Kennedy Center's switch to Ticketmaster puts spotlight on ex-leader's Live Nation pay

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is switching the company that sells its tickets from a nonprofit platform it has used for decades to Ticketmaster, a move negotiated in part while the center's own president was simultaneously drawing a salary from Ticketmaster's parent company, Live Nation, according to reporting published Thursday by NPR. A government-ethics specialist describes the arrangement as a textbook conflict of interest, and current and former Kennedy Center staff say the platform switch was pushed through despite internal objections.

The timing has become newly visible because of a practical problem: tickets for the center's marquee annual event, the Kennedy Center Honors, are not yet on sale. The gala, which will honor songwriter Paul Anka, producer David Foster, actor Andy Garcia, playwright David Mamet and singer Barbara Mandrell, is scheduled for Dec. 7 at Washington's Capital One Arena, the first time in the Honors' history it will be held away from the Kennedy Center itself, since the building has been closed for a renovation project. As of Nov. 11, the center's website offered only a form to request information about how to buy tickets, with no sale date given. Current and former staffers told NPR the holdup stems directly from the ticketing-platform changeover.

A Six-Figure Paycheck on the Other Side of the Deal

Richard Grenell was installed as the Kennedy Center's president in February 2025, when President Trump took over as the institution's chairman. Three months later, in May 2025, Live Nation added Grenell to its own board of directors, a move the company disclosed in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission noting his election effective May 19, 2025, and an initial grant of 102 shares of restricted Live Nation stock that vested the following month.

Live Nation's most recent proxy statement filed with the SEC shows the scale of that arrangement: Grenell was paid $62,088 in cash fees and $198,117 in stock awards for his board service in 2025, a total of $260,205. By contrast, the Kennedy Center's most recent tax filings list his compensation as president of the nonprofit arts institution as nothing, the position is unpaid. For the months both appointments overlapped, Grenell held a paid fiduciary duty to the company whose ticketing subsidiary the Kennedy Center was simultaneously negotiating to hire.

"This is literally conflict of interest," said Richard Briffault, a Columbia Law School professor who specializes in government ethics, in comments to NPR.

"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."

The Kennedy Center declined to answer questions about Grenell's overlapping roles or his financial stake in Live Nation and Ticketmaster. Multiple attempts by NPR to reach Grenell directly went unanswered.

Competing Accounts of How the Deal Came Together

Kennedy Center spokesperson PJ Elliott told NPR that discussions about moving to Ticketmaster began in 2024, under the Biden administration and before Grenell's appointment, and that "the agreement followed standard procurement review." Ticketmaster, in a statement, said it "categorically" denied pressuring the center, adding that Kennedy Center staff "first approached our team in February 2024 and almost immediately indicated wanting to switch to Ticketmaster because of limitations with their existing ticketing system."

That account was directly disputed by two current and former Kennedy Center employees, granted anonymity by NPR out of fear of professional retaliation, who said Ticketmaster was never seriously considered by leadership in 2024. "I was against having Ticketmaster at the Kennedy Center," one former senior executive wrote to NPR. "We had great ticketing staff and a system with Tessitura that gave us the capacity and 'intelligence' to manage our own data and customers. Ticketmaster could say they were trying to talk to us, but they absolutely were not negotiating with us."

The center has used Tessitura, a not-for-profit ticketing and customer-management platform developed by the Metropolitan Opera in 1995, since shortly after its creation; roughly 750 arts and culture institutions worldwide now rely on it. Steve Jacobson, founder of the nonprofit-arts consulting firm JCA, told NPR that Ticketmaster "can be great for high-volume events and venues like arena shows," but that it is "one-dimensional" and "designed for commercial presenters," whereas Tessitura integrates ticketing with fundraising, membership and donor management, functions essential to a nonprofit that depends on donations alongside ticket revenue.

Responsibility for finalizing the Ticketmaster agreement appears to have shifted along with Kennedy Center leadership. Grenell left the presidency in March 2026 and was replaced by Matt Floca, previously the center's facilities chief. Floca then leaned heavily on Rick Canny, a longtime talent agent who had been consulting for the center since April 2025; last month, Canny was formally named the center's artistic director. NPR obtained a March 2026 email in which Canny, while still a consultant, told the center's then-chief financial officer that he had been "advising on this for almost a year" and had "shaped many or most of the terms of the deal" with Ticketmaster. In the same email, Canny blamed the center's unionized box office staff, represented by the International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees, for delays, writing that "the unions got in the way and they could no longer make money with us." The center laid off its IATSE-represented box office employees this fall after the main building closed for renovation.

A Company Already Under Antitrust Pressure

The Kennedy Center's move comes as Live Nation and Ticketmaster remain under sustained legal and regulatory fire. According to NPR, Live Nation controlled roughly 80 percent of primary concert ticket sales nationally as of earlier this year. The Justice Department sued the companies for operating an illegal monopoly in 2024; the Antitrust Division's case docket shows the department reached a settlement notice on March 9, 2026, reportedly requiring Live Nation to pay roughly $280 million and sell more than a dozen amphitheaters.

Thirty-three state attorneys general, led by New York, rejected that settlement and pressed ahead with their own case. A jury sided with them: according to a press release from New York Attorney General Letitia James's office, jurors found on April 15, 2026, that Ticketmaster unlawfully maintains a monopoly over ticketing at major concert venues, that Live Nation unlawfully ties its amphitheater bookings to its own promotion services, and that fans were overcharged as a result, New York consumers alone paid an average of $1.72 extra per ticket in inflated fees, the office said. A separate bench trial to determine remedies and penalties, which the states say could include a forced breakup of Ticketmaster from Live Nation, has not yet concluded. Live Nation has denied operating a monopoly and has said the live-events market is more competitive than ever.

For now, the practical consequence at the Kennedy Center is a public performing-arts institution unable to tell ticket buyers, including the high-level donors who traditionally get first access to Honors tickets, when or how they will be able to buy seats to a gala now less than a month away. The center has not said when the Ticketmaster changeover will be complete, and it has not responded to further questions about Grenell's dual roles since NPR's report was published.