Home : Michael Jackson : Jackson Ticket Odds Are Bad -- Very Bad

Jackson Ticket Odds Are Bad -- Very Bad

Posted Jul 4th 2009 7:48AM by TMZ Staff

Michael JacksonDon't book your plane tickets yet -- you're probably going to be watching the Michael Jackson memorial from home.

A spokesman for the Jackson family revealed that after only seven hours, over 500,000 people had entered the lottery for memorial tickets. Okay, time for some quick math: that means that roughly 71,500 people per hour have signed up. And if you extend that rate for the remaining 25 hours (especially since the lottery has been opened up to the entire world), you get a total number of around 2.3 million.

Only 8,750 of those people will get tickets to the memorial (two tickets per person), and some of those people will get only get passes to the "satellite event" in the Nokia Theatre across the street-- like watching it on TV but in a pressure cooker with thousands of other people.

The bottom line: a 0.4% chance of getting a ticket. The good news? You're still more likely to get a ticket than get struck by lightning.

Tags: lottery, memorial, michael jackson, MichaelJackson, staples center, StaplesCenter

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16. I think they did this to get people's personal information to spam/solicit.

Posted at 12:46PM on Jul 4th 2009 by Big Orange

17. This would have gone a whole lot better had the memorial been at the coliseum.

Posted at 3:23PM on Jul 5th 2009 by Sanford B.

18. Welll....someone has to get tickets.....GOOD LUCK!

Posted at 12:44PM on Jul 4th 2009 by terrierlady

19. If people from outside the US get the tickets, they are going to be extremely hard pressed to make it to the memorial. Great idea, lousy execution.

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Posted at 12:42PM on Jul 4th 2009 by BigD

20.
WHAT ARE THOSE FANS WANTING TO SEE???? The Staples arena is alway there. Probably more cops and traffic than usual.

MJ won't be there

This is a Memorial Service, not a rock concert, are they all that dumb, that they really don't know the difference?????

Speaks to the lack of intelligence of his fans then

Posted at 12:44PM on Jul 4th 2009 by whiner

21. I agree, #19. I signed up yesterday and got the first spam this morning that I ever got on the e-mail address I used. I canceled that e-mail account and set up another one.

Posted at 12:52PM on Jul 4th 2009 by David L.

22. If they take my suggestion, I'd like to buy his bones.

Posted at 12:56PM on Jul 4th 2009 by David L.

23. Ticket "winners" notifiied Sunday afternoon need to be in downtown LA by early Tues morning, and actually in LA area on Monday to get tickets & wristbands. What happens to unclaimed "winners" allotment that can't get to LA in time? Why they have such long time to register & open to people so far from LA is odd. Chances are with random drawing many winners could be unavailable to attend. Registration requires name, email address, birthdate and zip code which can easily be matched with ID of person picking up tickets so that helps prevent reselling. Makes sense also to not have anything to see outside venue and roadblocks around area. Seems likely few would hang out there and miss the live show on TV & Internet.

Posted at 1:05PM on Jul 4th 2009 by Ms M

24. David L what are you going to do with his bones? As skinny as he was, they probably would splinter like chicken bones if you gave them to your dog.

Posted at 1:09PM on Jul 4th 2009 by kingquad

25. david L give it up you 15 seconds of fame aree up. You got spaerm in the mail.

Posted at 1:13PM on Jul 4th 2009 by hamilTonyan

26.
I hope people are signing up more than once. If you read the rules, any duplication of name or e-mail address will be an automatic disqualification when the drawing starts. That should eliminate thousands of fools

Posted at 1:17PM on Jul 4th 2009 by rose

27. wowwwwwwww...I wanna win this lottery...I'm going from Brazil directly to Michael's funeral....whos bad?

Posted at 1:21PM on Jul 4th 2009 by Andrew

28. Fixed...that's one's a bitch.

Posted at 1:22PM on Jul 4th 2009 by And STATISTICALLY, It Looks Even Worse

29. They should have offered these tickets to the members of his fan club first. I'm not one of them but I think that would have been the best thing?

Posted at 1:23PM on Jul 4th 2009 by shay

30. Lottery? 17,500? Are you serious? i thought the memorial was to be open to the public? What are they going to do with the other 2 million people that show up!! Are they allowing a walk by like Elvis or the Pope? It will be televised around the world, won't it? Do they realize the fan base? Michael Jackson has been in the business for 42 years, and a large amount of people grew up with him, to some he is a extension of family. His fan base includes 3rd generation baby boomers. He's even more popular overseas. Are they going to turn away the fan that flew in from Japan, or Sweden? And this is just for the memorial. If there is a proper funeral, they will have to shut down 101, 405, and parts of 5. Possibly divert LAX traffic to Ontario's Airport!

Posted at 1:42PM on Jul 4th 2009 by Marie

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