President Donald Trump hosted a rally in Lexington, Kentucky on Monday night, November 4 for his 2020 campaign. The venue, which holds about 20,500, was packed, but the upper deck had some empty sections. This time it appears the overflow space wasn’t needed according to local reports, but the rally still had a significant turnout at a venue that was twice the size as the one on November 1. Read on to learn more and see crowd photos and videos from the November 5 rally.
Thousands Attended the Packed Venue, But the Overflow Space Wasn’t Needed This Time
Getty
The Rupp Arena’s capacity is 20,500. It used to hold closer to 24,000 but a story by WKYT in 2018 noted that the capacity was decreasing by 3,000 to 20,500 because of new, larger seats that were installed.
As a point of comparison, Trump’s Mississippi rally on November 1 was completely packed and a lot of overflow space was needed. But that venue, BancorpSouth Arena, held 10,000 as compared to the 20,500 at Rupp Arena.
According to reports and photos from people at the Kentucky event, the 20,500-seat venue was packed, but portions of the upper deck had quite a few empty seats. The outside overflow area only had about 50 people in it. The photo below was taken while Trump was peaking and shows a significant number of empty seats in the upper venue. Other parts of the upper venue were packed.
GettyPresident Donald Trump speaks during a campaign rally at the Rupp Arena.
Some photos of the Kentucky rally showed that there were quite a few empty seats near the upper deck of the arena. An important question regarding these photos is what time they were taken during the rally. The rally officially started at 6 p.m. Central, but quite a few people were speaking even 90 minutes before that official start time and long before Trump’s scheduled start time.
Philip Bailey on Twitter, whose bio describes himself as a writer, noted that one upper deck was mostly empty until Trump arrived. But the venue was packed overall, he said.
Some videos do show a large crowd in the venue. Here is one video from two hours before Trump arrived.
The wave at the Lexington Trump Rally! Warming up the crowd 2 hours before Trump speaks.
And these videos also show a large, although not completely packed, crowd.
Lexington, Kentucky loves President @realDonaldTrump‼️
This next video also shows some empty seats. It’s not clear who took the original video or at what point it was taken during the rally.
Here is the shot in question showing the empty seats in part of the upper deck:
People who were there say the arena was packed about an hour before Trump arrived.
A photo shared by Chris Sheridan of Al Jazeera English indicated that the overflow area was not needed for the rally this time. Earlier he had tweeted that he believed with so many people in line, the Rupp Arena would be filled. He later showed a picture of the empty overflow area, which wasn’t needed for this rally, and said the photo was taken right around the time that Trump was about to speak.
Nope. Not much of a crowd at all outside. Trump is about to speak. This was supposed to be for people who couldn’t get in. #TrumpRallyLexington
He later said that by the time Trump started speaking, there were about 30 to 50 people outside the arena in the overflow area.
So in summary, the 20,500-person arena was mostly full except for some empty sections in the upper deck, but the overflow area only had about 30 to 50 people in it during the rally. This arena has about twice the capacity as Trump’s rally on November 1.
The photo below, shared by the Lexington Herald-Leader, also shows that there were quite a few empty seats in part of the upper deck while Trump was speaking. The photo is the upper right photo in the tweet below, taken while Trump was on stage.
Trump is bringing Kentucky politicians and candidates up to the stage at his rally at Rupp Arena.
Some People Lined Up More than 24 Hours Early
Trump was there in support of Gov. Matt Bevin, even though it wasn’t technically listed as a campaign event for him, Lex18 reported. Supporters started lining up 24 hours early.
Here’s a video of the line outside the rally.
There were a lot of special guests speaking during tonight’s rally. These included Attorney General candidate Daniel Cameron, who promised he would never let Kentucky be a sanctuary state.
Rand Paul also spoke, saying that Congress needed the courage to defend Trump.
Trump’s speech was long, as usual, clocking in at about 1 hour and 15 minutes. He ended his speech by telling the attendees that the “best is yet to come.”
Trump has another rally coming up this week, so it seems he’s increasing his rally schedule this month.
On Wednesday, November 6, Trump will be hosting a rally in Monroe, Louisiana that starts at 7 p.m. Central (8 p.m Eastern.) That rally will be held at the Monroe Civic Center and you can get tickets here.
Remember that tickets don’t guarantee seats, they just allow you to have a seat in the rally if you arrive early enough. Seats are given on a first-come, first-served basis.
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