'Live Aid II op 2 juli in Hyde Park'

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eBay ends Live 8 ticket sale

Internet auction site eBay ended a sale of free Live 8 tickets on Tuesday after Bob Geldof, the organizer of the awareness-raising concerts, labeled the site an "electronic pimp" and urged people to swamp it.

Tickets to the star-studded London show, which aims to pressure world leaders into fighting poverty in Africa, were given away to the winners of a text lottery. But they immediately started appearing on eBay for hundreds of pounds.

Geldof criticized the site and urged people to swamp it with bogus offers of tickets or massively inflated bids.

"What I would ask you to do tonight is to get on eBay and mess up the system," he told Sky News.

"Everyone should go on and pretend they have got tickets for Live 8 ... otherwise go on and bid ridiculous amounts of money for the tickets already on the site," said the feisty Irish rocker.

His appeal did not go unheeded. Within minutes bids which had been running in the hundreds of pounds surged to 10 million pounds.

eBay, which earlier on Tuesday rejected Geldof's call to end the sale saying there was nothing illegal about it, capitulated.

"eBay has decided to not allow the resale of Live 8 tickets on the site," a spokesman told Reuters.

"We have listened to eBay's community of users and the message has been clear -- that they do not want the tickets to be sold on the site. Once we are made aware of any Live 8 tickets being resold they will be taken down," he added.

Geldof organized the July 2 concert 20 years after his Live Aid sensation which raised money to help the starving in Ethiopia.

Rather than raise money, the 2005 concert aims to raise the profile of African poverty and influence leaders of the G8 group of industrialized nations who meet in Scotland next month.

Four other concerts will be held in Paris, Rome, Berlin and Philadelphia on the same day and a sixth on July 6 in Edinburgh -- the day the two-day G8 summit starts in nearby Gleneagles.

More than 2 million text messages were sent by people hoping to get tickets in the draw.

Performers for the London concert include a reformed Pink Floyd, U2, Paul McCartney, Coldplay, Madonna and REM.

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Op woensdag 15 juni 2005 21:01 schreef matthijst het volgende:
Bob Geldof, ouwe publiciteitsgeile hippie

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Op woensdag 15 juni 2005 22:13 schreef Rebbedebje het volgende:
Ok, ik ben niet echt thuis hierin (of nogal dom ), maar kan iemand mij wat uitleggen?
Ten eerste lees ik ergens dat het gratis concerten zijn en nu lees ik weer wat over kaartjes.
Ten tweede, zijn er per stad meerder plaatsen waar concerten gehouden worden, want ik heb nu bij Parijs al Versailles, de eiffeltoren en de Tuileries gelezen.

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Bob Geldof is set to announce three more Live 8 concerts, including one to be held in Africa.
Live 8 Africa will take place in Johannesburg, while concerts will also be staged in Tokyo and Toronto.

The venues will add to a growing list of shows that includes London, Philadelphia, Paris, Rome, Berlin and Cornwall on 2 July.

They aim to highlight world poverty and will take place days before the G8 summit of world leaders at Gleneagles.

Poor nations

Geldof said he hoped former South African president Nelson Mandela - who has also campaigned for the alleviation of poverty in Africa - would head the Live 8 Africa concert.

"Mandela, if he's well enough, will bring it to the world," he said.

Geldof, who originally co-ordinated five main concerts in Europe and the US, said he decided to arrange more after the European Union agreed to double its development aid to poorer nations.

He said: "Three weeks ago Europe agreed, unbelievably, to double aid, throwing the ball back to the Yanks, the Japanese and the Canadians.

"So that forced me now to do, which I didn't want to do, a concert in Tokyo, Toronto, which we are announcing tomorrow [Friday] .

Line-up expands

"We will also announce Johannesburg tomorrow."

Geldof also said that people without tickets will be allowed into Hyde Park on the day of the show, reportedly to watch the concert with extra screens and speakers.

"I'm not supposed to talk about this but other people tell me there are arrangements to allow hundreds of thousands more into the park on the day," he said.

He added that there would not be another gig like Live 8 in anyone's lifetime.

"You have the originals, their children, their grandchildren, their great grandchildren. They will never be on a stage together again.

Opera star

Meanwhile, rockers Status Quo have said they are "desperate" to join the bill at the London gig in Hyde Park.

Status Quo famously opened the original Live Aid concert in 1985 with their hit Rockin' All Over The World.

Roxy Music have joined the bill for the Live 8 concert in Berlin.

They will join Green Day, Tracy Chapman, Brian Wilson, Chris de Burgh and Welsh opera star Katherine Jenkins at the concert at the Brandenburg Gate.