In selecting Boston College’s Conte Forum for his Monday morning inauguration, Mayor-elect Martin J. Walsh has placed it 6 miles from City Hall, the furthest ever, and set the stage for the second-largest inaugural in Boston history.

Walsh said he didn’t choose BC to send a message or set a precedent; he simply wanted the inauguration to be open to the thousands who worked to elect him and to other supporters, including aunts traveling from Ireland and England and possibly all of his 67 first cousins.

“It’s the first time in 20 years there’s been a new mayor inaugurated,” Walsh said in a telephone interview. “I didn’t want to have to pick and choose who could come and who couldn’t come.”