When Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce planned a Madison Square Garden wedding, they probably knew it would be a hot ticket — but they might not have realized it would be this hot.
The few fans who gathered outside the Manhattan venue Friday afternoon as temperatures hit 97 degrees appeared vastly outnumbered by journalists eager for an interview or a celebrity sighting. The celebrities, in turn, could be hard to spot amid the sea of police officers, who closed the streets surrounding the storied arena.
Emma Rasco, a 19-year-old with a summer internship in New York City, told Business Insider she expected to see more of her fellow Swifties. “Not sure where they are yet,” she said.
“Even if there’s not much energy, I’m here to support my gal through thick or thin, behind closed doors or out in the open,” Rasco said.
The wedding celebration between perhaps America’s biggest pop star and her Super Bowl champion fiancé started July 2 with a small gathering of about 100 people at a theater inside the venue. A ceremony with some 1,000 guests was to take place inside the arena on July 3, according to the New York Times, which cited an internal police memo. The publication said festivities are set to wrap up around 2 a.m.
Dozens of people hung around on Seventh Avenue outside the venue at around 4:30 pm, mostly waving. One shouted obscenities at black SUVs with tinted windows that crept down the street ahead of the reported 5:30 pm ceremony. The person shouting, who declined to give a name, said they were protesting billionaires.
Many others in the area wore soccer jerseys, appearing to be World Cup fans. Three matches were scheduled to take place across the US on Friday, and while none were in New York, hundreds of bars and other businesses across New York have tried to draw audiences for the games. The world soccer federation FIFA estimated that tourists would spend $7.5 billion across the US, Canada, and Mexico for the games.
Some people just appeared to be trying to get to their destinations amid the crowds and police barricades. Several muttered swear words, and none stopped for an interview.
Photos on social media also showed crowds at Penn Station, the rail hub across the street from the arena. New Jersey Transit said a disabled train on the busy Northeast Corridor would delay trips by up to 90 minutes, and said trains may roll more slowly because of the heat, which can cause power lines to sag and rails to buckle.
One fan, Cecily Hall, said she initially thought Swift and Kelce might get married at a home Swift has in Rhode Island. But at MSG, she said, “you have sports and music combined into one venue,” making it a fitting place for a singer and the Kansas City Chiefs’ tight end to tie the knot.
The New York Post reported that Stevie Nicks and Tim McGraw are expected to attend and perform. For weeks, anonymously sourced reports of elaborate sets have leaked out from inside the arena, and some trucks being unloaded were labeled “Garden Party.”
