Trump And Bill O'Reilly Tour Still Not The Hottest Ticket In Town

The traveling “History Tour” featuring former President Donald Trump and former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly saw yet another underwhelming crowd during its Houston leg on Saturday, The Houston Chronicle reported.

“Top sections were blocked off, and there were still plenty of seats available” at the slated start time. 

The event took place at the Toyota Center in downtown Houston.

Chronicle reporter Jeremy Wallace tweeted a photo showing a large number of empty seats.

Though the event was scheduled for 3 p.m., Trump didn’t arrive until nearly two hours later, the newspaper reported. O’Reilly explained to the audience that the former president had been delayed by the inclement weather, according to the Chronicle.

A message from a tardy Trump was posted on the Twitter account of his aide Liz Harrington, saying “airport opened, landing now.” There was no notice on airport websites that Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport or the William P. Lobby Airport were closed on Saturday.

O’Reilly, who was fired from Fox News in 2017 after being accused of sexual harassment, boasted of a “great crowd” at the Toyota Center. 

Last Saturday, Trump crowed about expected “big crowds!” in the Florida town of Sunrise, but top seating sections were blocked off in the event venues for Sunrise and the Orlando stop that followed. To fill empty spots, attendees moved to lower seats. 

Thousands of seats were unsold for the Orlando event, according to sales data tracked by the Orlando Sentinel. Only 5,406 of 8,700 tickets on sale prior to the event at the Amway Center stadium were sold, according to records at the city-owned stadium. The stadium’s total listed capacity did not include “vast swaths of the upper bowl covered with a tarp before the event started,” the newspaper reported.

The Amway Center’s listed capacity for the “end-stage setup” utilized by Trump and O’Reilly is generally between 12,500 and 17,000, according to the newspaper.