Michael Jackson tickets go on sale for the hundreds of fans who spent days camping out for them at London's O2 Arena.
Camping out in the cold and the rain, the long wait for hundreds of Michael Jackson fans finally paid off as ticket booths opened at London's O2 Arena on Friday (March 13).
A long line of Jackson supporters in tents, chairs and sleeping bags had steadily grown since Wednesday.
But many patient fans who had been playing by the rules were in for a nasty surprise when latecomers to the queue simply pushed past them as soon as the ticket barriers opened.
"Well, we've travelled 350 miles today to come here. Been here since 12 o'clock and we've ended up at the back of the queue because of the misorganisation at the Millennium Centre," said one frustrated man.
"We got woken up by people trampling over our tent while we were in it, we couldn't get out. It's really ridiculous that the O2 can't organise the queues that we can-- our tent is still over there with all of our stuff in and people are standing on it and we can't go back to get it," said another angry female fan.
At the head of the line, with the trouble far beind them, friends Ayesha Obi and Ava Zadkhorvash had camped out since Wednesday afternoon for pole position.
For them the wait was well worth it for the front row seats they secured for themselves, friends and family.
"It felt amazing. It paid off. Two nights, definitely worth it, I knew it would be," Obi told Reuters Television For them the long wait was all part of the fun.
"I had fun," said Obi.
"When you're looking forward to something you don't really suffer.
We had rain, our tent got flooded, but just because we knew that we were going to see Michael. None of that stuff matters. We're here for Michael,"
added Zadkhorvash.
It's been a long time - his last full set of live concerts was 12 years ago Concert promoter and AEG CEO Randy Phillips, who organised the concerts, said that, while nobody was denying there was money to be made, the timing of this comeback was also about Jackson's family.
"I pulled him aside and said 'Mikey, why now?' okay, and he said: 'You know what? My kids are old enough and I'm still young enough to do what I do and I want them to see me in my prime and what I do for a living. Because they've never seen me perform'," he said.
Phillips went on to say London was the perfect choice for the long-awaited return.
"London is a very unique place. Remember we brought Prince here for 21 nights, Take That's done 8 nights Britney's doing 8. It's a very very unusual city for multiple concerts and it's a real world city, it draws from all parts, and London seemed like the natural place to start this - I don't want to call it a comeback - but return," he said.
Organisers said around 500,000 tickets sold throughout the morning .
Jackson has extended his run of comeback concerts in London to 50, starting on July 8 and ending on February 24, 2010 promoters said on Friday.
When the 50-year-old announced his plan to return to the stage last week, he committed to only 10 concerts at the 20,000-capacity O2 Arena. That will now 50 concerts after the overwhelming demand with an estimated one million people - including visitors from more than 200 countries - will now able to see Jackson perform.
A technical hitch when tickets were first made available on Wednesday morning on the website www.michaeljacksonlive.com meant many people were unable to log on and make purchases.
Meanwhile hundreds of tickets have turned up on online auction sites like eBay amid criticism of the handling of the sales. Around 360,000 pre-sale tickets had already been sold for the original arena dates.
A pair of "VIP" tickets to the opening show were being offered on eBay for 16,000 pounds (22,000 USD), compared with the official face value of the tickets at between 50 and 75 pounds.
Jackson has been a virtual recluse since his acquittal on child abuse charges in a 2005 trial. He has not recorded an album of new music since 'Invincible' in 2001.
But he is still the 'King of Pop' to his legion of followers despite his sometimes bizarre behaviour and appearance in recent years. He has sold around 750 million records, won 13 Grammys and is regarded as one of the biggest pop acts of all time.
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