Donald Trump is notoriously obsessed with crowd size, but any efforts to lock down a number of inaugural attendees will be complicated by the ceremony being moved inside the Capitol building due to frigid weather.
About 250,000 ticketed spectators had been expected to descend on downtown Washington for the event, but the area they were set to watch from has been closed. Inaugurations also typically attract hundreds of thousands of people without tickets to the National Mall, but turnout this year will be jeopardised by the weather.
The presidential parade, which usually proceeds down Pennsylvania Ave from the Capitol to the White House, has been relocated to the Capital One Arena, which seats 20,000 people.
In 2017, Trump was seething after photographs showed that fewer people were on the mall to witness his first inauguration than did Barack Obama’s in 2009.
An estimated 250,000 to 600,000 attended Trump’s first inaugural, according to PolitiFact. Obama’s inaugurations brought an estimated* 1.8mn (2009) and 1mn (2013) people to the National Mall, while George W Bush’s attracted 300,000 (2001) and 400,000 (2005).
