Annika said:

hmmmm.. Im sensing AEG/Ticketmaster deja vu. Have a look on viagogo, all the seats for sale are 400+ tier seats. Where are the other sections? Sell the bad seats first or force desparate fans to fork out for the 'Thriller' packages.. ?thrilling indeed....

Rorywan said:

I have checked through viagogo on several dates and have found seats in tier 1 and also on the floor - even section A. At the moment some prices are just insane and I think unwarranted especially considering there are 50 concerts now. Hopefully if people delay buying now from there the sellers will have to rethink their prices.

Swa

Ticketmaster says the whole thing sold out now

Rorywan said:

Tell it like it is Rory!!

no success today - I'm just hoping that floor tickets will be released in the future!

LightOfArt said:

I refuse to believe it

Arnotts said:

aww

LightOfArt said:

all 50 shows?? That's amazing.

I heard that some guy is already on Ebay selling his ticket for $35,000! And I bet that some fan will actually pay that much for it.

Wow their are people from all over the world ....can you belive that ...they left home got on a plane to london to buy a MJ ticket outside the 02 today ....crazy...but i'm happy for them ...

from Billboard

Five new shows have been added to Michael Jackson's London run, bringing the total to 50, according to Randy Phillips, CEO of AEG Live, promoter of the shows.

"We stopped it at 45 in the pre-sale to save shows for the public on sale, which is tomorrow," Phillips says. Jackson could do 100 shows at the O2 if he wanted, Phillips says, but he has other goals, including film and recording. "He can’t live his life in London, he has a lot of things on his agenda."

Phillips says allotments from each night of the first 45 shows also will be available to the general public, meaning those who did not pre-register for tickets. More than 90% of the tickets have been purchased from the U.K., but "the rest is France, Germany, Poland, everywhere in the world. People bought tickets from Botswana," Phillips says.

The intensity of demand has been a "shot of adrenaline" for Jackson, Phillips says. "He feels great. He feels reborn," Phillips adds. "He's been gone for 12 years, so there was trepidation there."

from SKYNEWS

Michael Jackson's comeback shows have completely sold out after fans snapped up tickets when they went on general sale.

Thousands of the star's fans queued through the night outside London's O2 Arena, with many more jamming phone lines and websites.
Organiser AEG Live confirmed the This Is It shows sold out late this morning.
Online seller Ticketmaster had already put a notice on its website saying: "All Michael Jackson O2 dates are now unfortunately sold out."
Ava Zadkhorvash and Ayesha Obi were first in the queue at the O2 and secured tickets shortly after they went on sale at 7am.
The pair, both from London, had been waiting in line since Wednesday evening to make sure they got the chance to see their idol.
First In Queue: Two Fans With Front Row Seats

Jackson originally planned to play 10 dates between July 8 and 28, but organisers extended the run to 50 shows ending on February 24, 2010.
An estimated one million people will now be able to see the so-called King of Pop perform at the 20,000-capacity venue.
Half the seats, priced between £50 and £75, had already been sold online to people who had obtained a presale code.

Shows will be Jackson's last in London
A technical glitch caused by the huge demand affected many people who tried to buy presale tickets through Ticketmaster.
"We have witnessed an unprecedented level of demand for the Michael Jackson concerts at the O2," said managing director Chris Edmonds.
Jackson, who is currently in the US rehearsing, is said to be "ecstatic" about the reaction to his comeback plans.
He has been a virtual recluse since being cleared of child abuse charges in 2005 and has not toured for 12 years.

Swa said:

Swa said:

Did they say this about Prince concerts when they first went on sale? That they had sold out? I'm still hoping this is just another marketing tool

I agree that there is no way they didn't originally plan to do more than 10- I still say- get some trip insurance

Evvy said:

No they planed 25 shows ...the other 25 is pure public demand...

Swa said:

Damn! He's making Janet look really silly right now...lol...

SoulAlive said:

Who's janet...

LondonStyle said:

Arnotts said:

i had no trouble getting thru on ticketmaster to see Prince, this morning was just horrible, i'm resigned to not going now, i'm not paying for overpriced tickets from Ebay and the like.

There's no way he'll be as good as he used to be anyway, damn, my grapes are getting sour!

Marrk said:

Hang in there mate, I very much doubt they've managed to "sell out" 1,100,000 seats (50 x 22,000) in the space of a few hours, especially since the site has been down for much of that time.

This is just marketing, just keep at it!

Marrk said:

Hold on their could be more tickets i would try the site around 11.00pm UK time keep trying around that time that's when i got Prince tickets when they said they where all sold out...

Marrk said:

Don't give up! You will hate yourself if you miss this opportunity.

Michael Jackson Sells Out 50 London Shows as Controversy Brews On Secondary Market

3/13/09, 9:12 am EST

Tickets to all 50 of Michael Jackson’s This Is It! concerts at London’s O2 Arena have completely sold out, the BBC reports. After 360,000 presale tickets sold out in record time, the remaining tickets went on sale to the general public this morning, and they didn’t last long. Hundreds of fans “queued” outside the O2 Arena this morning to wait for tickets and over a quarter million people stormed Ticketmaster.co.uk. In the end, more than a million tickets for the This Is It! run were sold. But with a ticket this high in demand, there’s going to be a huge secondary market, and that’s where the controversy begins.

As Rock Daily reported this week, the Wall Street Journal recently exposed artists who set aside their own tickets for sale on the pricier secondary market; This Is It! promoters AEG Live did just that with some of the best seats to all the MJ shows and stuck a deal making Viagogo the authorized secondary-ticket dealer for the shows. AEG CEO Randy Phillips told Billboard.biz, AEG cut a deal with Viagogo “to give fans access to premium seats and the market would set the price on only a small percentage of the house every night; and, secondly, to give fans a peer-to-peer platform where they know these tickets aren’t counterfeited.”

But then, “Viagogo did something really bad yesterday we had no idea they were doing,” Phillips said. Apparently Viagogo then took those tickets they received from AEG and started e-mailing other secondary ticket brokers, offering them packages and discounts and thus raising the price on the secondary tickets even higher. Plus, by pushing these tickets off on brokers, neither AEG or Jackson would see the additional profits from these tickets that sold in the trinary market. AEG Live filed an injunction against Viagogo to ensure that the site actually sells tickets to fans instead of brokers.

With the 50 sell-out shows official, Jackson more than doubles Prince’s previous O2-record of 21 consecutive packed arenas. “Not only are these concerts unparalleled, these records will never be broken,” Phillips told the BBC. “We knew this was show business history, but this is a cultural phenomenon.

http://www.rollingstone.c...ry-market/

This is a really interesting and good article:

Detoxing brand Jacko
Amar Singh and Robert Mendick
13.03.09

Even by Las Vegas standards, the stakes at the meeting in the MGM Grand were extraordinarily high, the bet incredibly risky. While tourists gambled dollars and cents in the slot machines next door, four of the most powerful men in show business were risking hundreds of millions, as well as their reputations, on a man whose own reputation was in tatters.

But as Michael Jackson sat before them, his youngest son Blanket at his side, the executives from AEG, the world's second largest entertainment company, knew they had got their man.

Jackson, in a sober black suit (he has been photographed in women's clothes on one shopping trip and pyjamas on another) appeared fit and well. After years dogged by child abuse scandals, near bankruptcy and an obsession with plastic surgery, he told them what they were desperate to hear: the "King of Pop" was ready to make his comeback.

Just two months after that meeting, Jackson, who has not performed live for 12 years, is at the age of 50 breaking all records. His 50 concerts at the AEG-owned O2 arena are expected to sell out within hours of the box office opening today.

Jackson-mania is gripping London, and the world, transforming the figure of fun, never to be let near children, to the biggest draw on the planet once again. He has in effect been detoxified by an American corporation that stands to make a fortune. Jackson too will earn as much as £100 million.

The Las Vegas meeting, details of which can be revealed by the Evening Standard for the first time, was crucial. Jackson had with him his mysterious aide Dr Tohme Tohme, a former Saudi Arabian orthopaedic surgeon who is his closest confidant.

His youngest son, officially Prince Michael II but referred to as Blanket in the family circle, played in the room. The last association Blanket, now six, had with a hotel was when his father dangled him from a balcony as a baby in Berlin in 2003.

The AEG delegation was headed by Philip Anschutz, its billionaire founder, and included his most senior executives: AEG's chief executive Tim Leiweke, Randy Phillips, who heads up AEG Live, the live entertainment arm of the company, and Paul Gongaware, who managed Jackson's live shows in the 90s and will do so again in London.

Gongaware, who also staged Prince's 21 nights at the O2 in 2007, is widely recognised as the middleman.

While Jackson sipped bottled water, the AEG men, in polo shirts and jeans, sized up their target. Jackson, with debts of up to $100 million, desperately needed the cash while AEG was eager to land the showbiz coup of the decade.

Anschutz, a devout Christian, was weighing up whether hiring Jackson would damage his company's reputation in the family entertainment business. The presence of Blanket helped to convince Anschutz that Jackson, despite standing trial on child molestation charges and paying $25 million in out-of-court settlements to families of boys who accused him of child abuse, was ready for a return into the spotlight.

"It was a feelgood meeting," Phillips told the Standard. "We went into why I felt London was the right place to visit. He agreed. Phil [Anschutz] is very good with people and he was like a father figure to Michael. He likes to invest in family entertainment and saw that Michael was such a great father.

"Michael talked about his ambition to write, produce, direct and star in films and Phil, who owns the largest cinema chain, said he would be able to help."

For Phillips, the Las Vegas meeting was the culmination of three years wooing Jackson out of retirement. In 2006 the brash American, formerly Rod Stewart's manager, approached Jackson's aides."I was turned down twice by his representatives. I was told he wasn't ready to go back on stage - both physically and psychologically," said Phillips.

That was hardly surprising. In 2005 Jackson had finally been acquitted of child molestation charges. Spurning AEG's offer, Jackson effectively fled to Bahrain where he was looked after by Sheikh Abdullah bin Hamad al-Khalifa, a son of the king. But the two men fell out and the sheikh sued Jackson in the High Court in London, claiming the pop star had reneged on a recording contract and owed him money.

Last November, hours before Jackson was due to give evidence in court, the case settled. The pop star, again out of pocket, his debts escalating, needed to act fast. By December, said Phillips, talks with AEG "started to get serious". The key was a call made to Anschutz by an old friend Tom Barrack Jr, a real estate billionaire who paid $23.5 million for Jackson's Neverland ranch.

Barrack told Anschutz that he and Tohme had agreed to take control of Jackson's finances. They were rescheduling his $100 million debt and the pop star was ready to meet AEG. London would be the first venue because the executives were not convinced America was ready to welcome Jackson back. Phillips couldn't believe what he was hearing.

He said: "I got a call from Dr Tohme who gave it to me straight. He said Michael was in really bad financial straits. They were focusing on his assets and big equity but he had a major cash flow problem."

He met Barrack and Tohme in Los Angeles. "They were restructuring loans and settling all the law suits. Michael had got into so much trouble because he didn't have the security blanket of managers. As sophisticated as he is, he is very trusting, almost to a fault.

"I gave them the plan I had been working on - a four-year period of him playing live, releasing new music and a whole other bunch of commercial tie-ins including a new version of Thriller in 3D that would open on Halloween."

"Phase one" Phillips told Barrack and Tohme, would be the announcement of 10 shows at the O2 in London. The deal agreed, there was only one hurdle: to get the concerts insured. Phillips approached the London-based insurance company Robertson Taylor. The complex policy was only hammered out in the past two weeks after Jackson had a rigorous medical check-up at his LA home.

Phillips said: "Michael was put through a whole battery of tests; stress, treadmill, electrocardiogram, bloodwork and he passed them all. It's a very complicated policy. Its very important he doesn't perform consecutive nights.

"He's in very good health. I'm 54, he's 50 and I would like to have his cholesterol levels. He is a magnet for some of the strangest stories. The flesh-eating disease and things like that are simply not true. I have to say when I saw him last year he looked a little frail but this time at the MGM Grand, he looked great. He's filled out a little. He's training."

Phillips now speaks to Jackson directly each day. "He calls me all the time. We spoke on Wednesday afternoon. He said: [putting on high voice] 'Randy, Randy no more shows, no more shows.'"

There are now 50 shows, stretching into January and February next year. While industry insiders remain sceptical -many are convinced Jackson will mime at least part of those gigs amid rumours he was already lip-synching on his last tour - Phillips is confident.

"My guts tell me he's gonna do it," he said. But none of us will know for sure until 8 July when Jackson takes to the stage for his first night at the O2.

Assuming, of course, that he actually turns up.

http://www.thisislondon.c...article.do

50 shows ?
With or without a stunt double ?

This is shit (yeah, it's gonna be...)

the This Is It tour has become the fastest-selling in history, with 33 seats sold each minute.

LondonStyle said:

That is JAWDROPPING. I love a comeback story.

Michael Jackson fans face huge price rises for London concert tickets
Fans who want to see Michael Jackson's final British shows face paying up to 10 times the original price despite extra dates laid on to satisfy "unprecedented" demand.

By Alastair Jamieson
Last Updated: 8:00AM GMT 12 Mar 2009

As many as 350,000 tickets were presold yesterday, prompting organisers to claim a record even before the concerts officially open for business tomorrow.
Promoters added at least 15 extra shows after the pre-sale tickets for the 10 planned dates were snapped up within minutes, leaving fans frustrated as websites crashed because of demand.
Half the tickets for the original 10 concerts at London's O2 arena were put on pre-sale through Ticketmaster at a face value of between £50 and £75.

However AEG Live, the company behind the comeback performances, has agreed a deal with online reseller Viagogo to trade thousands of 'premium ' tickets at between £170 and £700. It is feared many fans unable to secure the tickets through primary sales website Ticketmaster will end up paying the high prices for remaining tickets, which are considered premium because of their proximity to the stage.

The higher priced tickets, which also include special packages featuring VIP access costing £1,500 each, are currently available on the Viagogo website for many of the sought-after dates.
Touts were yesterday demanding up to £1,000 for tickets through online auction site eBay in a bid to cash in on demand.
Fans excited by last week's announcement of the concerts had to register their interest online and wait for a text or an email that delivered a password for the pre-sale. Millions of fans are said to have registered but only a few thousand managed to get tickets.

TicketMaster's managing director, Chris Edmonds, said the pre-sale website crash was the result of "an unprecedented level of demand".
The London concerts are highly anticipated, in light of the King of Pop's withdrawal from public life since being acquitted of child molestation charges in California in 2005. There are also doubts about his ability to sing for an extended time.

His last live performance in Britain was at the 2006 World Music Awards, when he whispered a few lines of We Are the World before leaving the stage.
The singer has also struggled to pay debts and was forced to give up the deed to Neverland, his ranch and miniature amusement park in California, last year.
Jackson has sold more 750 million albums and won 13 Grammys, but he has not staged a major tour since 1997 or released an album of new material since 2001.

http://www.telegraph.co.u...ckets.html