Michael Jackson: Thirteen applications per second for memorial tickets

SHOOT: I find the idea of selling tickets to a funeral a bit...inappropriate. If it is used to wipe out Michael Jackson's personal debt, fine, but seems to me the wrong people are profiting from his death.

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk More than 1.2 million people had entered the global online lottery for the 17,500 available tickets 24 hours after the website for applications opened, organisers told The Daily Telegraph. Applications are being received at a rate of around 50,000 per hour, or more than 800 per minute. The registration website, which has occasionally crashed, has received more than four million individual hits, organisers said. That contradicted an earlier statement by the Jackson family that the site had received 500 million hits in the first few hours. Officials in Los Angeles have warned devotees of the "King of Pop" who do not get tickets to stay away from the city amid fears it will be swamped. However, police are still preparing for anything up to 700,000 people turning up without tickets and trying to reach the venue. A total of 8,750 winners will each receive two tickets. They will be informed on Sunday by email how to collect them.