The Bad News is…

So we weren’t one of the lucky 17,050 who get to go downtown for the Michael Jackson memorial tomorrow.  But I’ve got this feeling that it’s not going to go down as smoothly as they thought and there will be a lot of empty seats!

First of all, they should have never opened this lottery up to anyone out side of the Los Angeles area.  Sure, there are bigger Michael Jackson fans in various parts of the world, but when the announcements were made late on Sunday, that gives these people almost no time to get from wherever they were, to Dodger Stadium on Monday where they need to pick up their tickets.

Did they think everyone would just be able to appear in Los Angeles in the blink of an eye?

Twitter was running rampant with messages like these this morning;

@Aguerrero23 I just received the lucky email that I have been chosen for MJ’s memorial! I’m in Colorado, what do I do now

@SnglMomSurvives won MJ lotto – need help finding LA kid to give my tickets to. I’m in Chicago. I don’t trust strangers on here

So if you’re a local or someone with a short trip to the LA area who was hoping to go, you can thank people like this who entered just to enter for ruining your chances.

Winning tickets started popping up on Craigslist and eBay for thousands of dollars but the market sites are taking them down about as fast as they can out of respect for the Jackson family.

Plus the strict rules are making it tough for one to sell or give up the tickets due to them making you wear a wristband and have a ticket present at the gate.

So while the outside of the Staples Center (as close as you can get) and the rest of Downtown LA is going to be a totall mess tomorrow morning with hoards of Jackson fans who can’t get in, the inside is going to be missing a bunch of people who won but had no way of making it to town.

Will they assess the situation tonight when theres a bunch of extra tickets and call on their LA entries only?  Lets hope so.

Horrible planning on those in charge!

BTW, the memorial service will be shown on 5 television networks.  ABC, NBC, CNN, MSNBC, and E!