The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

As a VENUE: Host your event…

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is a premiere location for your distinctive special event. Individuals, corporations, foundations, and associations have hosted unforgettable * performances * galas * receptions * dinners and * award ceremonies at the Center. Our spaces can accommodate anything from small intimate receptions to large events of up to 1,000. There is a multitude of venue and space options to choose from within its iconic building. Thirty distinctive spaces are available:

• Concert Hall: The Concert Hall is the largest performance space in the Kennedy Center, seating 2,465. This state-of-the-art facility, which originally opened in 1971, sets new standards for accessibility and sound with a high-tech acoustical canopy, accessible locations on every level, and new seating sections (onstage boxes, chorister seats, and parterre seats).
  • Capacity: 2,465 guests
• Opera House: The Opera House is the second-largest theater in the Center, with 2,364 seats. It was designed for ballet, opera, and musical theater. Over the years, the Opera House has welcomed dozens of the world’s great dance and opera companies and has hosted some of the most important artistic events of the last quarter century.
  • Capacity: 2,347 guests
• Opera House Circles Lounge: The Opera House Circles Lounge is located on the Box Tier of the Opera House and can be used as an event space, meeting room, and private lounge for the Center’s Circles donors. Limited availability due to performance schedule.
  • Capacity: Seated – 60 guests; Standing – 180 guests
• Eisenhower Theater: The Eisenhower Theater, traditionally home to many of the Kennedy Center‘s theater and dance performances, reopened in 2008 after a 16-month, $17.9 million renovation. The theater now seats 1,161 people, making it approximately comparable in size to many Broadway theater houses. The theater contains an orchestra pit for 35 musicians that is convertible to a forestage or additional seating space.
  • Capacity: 1,164 guests
• Terrace Theater: The Terrace Theater is the busiest theater within The Kennedy Center, hosting up to 180 performances each year ranging from music, jazz, dance, film, lectures, and more. Importantly, it also serves as a primary space through which the Center welcomes local arts groups and its artistic constituents, including WPA, Opera Lafayette, and many more.
  • Capacity: 490 guests
• Theater Lab: For more than 32 years, the Theater Lab has been home to Shear Madness, the hilarious whodunit that lets the audience play armchair detective. The Lab also occasionally hosts free Millennium Stage performances.
  • Capacity: 388 guests
• Family Theater: Unveiled on December 9, 2005, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts‘ 324-seat Family Theater  provides a new home for world-class family theater performances for the nation’s youth and continues the Kennedy Center‘s $125 million commitment to performing arts education for adults and children alike.
  • Capacity: 324 guests
• North Atrium Foyer: The North Atrium Foyer is located on the roof level of The Kennedy Center. This room can be rented individually or in conjunction with the Atrium and is used for cocktail receptions, seated dinners, and small meetings.
  • Capacity: Seated – 80 guests; Standing – 80 guests
• South Atrium Foyer: The South Atrium Foyer is located on the roof level of The Kennedy Center. This room can be rented individually or in conjunction with the Atrium and is used for cocktail receptions, seated dinners, and small meetings.
  • Capacity: Seated – 80 guests; Standing – 80 guests
• Atriums and Foyers: Located on the roof level of the Kennedy Center, the Atrium can be used for seated dinners, cocktail receptions, small performances, meetings, and lectures. The Atrium is rented along with the North and South Foyer.
  • Capacity: Seated – 400 guests; Standing – 550 guests
• Opera House Box Tier: The Opera House Box Tier is located in the lobby of the prestigious Opera House and is the only space with a direct view to the bust of President Kennedy. This space can be used for receptions and seated dinners on evenings when there are no performances inside the Opera House.
  • Capacity: Seated – 150 guests; Standing – 250 guests
• Eisenhower Box Tier
  • Capacity: Seated – 100 guests; Standing – 200 guests
• Concert Hall Box Tier
  • Capacity: Seated – 100 guests; Standing – 200 guests
• South Opera Tier Lounge: The South Opera Tier Lounge is located on the Second Tier of the Opera House and can be used for cocktail receptions, seated dinners, meetings, and lectures.
  • Capacity: Seated – 80 guests; Standing – 120 guests
• Bird Room: The Bird Room is located on the Second Tier of the Concert Hall and can be used for cocktail receptions and seated dinners.
  • Capacity: Seated – 50 guests; Standing – 60 guests
• Israeli Lounge: The Israeli lounge is located on the Box Tier of the Concert Hall and can be used for cocktail receptions and seated dinners.
  • Capacity: Seated – 60 guests; Standing – 80 guests
• Chinese Lounge: The Chinese Lounge is located on the Box Tier of the Eisenhower Theater and can be used for cocktail receptions and small seated dinners. Due to the color of the carpet in the Chinese Lounge, we cannot allow any dark liquids (including red wine) in this space.
  • Capacity: Seated – 40 guests; Standing – 60 guests
• African Room: The African Room is a reception room for dignitaries, donated to the Kennedy Center by the nations of Africa. It is located on the box tier of the Opera House, opposite the South Opera Lounge.
  • Capacity: Seated – 60 guests; Standing – 80 guests
• Terrace Gallery
  • Capacity: Seated – 160 guests; Standing – 250 guests
• Nations Gallery
  • Capacity: Seated – 500 guests; Standing – 850 guests
• Nations Gallery & JFK Gallery
  • Capacity: Standing – 1,000 guests
• North Plaza
  • Capacity: Seated (rounds) – 1,000 guests; Standing – 3,000 guests
• Roof Terrace Restaurant
• KC Café
• Explore the REACH (the Center‘s expanded campus). The REACH is a place where visitors, audiences, and artists can come together for collaboration, experimentation, and exploration in the spirit of President Kennedy’s vision for a new frontier for the arts. Many of the spaces have been named after historical and personal moments in his life as an expression of our role as his living memorial. Event rentals at the REACH offer a wide range of multi-functional spaces and state of the art technology. Seven distinctive spaces are available.
• Skylight Pavilion: A stunningly beautiful, vaulted-ceiling space with expansive views of the river. A great location for special events, receptions, or seated dinners, this space can serve as a public atrium and a great place to view the Potomac during the day. Acoustic plaster ceilings and walls, end grain wooden floor, and multiple glass skylights, offer an experience for lasting memories at the REACH.
  • Capacity: Standing – 425 guests; Rounds – 300 guests; Theater – 260 guests / 5,000 square feet 
• Justice Forum: Intimate lecture hall with capacity for film screenings, panel discussions, presentations, and small ensembles. Seats have a tablet arm for note-taking, large projector screen, and projector to provide audio visual at every location within the space. With cherry wood ceiling, acoustic crinkle natural grey concrete walls, wooden floors, the space is made to capture the presentation style setting.
  • Capacity: 144 Fixed Theater Seats / 2,033 square feet
• Room PT-109 (Board Room): A great space for meetings, small dinners, workshops, and breakouts for a conference day. The view boasts floor to ceiling windows overlooking a reflecting pool outside to the East. Frosted glass is along the entry wall into the space, and can be easily accessible from our main entrance through the Welcome Pavilion.
  • Capacity: Standing – 85 guests; Rounds – 50 guests; Theater – 85 guests; Classroom – 48 guests / 1,120 square feet
• Studio J: This multi-purpose rehearsal room is complete with ballet barres, permanent mirrors along the wall, and drapery to cover the installed mirror wall. This can be suitable for a green room, rehearsal space, meeting breakout room, or reception or dinner. With windows and natural light, shades can be drawn to limit the view into the space. Studio J is complete with a permanent Marley sprung floor, screen, projector, and audio playback system.
  • Capacity: Standing – 50 guests; Rounds – 48 guests; Theater – 50 guests; Classroom – 48 guests
  • 1,227 square feet
• Studio F: Larger than Studio J, the second multi-purpose rehearsal room is complete with ballet barres, permanent mirrors along the wall, and drapery to cover the installed mirror wall. This can be suitable for a green room, rehearsal space, meeting breakout room, or reception or dinner. With windows and natural light, shades can be drawn to limit the view into the space. Studio J is complete with a permanent Marley sprung floor, screen, projector, and audio playback system.
  • Capacity: Standing – 164 guests; Rounds – 104 guests; Theater – 164 guests; Classroom – 84 guests
  • 2,018 square feet
• Studio K: The largest multi-purpose room with a viewing balcony containing loose seating, to allow for observation. The space can be used for a variety of events, performances, rehearsals, and conference style theater or break out sessions. The space can be made dark with the use of curtains located on all four walls, including a permanent lighting, audio, and video system. The distinctive cerulean blue stained concrete ceiling, acoustic crinkle natural grey concrete walls, and dark stained wooden floor provide a space that can be transformed and used for any occasion.
  • Capacity: Standing – 350 guests; Rounds – 250 guests; Theater – 300 guests; Classroom – 144 guests
  • 3,754 square feet
• River Pavilion: With a flexible interior and exterior space, complete with a café, located along the south end of the Kennedy Center’s campus. This space offers brilliant views of the Potomac River and new pedestrian bridge across Rock Creek Parkway. A wall of windows facing both east and west offer a bright and warm space season round. To the West, the view of the Potomac River, and to the East, the view of the south Reflecting Pool and Presidential Grove of Ginkgo trees.
  • Capacity: Standing – 268 guests; Rounds – 110 guests; Theater – 148 guests
  • 2,166 square feet

Support the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts… by simply booking your next special occasion here:

https://www.kennedy-center.org/rentals/

As a SHOP: Discover unique gifts…

The Kennedy Center Gift Shops carefully source, produce and sell a curated selection of high-quality, unique products, the proceeds of which provide major financial support to the nation’s center for the performing arts. Merchandise is catalogued within these collections: The Kennedy Center Apparel * The Kennedy Center 50 Year Anniversary + Branded Products * Jacqueline Kennedy Jewelry * The Reach Collection * Kennedy * Hamilton *  Mo Willems * Kids * Feel Good Gifts * Cherry Blossom * Fall Collection, and * Holiday Gift Guide.

Support the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts… by simply purchasing your specialty merchandise here:

https://shop.kennedy-center.org/

As an EATERY: Food for thought…