ETTD – EVERYTHING TRUMP TOUCHES DIES
To the surprised of no one except Trump himself the John F. Kennedy Center For Performing Arts, a DC landmark and (formerly) one of this nation’s most prestigious venues for not just Performing Arts but exhibits too is on the skids. The buffoon who PAINTS HIS FACE ORANGE and has less class than knowledge of quantum physics or celestial mechanics took over control. He installed himself as Chairman of the Board, dumped people who had actual class and knowledge of the arts and installed a bunch of equally gooberish cronies. Artists have fled, refusing what Trumps been doing to the place and donors have shut their wallets. And ticket sales have plummeted.
It’s not dead just yet but the venerable Kennedy Center is on life support at this point and the prognosis offers little hope. I predict the final nail in the coffin will be when Trump, regardless of historic preservation laws renames the place the Trump Center. Complete with his name plastered in FAKE gold letters on the roof as shown in the title pic. Hell, he will probably want to be driven over as the workers remove Kennedy’s name from over the entrance. Even have a ‘ceremony’ of him pulling a lever (painted gold of course) that dumps it all off the bridge into the Potomac!
How bad have things gotten? Rich donors have always been important but the revenue generated from ticket sales to events have been the lifeblood. When I lived in the DC area I didn’t make to anywhere near as many performances as I would have liked but when I had the cash and time it was a thrill to experience the Kennedy Center. Excitement just walking up to the entrance, and a wistful sadness walking away when it was time to go home. Once in there I wanted to STAY. It had that feel, at least to me.
Alas, Trumpty-Dumpty has gone stomping around the place, no doubt with his actual stink (yes, Trump literally stinks we’ve learned) lingering. As The Daily Beast tells us people are staying away – in droves. Since Trump’s takeover tens of thousands of tickets have gone unsold according to the linked article. I’d be curious to the total because it points out ticket sales just in the past two months:
Nearly nine months after the president installed himself as Kennedy Center chair, 43 percent of tickets remain unsold for a typical production.
Of the roughly 143,000 seats that could have been sold from early September to mid-October, more than 50,000 remain vacant, according to The Post.
Bad as that is things might be even worse than it appears. The reporting the Daily Beast cited raised the issue of “comps’, tickets purchased to give away to various people and organizations. Also, as for actual attendance a staff member said they’ve been getting far more tickets in the past to give away to increase audience size. And that it looks like even more are coming. The literal bottom line is the Kennedy Center is bleeding money. Plummeting ticket sales, events scheduled to the iconic venue being cancelled and moved to smaller venues.
And then there’s donors. I’m sure Trump can hit up (i.e. threaten) some big money folks to pony up and replace major donors (including conservative ones) who’ve pulled out. It’s the large base of smaller donors to keep an eye on:
Michael Kaiser, former president of the Kennedy Center, also warned that if ticket sales do not pick up, then it will “bode unfavorably for future fundraising revenue.”
“The vast majority of donors are ticket buyers who are anxious to enhance their relationships with the organization by making contributions in addition to paying for their tickets,” Kaiser said. “We had 40,000 generous individual donors by the time I left the Center in 2014. Funding from these individuals formed the foundation for all we accomplished.”
While these aren’t people who cough up six or even seven million dollar donations they are vital. A group that size making donations well into the hundreds or even up above $1k adds up fast. All that is threatened. Without it the Kennedy Center, once so highly regarded both at home and around the world will become a second rate joint.
MAGA goobers like the ones back in southern Illinois where I grew up, or up in West Virginia where I lived for ten years aren’t going to make donations. Whether from home or if visiting DC. Even if ticket prices that I thought were worth every cent were dropped to MAGA goober level most of them wouldn’t do more than a quick drive by to take a selfie – assuming their Turd God Emperor Trump slaps HIS name on the place.
I recall long ago there was concern about the Kennedy Center not measuring up to the vision that was intended but people with money and CLASS stepped up and set it on a quick path to becoming a beloved Washington, DC institution. Sadly, it’s always easier to destroy than to build and one thing Trump is world-class at is destroying both people and things. I shudder to think of him ‘going Vegas’ and installing ‘Artists’ In Residence. Kid Rock? Lee Greenwood? Lara Trump even? Art exhibits of instead of actual paintings and sculptures, actual art being replaced by that crap painted on velvet you see at roadside stands, and things like collections of duck calls from those assholes from Duck Dynasty.
There will be SO much to fix when Trump is gone. Parts (if not all) of the White House to rebuild back to what it was before Trump, or restore like the Rose Garden. Fortunately there’s plenty of pictures and video of every bit of the place before Trump came along. Hopefully the Kennedy Center will also be a priority. But for now, it’s in ETTD territory.
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I am a member of the reviewing press. I don’t know if they fired the media relations team or they all quit of their own accord, but there have been no press invites since the June opening of Les Miserables (and they had to push it back a day because it was originally to be the night he decided to attend). No invites for Parade or The Sound of Music. When they started hyping that one of the actresses who played one of the kids in TSOM was going to attend and ‘tickets are going fast’, I checked their ticketing page and the place was less than half sold, and it was even worse on other nights without her as an attraction. The next show we would have been invited to is Champions of Magic Holiday Spectacular, opening November 18. Attached is the current seating availability for opening night. The orange dots are the unsold seats, and that’s just the orchestra. And it looks even worse for Spamalot’s opening night on December 16. It’s shocking but not a surprise.
Kennedy Center Champions of Magic
Kennedy Center Spamalot
“There will be SO much to fix when Trump is gone.” Yes, indeed! Museums and churches in Europe took their art and artifacts underground before the Nazi’s could loot them. Then, they were put back after the war. I hope that something similar is being done in anticipation of Trump being gone. Like Germany, we must erase all vestiges of Trumpism, and never let such a scourge happen again.