The reaction of most people on finding an empty room is to simply leave immediately & not return.
Even if they try again they still leave immediately if no one else is there. This is the reason many people find the room empty.

It may seem to them that the room is always empty but that is not the case at all.
Each evening a large number of people are missing each other by just a few minutes & sometimes just a few seconds.

I have looked the log files of the chat room and discovered that if you find the room empty between 9:00 and 11:00 PM Eastern time, all you need to do is just wait 10 minutes and you will have a 90%+ probability that you meet someone to talk with.
Every minute you are in the room increases the likelihood that more will join & stay even longer.
There have been chats that continued all night long.

The most popular evening and time for the chat is Monday at 10:00 Eastern time because of the online Candle Ceremony. At that time there are usually 60 to 80 people in the room & there have been as many as 98.
Of course, with that many in the room it can be very difficult to follow what is being said.
Because of that, some prefer the other nights of the week as it is far less confusing with usually less than 10 people in the room at once.

So please don't give up if there is no one in the room when you first log on.
It is very likely that someone else will be logging on soon. Maybe in just a couple of minutes.