A fan of late pop icon Michael Jackson reacts as she attends a memorial ceremony at the Rathausbruecke bridge in Zurich, Switzerland. Photo courtesy of Wiegmann/Reuters
No surprise that over 1.6 million fans registered online for tickets to the Michael Jackson memorial throughout the two-day registration period that July 4th, Saturday, at 6 p.m. A total of 17,500 tickets are available to the general public for Tuesday’s 10 a.m. service. 11,000 will be able to attend the memorial inside the Staples Center, and 6,500 fans will be able to view it across the street at the Nokia Center, which will be seen on huge-screen TVs streaming the live event.
Los Angeles police and city officials have warned fans without tickets to stay home, since the screens outside the venues will not be used to broadcast the event. Organizers have also taken pains to stress the service is not a show, but a public remembrance of the 50-year-old pop icon, who died suddenly June 25 of a suspected cardiac arrest.
Televisions throughout the ESPN Zone in downtown Los Angeles will carry live coverage of the Michael Jackson memorial.
It’s only the second time in the franchise’s 12-year history that a non-sports event has been shown on its screens, according to TMZ.com. The first took place on September 11, 2001.
Today, 8,750 names have been drawn randomly and each will receive two tickets. Winners will be supplied with a unique code and instructions on how to pick up their tickets today at an off-site distribution center.
As previously reported, Assistant Police Chief Earl Paysinger expects anywhere from a quarter-million to 700,000 people to show up at the arena, even though a wide area around the Staples Center will be blocked off.
LA’s ESPN Zone says it’s prepared to accommodate as many of those ticketless folks as possible by showing the 10 a.m. memorial on screens throughout the restaurant.
Now that the music legend is being laid to rest, the investigation into his death heats up.
According to the Los Angeles Times, investigators are concentrating on at least five doctors who prescribed drugs to Jackson after confiscating prescription medications from his Holmby Hills mansion this week, one of which is Diprivan, (aka propofol), an anesthetic typically used in hospitals.
There has been much speculation that the drug, which is administered with an IV, and other prescriptions may have played a role in the King of Pop’s death. Sources tell the Times that some of the drugs were prescribed to Jackson’s pseudonyms, and others didn’t have prescription labels at all.
Recent photo of Michael Jackson with his friend/landlord and children.
