More than 100,000 mourners from across the country, including President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, are expected to pack an N.F.L. stadium just outside Phoenix and an overflow arena next door on Sunday afternoon for a heavily secured memorial service for the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Though the service was not scheduled to begin until 11 a.m. Pacific time, rivers of people were already streaming toward the site in Glendale, Ariz, before dawn on Sunday, clogging roads a mile away and spilling into parking lots and neighborhood streets. Police cars and ambulances on their way to assigned locations for the event were crossing medians and driving on the wrong side of the road to bypass the gridlock.
By 5:30 a.m., thousands of people were gathered outside the stadium, some of them praying or singing hymns and devotional songs.
The memorial to celebrate Mr. Kirk and galvanize a political movement in his name is the culmination of scores of recent public vigils across the country that have drawn thousands of Mr. Kirk’s supporters, as well as scattered protests.
But nothing so far has approached the scale of what the police and organizers are expecting in Arizona, where Mr. Kirk lived with his wife and two young children, and where his conservative organizing group, Turning Point USA, is based. The speakers list includes not just the president and vice president but also the highest-profile members of Mr. Trump’s cabinet and White House staff, along with a who’s who of the Make America Great Again pantheon.
So many supporters and high-profile guests are planning to attend Mr. Kirk’s memorial that the Department of Homeland Security designated the service as a top-level security event, akin to the Super Bowl or New York Marathon.
Security concerns were heightened after law enforcement officials investigated a number of potential threats connected to Mr. Kirk or the service. There was also confusion this weekend after the authorities arrested an armed man who had entered the stadium on Friday. But Turning Point USA later said the man had been doing advance security work for one of the guests who was planning to attend the service.
Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance and Mr. Kirk’s widow, Erika, will speak. Also in attendance will be Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence.
They will be joined by Stephen Miller, a White House aide who has vowed to avenge Mr. Kirk’s death with a broad crackdown on liberal dissent, Tucker Carlson, the commentator and Trump ally who has questioned that crackdown, and Donald Trump Jr., the president’s son who brought Mr. Kirk into the family’s fold.
Scores of other elected officials, prominent conservatives and Christian musicians are also attending.
The memorial is being held at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, home to the Arizona Cardinals, which can fit more than 70,000 people. Organizers with Turning Point were expecting such a crush that they set aside a 19,000-person arena next door, where the Phoenix hockey team once played, for overflow crowds, and said they were also planning a second overflow location.
Dozens of state and federal law enforcement officers will be providing security in Glendale, and neighboring police departments have been put on alert. Attendees were warned to expect long screening lines and jammed parking lots, have been told that they will not be allowed inside with any bags, not even clear plastic ones designed for concerts with tight security rules.
“It’s all hands on deck,” said Jose Santiago, a spokesman for the Glendale Police Department, which is handling security outside the stadium. “Anyone who is available to work is working.”
Security was not nearly so strict at the Utah college event where Mr. Kirk was fatally shot on Sept. 10, touching off a frantic manhunt for the gunman and angry political recriminations.
As Mr. Kirk arrived at Utah Valley University, a gunman was able to walk onto campus with a high-powered rifle hidden in his clothing, climb to a rooftop overlooking the outdoor courtyard where Mr. Kirk spoke and then slip away in the chaos after shooting him. Mr. Kirk was 31.
Chelsia Rose Marcius contributed reporting.
Jack Healy is a Phoenix-based national correspondent for The Times who focuses on the politics and climate of the Southwest. He has worked in Iraq and Afghanistan and is a graduate of the University of Missouri’s journalism school.
Tyler Pager is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President Trump and his administration.
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