Donald Trump is notoriously obsessed with crowd size, but any effort to confine a certain number of inaugural ceremony attendees will be complicated by moving the ceremony inside the Capitol building due to freezing weather.
About 250,000 ticketed spectators were expected in downtown Washington for the event, but the area from which they were expected to watch was closed. Inaugurations also typically draw hundreds of thousands of ticketless people to the National Mall, but attendance this year will be compromised by weather.
The presidential parade, which usually takes place on Pennsylvania Ave from the Capitol to the White House, has been moved to the Capital One Arena, which can accommodate 20,000 people.
In 2017, Trump was in hot water after photographs showed there were fewer people on the mall to attend his first inauguration than Barack Obama’s in 2009.
According to PolitiFact, between 250,000 and 600,000 people attended Trump’s first inauguration. Obama’s inaugurations drew approximately 1.8 million* (2009) and 1 million (2013) people to the National Mall, while George W. Bush’s inaugurations attracted 300,000 (2001) and 400,000 (2005) .