In Year of Virtual Politics, Republican Delegates Flock to Charlotte Convention

But once they have entered the safe zone, delegates in town said they are here to experience a little slice of life as it used to be.

“I’ve been looking forward to this for months,” said Henry Barbour of Yazoo City, Miss., whose uncle is the former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour. “I want to be part of this. For those of us who are really engaged, this is a reward.”

He said that attending the convention in person was a story he planned to feast on for years to come. “My dad went to the convention in ’68 and I heard about it all my life. It’s an honor.”

The Democrats decided not to go to Milwaukee, where their convention was originally set to take place, going all virtual instead. But Mr. Barbour, who drove nine hours to Charlotte, said an in-person gathering was critical at the grass-roots level, to energize delegates across the country to re-elect Mr. Trump in November.

“There’s a lot of just hanging out,” he said. “We’ve known each other for a number of years. There’s some illegal hugging going on. We all feel very safe because we all took a test before we came and when I got to the hotel, a lovely lady stuck a cotton swab into my brain.”

The Republican National Committee doesn’t expect people to sit in their hotel rooms ordering room service once they are here and has tried to make the trip worth it for its members. It has rented out four venues for attendees to choose from for each night they are here: the Billy Graham Library; a tour of a local brewery; a night at Middle C Jazz, a live jazz venue; and an evening at TopGolf, which has a high-tech driving range.