Anger over Live8 ticket sales on eBay

Winners of tickets for next month’s Live8 concert who are attempting to sell their tickets on internet auction site eBay have been branded as “obscene”.

The Hunter Foundation, who are helping organiser Bob Geldof to stage another Live8 event in Edinburgh, urged anyone selling Live8 tickets to withdraw them from sale.

Mr Geldof also called for the tickets to be removed from sale. He said: “The people who are selling these tickets on websites are miserable wretches who are capitalising on people’s misery. I am appealing to their sense of decency to stop this disgusting greed.”

The tickets for the concert, which will take place in Hyde Park on July 2, were given out in a ‘text lottery’. Entrants had to text the answer to a competition question by midnight on Sunday to be in with a chance of winning one of 66,500 pairs of tickets. Over two million entries were received for the competition and the winners were chosen at random via computer.

eBay defended the decision to sell the Live8 tickets. In a statement, eBay said that the reselling of charity tickets was not illegal under English law. The statement said: “We are allowing the sale of tickets because we believe that people can make up their own minds about what they buy and sell. eBay believes it is a fundamental right for someone to be able to sell something that is theirs whether they paid for it or won it in a competition.”

eBay said that they would be making a donation to Live8, so that they would not profit from the sale of the tickets.

The line-up for the Live8 concert in London features a number of major stars, including Madonna, Coldplay and Sir Paul McCartney. It has also been announced that Pink Floyd will be reforming for the event. It will be the first time that bassist Roger Waters will have played live with his former band mates since 1981 and it has been reported that the band will play three tracks from their hugely successful ‘Dark Side of the Moon’ album.

Four other Live8 concerts are also scheduled to take place in Berlin, Rome, Paris and Philadelphia on the same day as the London concert. Another concert, featuring Dido, Travis and Snow Patrol among others, will also take place in Edinburgh on July 6. Another text lottery opened on Monday morning, giving fans the chance to win tickets.

(KMcA/MB)