50 Concert Tickets Sold in a Few Hours
Today, starting at 7:00 a.m. London time, ticket sales for Michael’s concerts in this city began. While millions of people were unable to get tickets, all 50 of Michael Jackson’s planned concerts sold out in the very first moment.
Thousands of people queued in the outer area of the O2 Arena overnight. Many more tried their luck through phone and the internet to obtain tickets for Michael’s concert.
AEG Live, which owns the O2 Arena, reported that tickets for 10 concerts on Thursday were completely sold out within minutes after the presale. After 360,000 tickets were fully sold in an official online presale, on Friday another 500,000 tickets were made available at the box office, and those sold out within four hours. This means that nearly one million people can see the King of Pop’s performance up close in the 20,000-seat O2 Arena in London. The remaining tickets are VIP tickets, which are currently being sold online.
Website failures and the problems that occurred for online ticket buyers have led to criticism of Ticket Master among fan communities.
AEG said that the This Is It concerts may turn into a world tour, but it’s not expected that details of this tour will be revealed until next year.
Unfortunately, a black market was set up immediately for these tickets. One hundred tickets were auctioned on eBay at very high prices, even reaching as much as £1,500 per ticket. On this site, one of the VIP tickets for the concert on July 8 is priced at $35,000.
Randy Phillips, manager of AEG Live and organizer of Michael’s concerts, spoke to Michael by phone shortly after all tickets for the 50 concerts sold out and told him the news. Phillips says: "He started crying. I could hear it in his voice. His language was stuck."
Jon Bennett, editor of the entertainment section of Sky News, said: "Ticket sales have been unprecedented. But Michael has a difficult task ahead. We are in unknown territory. No stage manager has ever tried to sell tickets for so many concerts in a venue of this size. Not to mention selling all the tickets. He has a very difficult task ahead, and it’s intriguing to see whether he can successfully pull off the most important part of what is called the biggest comeback in the history of entertainment and programming."
Gennaro Castaldo, spokesperson for music retailer HMV, says that Michael has already started earning from these concerts:
"Sales of Michael Jackson’s albums are increasing significantly. If album sales are rising already, imagine what will happen in July when Michael opens his concerts."
Castaldo says that sales of King Of Pop, released last August, have quadrupled, and Thriller sales have doubled.
Source: eMJey / AP / Sky News / CNN