Ticket sales at the Kennedy Center have plummeted since Donald Trump took over the art institution’s leadership.
According to the Washington Post, in the week after Trump announced he is taking over, ticket sales dropped by roughly 50 percent compared to the previous week.
Several Kennedy Center staff members who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal, told the Post that the drop in ticket sales is a “stunning aberration.”
Also, several artists who were scheduled to make an appearance at the center has since backed out.
“In DC, but in the wake of Trump taking over, I have pulled out,” Canadian mystery writer Louise Penny wrote in a post on social media. “It was, of course, going to be a career highlight. But there are things far more important than that.”
Adam Weiner, front man of the rock band Low Cut Connie, said he pulled out of his scheduled appearance at the Kennedy Center because “it’s an institution that I’m not interested in supporting or offering my show to.”
In the first month of his second term, Trump fired board members who had been appointed by the Biden Administration and replace them with loyalists. He also fired longtime chairman David Rubenstein, then falsely claimed he was unanimously elected as chairman.
Among other things, Trump named drag performances as his reason for taking over the center.
“The Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement at the time. “President Trump and the members of his newly-appointed board are devoted to rebuilding the Kennedy Center into a thriving and highly respected institution where all Americans, and visitors from around the world, can enjoy the arts with respect to America’s great history and traditions.”
