Paul McCartney packed a large number into the same place one month earlier. An outdoor ice rink, billed as the biggest on the planet, occupies the square during the Christmas season.

These spectacles — sometimes derided as circuses — arrive often in Mexico City, and have proved popular.

It's also a prop in the local political picture, as Mayor Marcelo Ebrard and his left-wing Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) have played ringmaster promoted the "circus" as a way of winning votes among working-class and poor residents.

Ebrard cannot run for re-election, but his party and its allies are expected to retain Mexico City in a landslide in the July 1 local elections. That’s the exact opposite of other parts of Mexico, where the once long-ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) leads polls for the presidential contest scheduled for the same day.

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