Bernie Sanders speaks at KeyArena in March 2016
Bernie Sanders speaks at KeyArena in March 2016 (Photo: Andrew Villeneuve/NPI)

Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial can­di­date Bernie Sanders is head­ed back to Seat­tle for what promis­es to be one of the biggest polit­i­cal ral­lies of all time in the his­to­ry of the Pacif­ic North­west and the Unit­ed States.

Sanders will attempt to fill the Seat­tle Mariners’ home sta­di­um of Safe­co Field with tens of thou­sands of sup­port­ers for a mas­sive free ral­ly that will take place on Good Fri­day, on the eve of Wash­ing­ton State’s 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial precinct cau­cus­es. Here is the cam­paign’s guid­ance for the event:

Join Bernie Sanders for a ral­ly in Seat­tle, Washington.

Fri­day, March 25th, 2016
Safe­co Field
1250 1st Ave South
Seat­tle, WA 98134
Doors open at 4 PM

This event is free and open to the pub­lic. Tick­ets are not required, but RSVPs are strong­ly encour­aged. Admis­sion is first come, first served.

For secu­ri­ty rea­sons, please do not bring bags and lim­it what you bring to small, per­son­al items like keys and cell phones. Weapons, sharp objects, chairs, and signs or ban­ners on sticks will not be allowed through secu­ri­ty. Park­ing is avail­able at the Safe­co Field Garage and Cen­tu­ryLink Event Cen­ter Garage for a fee.

Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion: Light Rail stop is on Cen­tral Link line sta­di­um sta­tion stop. Sounder line is King Street Sta­tion stop.

You may RSVP for the Safe­co Field ral­ly here.

As the cam­paign notes, Safe­co Field is well served by tran­sit. Take advan­tage of Sound Tran­sit’s Link light rail or Sounder com­muter rail to get to this ral­ly. Or make use of a Metro or Sound Tran­sit route that serves the Inter­na­tion­al Dis­trict. (For exam­ple, the 550 con­nects Belle­vue to down­town Seat­tle using bus ramps that allow the bus­es to dri­ve direct­ly off the express­way into the Tran­sit Tunnel.)

NPI will offer live cov­er­age of the ral­ly on Fri­day evening.

Be aware that that the Secret Ser­vice and law enforce­ment have had dif­fi­cul­ty effec­tive­ly and effi­cient­ly mov­ing peo­ple through secu­ri­ty check­points at recent local events for Hillary Clin­ton and Bernie Sanders. If you want to be assured of get­ting in and get­ting a good seat, arrive ear­ly and be pre­pared to wait a while.

A few tips:

  • Dress in lay­ers so you’ll be com­fort­able no mat­ter the weather.
  • Trav­el light. Don’t bring a lot of gear. It’ll slow you down.
  • Bring a paper­back nov­el to read.
  • Go with friends so you’ll have com­pa­ny to talk to while wait­ing in line.
  • Hydrate before show­ing up to wait in line at Safeco.
  • Load up some tunes or pod­casts on your smart­phone or music play­er to lis­ten to while you’re wait­ing to get in.

If you’d rather not fight the crowds, you can fol­low along with us here on the Cas­ca­dia Advo­cate and on In Brief, as well as watch a livestream.

Also, for those on the oth­er side of the moun­tains: Bernie Sanders will be com­ing to Yaki­ma for a ral­ly on Thurs­day after­noon. Doors open at 4 PM.

Thurs­day, March 24th, 2016
Yaki­ma Val­ley Sun­Dome at State Fair Park
1301 S. Fair Park Avenue
Yaki­ma, WA 98901

You may RSVP for the Yaki­ma event here.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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10 replies on “Bernie Sanders is coming back to Seattle… and he wants you to help him fill Safeco Field”

    1. Most like­ly the speak­ing pro­gram will be at around 7 PM or so. 

      Serai, bring your med­ica­tion, and be sure to let the Secret Ser­vice know about it as you approach the secu­ri­ty check­points. Have a doc­tor’s note handy for them.

  2. Hi there,
    I want to attend the ral­ly on Fri­day, but I have a med­ical con­di­tion that requires me to car­ry to large a pack­age of 2 seringes filled with diazepam, for seizures. Am I able to bring my purse into the stadium?

    Thanks!

  3. Will Bernie speak to the Black Lives Mat­ters activists who have tried to talk with him on pre­vi­ous Seat­tle vis­its? I’d like to see their con­cerns addressed.

  5. I loved Bernie’s speech at Key Are­na on Sun­day, BUT the Secret Ser­vice did a TERRIBLE job of being staffed for the crowds. There were only (4) met­al detec­tors for 17,000 people. 

    How many met­al detec­tors and inspec­tion per­son­nel will the Secret Ser­vice have for 54,000 peo­ple? That’s absurd that I pay fed­er­al tax­es for Secret Ser­vice, but I felt that they com­plete­ly under­staff for the task at hand.

    Arrive ear­ly, wear good shoes, bring water bot­tles and snacks (that you will con­sume in line and dis­pose of before enter­ing), no lighters, no back­packs, and ide­al­ly no purs­es just a wom­an’s small wal­let and that will help. No strollers.

    Good luck! See you there!!!

  6. Will Safe­co Field be sell­ing food? 

    This is very impor­tant as peo­ple will be there a long time and get hungry.

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