The Kennedy Center Honors are the Capital One Arena Honors this year

In a first for the Kennedy Center Honors, the annual event will not take place at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts this year. Instead, the 49th Kennedy Center Honors will be held at Capital One Arena in downtown Washington, DC, a venue with a significantly larger capacity of 20,000. Deadline reports that the ceremony will happen off-site on December 7, with the event’s broadcasting partner to be announced later, according to a center spokesperson. The venue change isn’t especially surprising. The center has been the subject of dispute for the past couple of years thanks to self-appointed chairman Donald Trump, who threatened to demolish the building unless his name was added to the exterior. His name was added in December 2025, and the addition has been consistently challenged in court for legal reasons. After a judge ruled that he couldn’t just slap his name on the front of it, the waterfront center’s main building was abruptly closed to the public because of purported structural damage and safety concerns that prompted renovations.