Typically the primo seat people show up for ladies and men’s long in my experience. That’s when the whole first 1-3 rows will be full. After seniors started there were even people in the first section above the middle (certainly not full, though)They apparently sold out but the people (or corporations?) who bought them, a lot of them didn't turn up by the number of empty seats (in the ladies and dance -? what were the others like?) This is more or less true of most competitions so far this year but the various Nats can't blame the lack of Russian stars for it.
What was the advertising like? I read elsewhere complaints that people didn't even know when competitions were on. To compete with everything else these days, advertisers have to get really creative and flog the hell out of their product. The Japanese use TV, posters in metros and malls and shops, magazines, newspaper coverage, interviews... maybe the US Fed can't drum up all of this but they could shell out for creative publicity. surely.