Attendance Question at NYC WCC Match

All Things Chess
1

Does anyone know if NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio attended the match a the FM Building? I can’t find any mention of his having been there. He did issue a statement earlier in the year welcoming the match to NYC.

The Armenian Press Agency put out a brief story that Kirsan had announced that de Blasio would make the first move of the match, but, IIRC, that was actually made by Woody Harrelson.
armenpress.am/eng/news/867544/ne … -game.html

2

I also wonder how many of the persons in the “VIP Area” actually paid the full admission price (which I think was around $500).

3

We’ll likely never know, but I suspect that many of them were comped tickets.