Some Mike Lindell fans reportedly stood in line for 7 hours to watch his rally at the Corn Palace - but when the event started, the venue was half empty

  • Mike Lindell held a rally in South Dakota on Monday to speak about his voter-fraud website, Frank.

  • The Dickinson Press reported that guests stood in line for hours - but the venue was only half full.

  • Ben Carson and Eric Metaxas spoke at the event, while Joe Piscopo performed a music set.

  • See more stories on Insider's business page.

Supporters of MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell were said to have stood in line for hours to attend his rally in South Dakota on Monday - but the Corn Palace venue was only half full for the event.

Lindell held the rally to launch Frank, the website that he billed as a social-media site but that so far has been a one-way platform for him to spread baseless allegations of voter fraud.

Photos shared on Twitter show lines snaking around the Corn Palace in Mitchell. The Dickinson Press reported that some people stood in line for up to seven hours for the free event, which let people in on a first-come, first-served basis.

-SDPB News (@SDPBNews) May 10, 2021

Some guests said they came from neighboring states, including Minnesota and Nebraska, while others came from as far away as Texas, the publication reported.

The Corn Palace's director, Doug Greenway, told Insider's Kevin Shalvey that he had fielded calls from dozens of people interested in attending the event.

The venue fits about 3,000 people, and photos on Twitter suggest it was about half full for the event.

-Clint Greenway (@ClintGreenway) May 10, 2021

-Zachary Petrizzo (@ZTPetrizzo) May 11, 2021

Lindell, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, has repeatedly pushed disproven voter-fraud conspiracy theories about the presidential election, prompting the voting-machine company Dominion to sue him for $1.3 billion.

Some attendees at Monday's event brought along Trump merchandise, including hats and flags. Salon.com's Zachary Petrizzo reported that a group of far-right Proud Boy members attended, citing a source at the event.

-Erin Bormett (@EEBormett) May 11, 2021

The event featured talks from Ben Carson, Trump's secretary of housing and urban development, who joined on video call, and the conservative podcaster Eric Metaxas. The comedian Joe Piscopo of "Saturday Night Live" fame performed a music set, which included the national anthem.

This was followed by a 90-minute speech from Lindell, who spread voter-fraud theories including an inflated estimate of Trump's vote total in the 2020 presidential election, per Newsweek. The Federal Election Commission says Trump got just over 72 million votes.

Read more: The MyPillow guy says God helped him beat a crack addiction to build a multimillion-dollar empire. Now his religious devotion to Trump threatens to bring it all crashing down.

Attendees received a free copy of both Lindell's autobiography and his self-made film "Absolute Proof," which alleges fraud in the 2020 election.

Mitchell has a population of about 15,000, but Lindell said he chose the location partially because of the South Dakota GOP governor's resistance to COVID-19 lockdown measures.

His Corn Palace rally was sandwiched between a Dakota Wesleyan University graduation ceremony and an event by the American Corn Hole Association.

Frank failed to fully launch

Lindell announced plans to launch his own social-media site in March after Twitter barred him. He billed the site as a "YouTube-Twitter combination."

But it was hit by multiple delays, technical problems, and what Lindell described as "the biggest attack ever" before Frank ultimately launched as a one-way channel in April.

The site features videos and articles, many written by Lindell, that largely focus on voter-fraud conspiracy theories. Some also spread misinformation about the coronavirus, with one article calling vaccines "a deadly depopulation bioweapon."

Lindell regularly livestreams from the site, hosting other right-wing personalities.

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