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In its first decade, the Millennium Stage has hosted 41,000 performers from all 50 states, including 19,000 Washington area ensembles and solo artists, and more than 3,000 international artists from more than 50 countries, before audiences totaling more than 3 million visitors.
Garth Ross, director of Performing Arts for Everyone, says there are three basic audience demographics, the smallest consisting of patrons on their way to other Kennedy Center programs. The largest group consists of people from the greater Washington region coming to the Millennium Stage as a destination. The third group comprises visitors, both national and international, "who come to Washington and want to visit all the monuments," Ross says. "But if you come to the Kennedy Center and have not planned to attend a performance or purchased a ticket in advance, you end up seeing the building and seeing the bust, and you don't have a performing arts experience. . . . It's good for us to know that tourists are now able to have an arts experience as well."
Actually, not only individual tourists but Many tour bus operators now accommodate the Millennium Stage schedule, getting there a little later in the day to cap off a tour with a free show. The only downside is that every once in a while, a substantial segment of a Millennium Stage audience gets up halfway through a performance to get back on the buses.
A free Kennedy Center shuttle operates between the center and Foggy Bottom-GWU Metro station, running every 15 minutes Monday through Friday from 9:45 a.m. to midnight, Saturdays and Sundays from noon to midnight, and holidays from 4 until a half-hour after the last performance. There are free guided tours Monday through Friday from 10 to 5 and Saturdays and Sundays from 10 to 1. The 4:30 tour is the best way to cap things off with a Millennium Stage performance. Popularity and seating demand vary by performance, so if you want to see a particular show, it's always best to get there early.
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