s takeover of the Center violates values they hold dear. (Just read the comments on the Kennedy Center’s Facebook page.)
Any normal arts leaders would be in emergency mode if this was happening at their organization. But for the current Kennedy Center leadership, any sales figures are a political win-win. If sales hold steady or increase, they can say they have the support of the people. If sales decline, they can point to it as evidence that liberals are intolerant and claim the Kennedy Center is a victim.
But here’s an outcome that gives me a pit in my stomach: a severe drop off in audience used as a pretext to close the Kennedy Center temporarily or slow programming to a crawl.
Here’s how that might work.
Scenario 1: President Trump has been vocal about what he thinks is significant disrepair of the facilities and has requested $257 million from Congress for the building. If that money is allocated, they could close most or all of the Center for repairs, go down to a skeleton staff, and halt all or most public programming. That could last the rest of the administration and into the next. Or if they do start up again, they have a clean slate for programming.
Scenario 2: If the money for renovation isn’t granted, they could use the rapid evaporation of the audience as an excuse to slash programs even further, just like has been done across the federal government as agencies have been reduced to minimal operations.
I hope I’m being paranoid. An argument against these doomsday scenarios is that the Kennedy Center is a platform for President Trump and his political allies to grandstand and stoke the culture wars they’ve created. That might be incentive enough to keep it running. But it might become just too much trouble as they learn what every reader of ArtsJournal knows: running an arts organization is hard.
It’s a shame that most Republican leaders consider diversity as divisive. The approach of the Kennedy Center’s programming was to showcase the excellence of American artists that reflected the range of art forms we practice here, from classical music and ballet to contemporary jazz, pop, comedy and theater. Further, the Center was respected in the arts community for lifting up hip-hop as an art form and offering professional development around access for people with disabilities. In the children’s theater world, in which I worked for a few years, the Kennedy Center is known for their leadership on championing high quality theater for young audiences, which is often dismissed as fluff but we know is powerful and inventive for participants and audiences alike.
A hollowed-out Kennedy Center might be a political win-win for MAGA supporters, but it’s lose-lose for audiences and the country.
It’s not too soon for arts leaders, artists, community and political leaders, and audiences to start articulating a post-Trump vision for the arts. Give the audiences and arts supporters a clear picture of how the sector will recover after the decimation of the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute for Museum and Library Services, the Kennedy Center, National Parks, and whatever might happen to the Smithsonian.
President Trump and Mr. Grennell are not holding back on pushing their vision for the arts. Why should we?
nice post , thank you for sharing.
The presenting organizations might want to look for other venues. There are concert halls and theaters in Washington, Maryland, and Virginia that would be appropriate for the symphony orchestras and opera companies that in the past have gone to the Kennedy Center. Strathmore in Maryland, the National Theater in Washington, the Lyric Opera House in Baltimore, and several venues in Virginia are alternatives to the Kennedy Center.
As a DC local who usually attended performances at the Kennedy Center 6-8 times a year, I won’t be going there for the next four years. The building will remain, so at sometime in the future, policies will change and I will go again. Many, many locals feel the same.
Hi Carlos,
I definitely understand your perspective on the Kennedy Center. I agree with you that there are other alternative venues outside of the Center that audiences may look to when it comes to experience and familiarity. Moreover, I think that this moment in time may be a lesson for all of us that no one institution is the end all be all. While I have never visited the Center nor DC for that matter I’ve definitely heard a lot about it and how it’s the most prestigious venue in the world of performing arts. For yours, and the audience’s sake, I hope the Center will return to its former glory.
“While I have never visited the Center nor DC for that matter I’ve definitely heard a lot about it and how it’s the most prestigious venue in the world of performing arts.”
I would say that the Kennedy Center is not the most prestigious venue in the world of performing arts. I would nominate Lincoln Center in New York, or Covent Garden in London, or the Vienna State Opera.
Excellent article about something I think is so tragic.
Thanks, Ron – yes, I hope we can get back to more normal order with the next administration.