The Honors ceremony is scheduled for Dec. 7 at Capital One Arena and will celebrate songwriter Paul Anka, producer David Foster, actor Andy Garcia, playwright David Mamet and country singer Barbara Mandrell. As of Nov. 11, the center's website offered only an email signup form for ticket information, and the center did not answer questions about when or how tickets would be sold. Current and former staffers, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the delay stems from the ticketing platform change.

Richard Grenell was appointed president of the Kennedy Center in February 2025, when President Trump became the institution's chairman. In May 2025, Grenell was appointed to Live Nation's board. According to Live Nation's most recent SEC filings, he was paid $260,205 for his board service in 2025 and received 102 shares of company stock worth about $14,200 when he joined. The Kennedy Center's most recent tax filings show he was paid nothing as its president.

"This is literally conflict of interest," said Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in government ethics. "If you have a duty of loyalty to an entity in which you're an officer – if you sit on the board and at the same time you have a financial stake in another entity that does business with, and benefits from, the business with the entity on whose board you sit – that's a problem."

Kennedy Center spokesperson PJ Elliott said discussions about moving to Ticketmaster began in 2024, before Grenell's appointment, and that the center "had outgrown its previous ticketing system." Elliott declined to say when the switch would occur or to address questions about Grenell's Live Nation role. Grenell did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and Ticketmaster did not respond to a request for comment.

Two people familiar with the center's operations disputed the timeline. A former senior executive said Ticketmaster "absolutely were not negotiating with us" in 2024, and a current highly placed employee said the company was never seriously considered that year.

Internal emails obtained by NPR show that Rick Canny, a longtime California talent agent who was named the center's artistic director last month, took a leading role in the Ticketmaster deal while working as a consultant. In a March email to then-chief financial officer Donna Arduin Kauranen, Canny wrote that he was "chiefly responsible" for the move and had "shaped many or most of the terms of the deal." He also blamed the box office workers' union, IATSE, for impeding the plan, writing that "the unions got in the way and they [Ticketmaster] could no longer make money with us." The center laid off its IATSE box office workers this fall after closing its main building for a planned two-year renovation.

Ticketing experts say the platform choice matters for a nonprofit arts institution. Steve Jacobson, founder of the consulting firm JCA, said Tessitura is used by more than 750 arts and culture organizations worldwide and integrates ticket sales with fundraising, membership and customer service. Ticketmaster, by contrast, "is one-dimensional, and it's really designed for commercial presenters," he said.

The switch also comes as Live Nation faces intense scrutiny over its market power. A jury in April found that Live Nation and Ticketmaster operated as a monopoly, and the company controls about 80% of primary concert ticket sales in the U.S. A federal antitrust suit brought by the Justice Department was settled in March for $280 million, while 33 states and the District of Columbia pursued a separate case that led to the jury verdict.

The Kennedy Center has been embroiled in turmoil since Trump took over as chairman, including a federal lawsuit over his push to add his name to the institution. The ticket delay means Washington audiences still do not know when or how they can attend this year's Honors, one of the city's most anticipated cultural events.