Fans' fury as touts sell Michael Jackson concert tickets for up to £16,000 a pair on black market

By Simon Cable for MailOnline
Updated:

Michael Jackson fans have been left fuming and out-of-pocket as touts are selling tickets for his comeback tour on the black market for up to £16,000 a pair.

Tickets for the King of Pop's gigs at the O2 Arena in London sold out in just two hours yesterday morning after they were released.

But many were snapped up by ticket touts who are selling them on sites such as eBay and Seatwave, the fan to fan ticket exchange.

Jackson

Global demand: Fans across the world crashed websites in the race to get tickets to Michael Jackson's London shows, which he announced last week

A pair of VIP tickets for Jackson's first night of his 'final tour' were on sale for £16,000 on eBay this morning. Even tickets for standard seats are available for up to £900 each.

Genuine fans were so keen to get their hands on tickets yesterday that the singer's website crashed under the pressure.

The overwhelming demand to see Jackson forced concert organisers AEG Live to announce a further 18 dates would be added to the tour.

Jackson will now play a record-breaking 37 shows at the O2 Arena, beating Prince's 21 nights in 2007.

Fans will be treated to all of Jacko's greatest hits, including a possible Jackson 5 medley.

Jacko

Coming soon: An advertisement for Jacko's 'final' shows

The setlist for his concerts includes Thriller, Billie Jean, Smooth Criminal, Man in the Mirror and Beat It.

'He's toying with the idea of doing a Jackson 5 medley as well, and he'll open with a four minute long intro to Billie Jean,' a source told the Daily Mirror.

Jacko says his London shows will be his last ever public performances.

Initially, 100,000 tickets – approximately half those available for his 10 live shows this summer – went on sale to more one million fans who had registered on the star’s website ahead of the sale at 7am.

They had all been snapped up by Jackson’s fans from across the world within 45 minutes.

After the announcement that more shows would be added, another 90,000 tickets were released.

By 9am, all the pre-sale tickets - 190,000 in total - had all been sold.

The remaining tickets will be made available to the public at 7am on Friday morning.

The huge demand for tickets had caused problems for many fans, many of whom were unable to log onto the star’s website at all.

Many who had been given special security codes after registering on the website said they did not work.

However, Chris Edmonds, managing director of Ticketmaster, who are distributing the tickets, had urged fans to ‘keep trying’.

He said: ‘We have witnessed an unprecedented level of demand for the Michael Jackson concerts at the O2. 

'Unfortunately, due to an technical issue, we were unable to facilitate all immediate ticket requests.

'Apologies to those fans who are unable to log on.

'This is a situation beyond AEG Live’s control and we immediately took steps to rectify the situation.’

Once pre-sale codes had been emailed out on Thursday, they had begun showing up on auction sites for upwards of £50 as fans scrambled to see the historic shows, which will begin on 8 July.

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