The Obama Presidential Center will mark its grand opening this week with a live ceremony on Thursday at John Lewis Plaza, where Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson, The Roots, Bono and The Edge from U2 are scheduled to perform. The event begins at 11 a.m. and comes two days before the center officially opens on Friday, Juneteenth.
The Obama Foundation announced the lineup on Tuesday, adding Christina Aguilera, Eddie Vedder, John Legend, Marc Anthony, Tems, Common and Marsai Martin to the bill. Valerie Jarrett said in a press release that the ceremony will be “unlike any other — filled with music, performances, and hope,” and that it will reflect “a spirit of inspiration and joy” with help from the performers.
The celebration matters because it is the first public opening moment for the Obama Presidential Center after years of construction and delays, and demand is already showing how tightly the weekend is being watched. Museum tickets are sold out for opening weekend, even though the rest of the campus is free and accessible to the general public.
That split tells the story of the opening itself: anyone can take in the campus events, but the museum portion is already spoken for. Other events throughout the weekend will include performances, art activities and gardening programs, and the ceremony will be live-streamed on the Obama Foundation’s TikTok, YouTube and Facebook accounts for those who cannot be there in person.
The opening now moves from announcement to execution. Thursday’s ceremony is the public start, Friday is the formal opening, and the unanswered question is not whether the center will draw interest, but how quickly the rest of its weekend programming fills around a museum that is already sold out.
