People are registering for Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally to not attend - here’s why the prank won’t work

Opponents of Donald Trump are attempting to troll the former president by registering to attend his rally in New York City with no intention of showing up, in the hopes the former president shows up to an empty arena – but it likely won’t work.

Earlier this month, Trump announced he would hold a rally at Madison Square Garden, in the heart of Manhattan on October 27– likely to appeal to the minority of supporters he has in the Democrat stronghold state.

Since then, prominent Democrats like George Conway and Rick Wilson have encouraged people to register, for free, to attend the rally in a prank that mimics a moment from 2020 when thousands of K-pop fans and TikTokers signed up for a Trump rally in Oklahoma but didn’t attend.

Across the social media platform, people have shared screenshots of an automated text message confirming they’ve registered to attend – but have no intention of actually doing so.

“Got my tickets reserved, but I think I’m going to be sick that day,” one person wrote.

But the tactic probably won’t work because the event is not properly ticketed, rather it’s first come first serve.

The number of people who may freely register for the MSG rally is seemingly endless with the automated text message indicating it will “act as your ticket” for the event. But it does not assign the attendee a seat.

“All tickets are subject to first come first serve basis,” Trump’s event description says. 

It is unclear how rally organizers will determine the number of people who attend. The Independent has asked Madison Square Garden for more information on how the event attendance will be organized.

The capacity for the popular Manhattan events venue is 19,500. Trump’s average rally attendance in the last year is around 5,000, according to the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation.

The size of Trump’s rallies is a point of contention for the Republican presidential nominee, who vehemently assures the public that hundreds of thousands of people attend and disputes claims that there are often empty seats. 

Trump has exaggerated the number of people at his rallies and accused the media of lying to spite him.

He is so adamant about it that he took the bait when Vice President Kamala Harris teased him about it during the second presidential debate. 

But even if nobody attended Trump’s New York City rally, the former president would likely still go on stage and give his familiar speech. Trump has held televised press conferences for small groups of people and still spoke for at least 40 minutes.