Let’s see how this works out come mid-August. It’s never going to go away.

Despite orders to limit crowds, the stands remained full or nearly full for the three days of the 65th annual North Star Stampede Rodeo in Effie in northern Minnesota.

Thousands showed up to what is known as the state’s largest outdoor rodeo even though the Minnesota Department of Health and the state Attorney General’s Office imposed a spectator limit at the event.

The most recent phase of Gov. Tim Walz’s Stay Safe Minnesota Plan limits outdoor events and entertainment to 250 people who are social distanced.

The rodeo’s attendees were spurred on by a Facebook post last week from the event’s organizer.

Cimarron Pitzen, whose family has hosted the rodeo since 1955, wrote that the stampede would take place without official spectators. “If people would like to come and protest against this ridiculous Government Over Reach, feel free to do so, I will not stand in the way of peoples ‘Right to Assemble.’ ”