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 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 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 he billed as a social-media site, but is so far 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.

Corn Palace 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 that it was around 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, leading to voting-machine company Dominion suing 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 conservative podcaster Eric Metaxas. 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 claims that Trump got 80 million votes in the 2020 presidential election, per Newsweek. The Federal Election Commission says that 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 around 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 banned him and billed the site as a “YouTube-Twitter combination.”

But it was hit by multiple delays, technical problems, and what Lindell claimed was “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 himself, 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.