Kyle Green | The Roanoke Times

Workers set up a large stage on the Salem Stadium field in preparation for an appearance today by Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin. Organizers said they gave out many more tickets to the event than they had anticipated.

Equipment sits ready for final setup Sunday on the stage at the Salem Stadium. Organizers say they expect the stadium to be packed with people wanting to see Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin.

Democratic Party of Virginia Chairman Richard Cranwell addresses a small crowd as Roanoke City Councilwoman Gwen Mason (far left) listens during a news conference to discuss the McCain-Palin ticket's first trip to Southwest Virginia. Mason and Cranwell reminded the audience that Palin was making her first visit to Southwest Virginia just eight days before the election.

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Editor's note: An earlier version of this story noted that doors were scheduled to close at 5:30 p.m. for Gov. Palin's rally. Campaign officials note that doors will not close at 5:30. The article below has been edited to reflect the change.

The day before Sarah Palin's first appearance in Southwest Virginia brought work crews, concessionaires and logistical experts to this bright green field in Salem, which never before has hosted a presidential or a vice presidential hopeful.

About 20 Salem Civic Center employees arrived at 7 a.m. Sunday to the Salem Stadium, where they began assembling a stage and sweeping up peanut shells on the heels of a high school band festival that lasted until 10:30 the night before.

By midafternoon, white fences, a platform for photographers and lighting equipment were standing. U.S. flags lining the stadium flapped in the wind.

For the first time in its 22-year history, this stadium, host to countless football games and competitions, has been thrust into the presidential spotlight.

On Saturday, McCain-Palin campaign officials announced that they were moving today's rally for vice presidential candidate Palin to the stadium from the previously scheduled Salem Civic Center because they needed more space. The campaign has said that thousands more tickets than expected have been issued since it announced Alaska Gov. Palin's visit last week. The appearance is the first in Western Virginia by either Sen. John McCain or Palin.

With nine days until the presidential election, Salem is one of three Virginia stops today for Palin. The Republican also will make appearances in Leesburg and Fredericksburg.

In response to Palin's visits to the battleground state, Democrats on Sunday dispatched volunteers to some Virginia neighborhoods, including those in the Roanoke Valley, to promote the presidential ticket of Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Joe Biden.

In Salem at 11 a.m. Saturday, McCain-Palin campaign officials told Carey Harveycutter, director of civic facilities at the civic center, that they needed to shift Palin's rally to a larger venue. An advance team for the campaign arrived as early as Thursday to start making preparations.

McCain spokeswoman Gail Gitcho did not return calls Sunday about the number of tickets issued.

While the civic center holds as many as 7,500 people, more than 20,000 can squeeze into the adjacent stadium, Harveycutter said, though that's not all sitting room.

At the Palin event today, people who find a spot on the stadium's field will have to stand. There wasn't enough time to rent chairs for the field and cover the turf for protection, Harveycutter said. The only seating space will be in the stands, which fit about 8,000 people, he said.

"We're putting this together in three days," Harveycutter said. "It's a push."

That push involved the civic center calling the owner of Tidy Services at home Saturday to order eight portable toilets for Sunday delivery.

The venue change left the Salem Lions Club scrambling for extra food to stock the stadium's two concession stands.

Roland Wine, the club's fundraising chairman, drove to Sam's Club on Sunday. He bought 2,600 hot dogs and hot dog buns, plus candy and hot chocolate mix. The club, which runs the concession stands, usually orders food a week ahead of time, but they learned of the rally's move at noon Saturday. Sam's Club isn't their usual place for buying concession food, but they didn't have a choice, Wine said.

The rally change "creates a lot of work in a short period of time," Wine said.

Wine said he'd be back today at 7:30 a.m. to begin cooking the hot dogs.

Some local Palin supporters have been preparing for the rally since last week. Many converged on Virginia House Majority Leader Morgan Griffith's law office in Salem, where Greg Habeeb, chairman of the Salem Republican Committee, said the office gave away several hundred tickets to the rally. It also distributed several packs of bumper stickers, at 250 stickers per pack.

Habeeb called Salem a "Palin-friendly jurisdiction."

"When they said she was coming to Salem, I told them to find the biggest venue you can find," Habeeb said.

Salem has voted Republican in at least the last seven presidential elections.

Meanwhile on Sunday, Richard Cranwell, chairman of the Democratic Party of Virginia, and Gwen Mason, a Roanoke City Council member, appeared at the Democratic party's Roanoke office in downtown to remind voters that Obama and Biden have made eight visits to Southwest and Southside Virginia since June.

Palin's visit to the Roanoke Valley "is too little, too late," Mason said. "We're here to say Virginia is going blue when Nov. 4 gets here."

Cranwell said the Obama-Biden ticket understands that "there is a voice in Southwest Virginia."

Still, Habeeb said he doesn't expect everyone at the Palin rally to be from Virginia. He's heard from supporters who live in North Carolina and Tennessee who plan to drive to Salem today to see Palin.

With the election a little more than a week away, "this is as close as Palin is going to get to a lot of people," he said.

If you go: A shuttle bus to Salem Stadium will begin running at 10 a.m. at the Plaza of Roanoke-Salem at 4100 Melrose Ave. in Northwest Roanoke. Prking also is available at the stadium and at the Salem Civic Center. Gates open at 3:30 p.m. The event is to start at 6:45 p.m.