The funeral for the King of Pop, Michael Jackson, will take place at the downtown Staples Center in Los Angeles, CA on Tuesday, July 7 at 10:00am. This date and time have been confirmed by the Jackson family’s publicist. AEG Live CEO Randy Phillips has said that tickets will be free, but there is only room for 20,000 in the Staples Center. Furthermore, there are only 11,000 tickets available for fans. And if you wanted to register for tickets, there was a two day registration period. If you wanted a ticket, I hope you registered.
Registration ended Saturday. And guess what? There were over 1.6 million fans who registered for tickets during the 2-day registration process. Only 11,000 of them will get tickets to the funeral at the Staples Center. However, there will be 6,500 tickets given away for the overflow location at the Nokia Theater, which is next door to the Staples Center. I’m not sure how the math adds up here, but apparently 8,750 names will be randomly selected. Each name will be given 2 tickets to the funeral, and they will be notified via email. [Note: Of course they are using a wristband system. It’s crazy to me that in the year 2009, there is nothing more efficient and secure than a wristband system. I hope they are looking out for hackers, scalpers and thiefs.]
I’m not sure how Los Angeles is planning to brace for the amount of people that will decend upon downtown LA on Tuesday morning. The city anticipates anywhere from 250,000 to 700,000 people will show up at the Staples Center arena on Tuesday. For the fans who do not get into the arena, be aware that there will be no funeral procession through the city, and the funeral ceremony will not be broadcast on the giant screen outside the arena. If you want to watch the funeral ceremony live, your best bet is to watch it on TV at home.
Also, there will be a private ceremony for the family before the public memorial. In an interview with CNN’s Larry King, Jermaine Jackson, Michael’s brother, discussed the private memorial service on Tuesday. He also discussed the family’s desire to have other memorial services around the United States.
And here’s a post about the Michael Jackson fans who were lucky enough to get tickets to the funeral: link
Update (7-6-2009):
- Michael Jackson to be buried without his brain (mirror.co.uk)
- Tickets to Jackson memorial being sold for thousands (breitbart.com)