Dems pack 7,500 volunteers shut out of final night into convention center

Around 7,500 Obama campaign volunteers who thought they had been shut out of the final night of the Democratic National Convention are being packed into the nearby Charlotte Convention Center to watch the president’s speech on television in downtown Charlotte, N.C.

The Obama campaign ran what was touted as a “9-3-1” program in which supporters could volunteer for nine hours over three days in exchange for tickets to the president’s headlining acceptance speech on Thursday night.

But after the campaign moved the convention from the larger Bank of America Stadium to the smaller Time Warner Cable Arena because of a threat of severe weather, many of those ticket holders were shut out due to a lack of space.

The Obama campaign is now hosting 7,500 of those supporters at the convention center, about a half-mile away, and is holding watch parties around the city for those who have been shut out of the arena.

Tickets are first come, first serve and supporters can visit nc.barackobama.com to see where available watch parties are being held.

Obama also held a conference call earlier in the day Thursday with thousands of supporters who were not able to attend the speech because of the switch, saying the convention has been “unbelievable” so far but expressing “regret” that “we're not all gathering in one place.”