Even High School Bands Are Reluctant To Participate
President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration is likely to draw a crowd of roughly 800,000, according to planning experts.Â
That’s well below the 1.8 million people who attended President Barack Obama’s first inauguration in 2009, which shattered the mark of 1.2 million set by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965.Â
Trump tweeted last week (above) that he wants to set an attendance record for the Jan. 20 event, but experts like Jim Bendat, who wrote a book about presidential inauguration history, say that’s highly unlikely.Â
“It’s not even close to a record,†Bendat told McClatchy DC for a story published Friday afternoon. “It’s a far cry.”Â
His estimate is based on past attendance rand data from sources including hotel and restaurant reservations and the number of expected chartered buses.
Luke Wiscombe, marketing director for an Arizona company that organizes trips for bands, told McClatchy DC that inquiries are down by at least 50 percent compared with 2009. The Presidential Inaugural Committee won’t say how many high school bands have applied, but groups that have agreed to perform are facing backlash.
A member or the Radio City Rockettes voiced her objections after the dance troupe was booked for the event, sparking a media firestorm, and a petition calling for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to cancel its performance has garnered more than 8,000 signatures in one day. The Texas State University Strutters, billed as the nation’s largest precision dance team at a four-year university, had to shut down its Twitter account Thursday night due to negative reaction over its scheduled appearance at the inauguration.
“It’s sickening and un-American to support ‘its’ inauguration in any way, shape or form,” one person wrote.