Anybody out there? The Democratic National Convention wasn’t “nearly empty” on its first night

Chicago’s United Center, where the Democratic National Convention’s main programming is taking place, seats 23,500 people. But some social media users have shared images of the event with most of those seats unoccupied. 

"The DNC is nearly empty," one person wrote Aug. 19 on Instagram Threads. "The difference between the RNC and DNC is apparent. All the internet and media hype was fake." 

The post was accompanied with a video of Minyon Moore, the DNC convention committee chair, and Jaime Harrison, the Democratic National Committee chair, speaking to a sparsely populated venue on the convention’s first day. 

This post was flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram.)

This video was taken at the beginning of opening night remarks, but the claim ignores that as time passed, the crowd became larger. 

Moore and Harrison gave opening remarks at about 6:30 p.m. EDT Aug. 19 to a venue at which people were still arriving. The crowd grew as the evening progressed. The Wall Street Journal reported that there were empty seats when the DNC began because protesters opposing the war in Gaza delayed buses and security screenings.

The security screening line Aug. 19 went on for blocks. It took one delegate from Ohio two and a half hours to get into the event, USA Today reported. 

Featured Fact-check

Instagram posts

stated on October 18, 2024 in an Instagram post

As part of his “charitable donations,” in 1990 Donald Trump “chartered a private plane to get Nelson Mandela to America when the U.S. government wouldn't help."

The venue appeared to be filled by the time Vice President Kamala Harris gave a surprise speech at around 9 p.m. EDT, a C-SPAN livestream shows. 

We reached out to the DNC to ask about first-night attendance numbers but did not receive a response. 

Video footage of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Joe Biden’s DNC speeches also shows a full crowd by the end of the night. 

We rate the claim that the DNC was "nearly empty" during its first day False.