Kennedy Center stays open for the Fourth of July after a court blocked its planned two-year closure

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was supposed to lock its doors this weekend and stay dark for about two years. Instead it is open on the Fourth of July, hosting a ticketed fireworks event with packages that run to $25,000, because a federal judge blocked the shutdown before it could start.

U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper enjoined the closure in a ruling on May 30. He also found that the center's board acted unlawfully when it renamed the institution for President Trump, and he ordered the president's name taken off the building. Trump's lawyers have asked a federal appeals court to pause that ruling while they try to overturn it.

What the board had planned

The center's Trump-appointed board voted on March 16 to wind down programming through the spring and close the doors effective July 5 for construction. Trump had first announced the plan on February 1, saying the building would shut on July 4 for "Construction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding" and reopen in about two years. He estimated the work at roughly $200 million and said the structure would stay up. "I'm not ripping it down," he told reporters at the time. "I'll be using the steel." Later filings and reporting put the planned renovation at about $257 million.

Cooper's order stopped that timeline. According to the ruling, the board's decision rested on a one-sided presentation of information and did not weigh the center's obligations under the statute that created it, including its memorial and programming functions.

The lawsuit

The case was brought by Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio who sits on the Kennedy Center's board as an ex officio member by virtue of her seat in Congress. She sued in December 2025 over the board's vote to rename the center the "Trump Kennedy Center," then amended the suit in February to challenge the closure after Trump announced it.

Cooper ruled that only Congress can rename the center, because Congress created it. His order gave the defendants 14 days to remove the Trump signage from the building, correct the website, withdraw trademark applications for the name, and file sworn proof of compliance. Trump's name has since come off the facade, and the section where it hung has been covered with a tarp. The court later ordered the center to report on the tarp and on its programming plans.

"The Kennedy Center is an institution that belongs to the American people, not to Donald Trump," Beatty said after the ruling.

Open, but mostly quiet

The injunction bars the center from going dark, but it does not require the board to book new shows. In a June 19 court filing, the center said Cooper's order "didn't explicitly require the Center to continue programming new shows or to increase staffing," and argued that "any immediate affirmative programming action is neither required by this Court's order nor prudent." Beatty's lawyers responded that refusing to program is a closure by other means, and asked the court to require that "meaningful operations continue after July 5, 2026."

The board says it will vote in mid-July on how to proceed. Its management is expected to present three options: a full closure with no programming, a partial closure that keeps some spaces open with limited programming, or a series of phased closures that keeps a full schedule running.

The center also told the court its finances are at risk. In a late-June filing, it said removing Trump's name could force it to return "hundreds of millions" of dollars in donations that were pledged under the naming arrangement, and warned that the resulting harm could not be recovered. The claim was reported by Forbes.

The Fourth of July event

With the closure on hold, the center is running a paid Independence Day event tied to the National Mall fireworks, where Trump is expected to speak. A "Presidential Package" for up to 36 guests sells for $25,000 and includes catering, a temperature-controlled lounge, and views of the monuments and fireworks, according to the center's listing. A 24-guest "Vice Presidential Package" runs $15,000. General admission starts at $425, and children's tickets are $125. The center says most of the cost, minus the children's tickets, is tax-deductible, with roughly $19,000 of the top package counted as a charitable contribution.

The center told Axios that the grounds at its REACH campus will stay open to the public for fireworks viewing, with food trucks, bar service, and free parking in its garage. A year earlier, the July 4 event there was free and family-oriented, built around a broadcast from the National Symphony Orchestra.

How it got here

Trump replaced the Kennedy Center's board in February 2025 and had the new members install him as chair. That board voted in December 2025 to rename the center for him, and voted again in March 2026 to close it. Since the takeover, a number of artists and companies have pulled out, including the national tour of "Hamilton," Renée Fleming, Issa Rae, Philip Glass, Béla Fleck, and Stephen Schwartz. The center has cut staff and lost senior leaders, among them Richard Grenell, the Trump-appointed president who left in March.

The Washington National Opera, a longtime resident company, severed ties and is suing the center, saying it has withheld $17 million in donations earmarked for the opera. The National Symphony Orchestra, which draws about $10 million of its roughly $42 million budget from the center, has said its future there is uncertain.

The mid-July board vote will set what the building does for the next two years. Trump's appeal of Cooper's ruling is still pending.