Tickets for a pop concert in London to mark the 10th anniversary of Princess Diana’s death sold out in minutes on Wednesday, organisers said.
The concert, organised by Diana’s sons, princes Harry and William, will take place at the renovated Wembley Stadium next July and feature acts including Elton John, Duran Duran and Pharrell Williams.
”The initial allocation of tickets has now been sold and we hope more tickets will be available at a later date,” said a spokesperson for the princes.
It was not clear how many tickets had been sold on Wednesday, but the venue capacity is expected to be about 60 000 people.
All available tickets had been snapped up within about 30 minutes of going on sale via the concert’s website. A dedicated telephone line also said the tickets were sold out.
The face value of tickets is £45 (about R620) each, but they were already attracting bids of up to £200 (about R2 750) each on the online auction site eBay.
There is speculation that John may repeat his performance of the modified version of Candle in the Wind, which he sang at Diana’s funeral in 1997. He had vowed he would never play it again unless asked by the princes.
The record went on to become the fastest-selling single of all time and the proceeds went to charity.
The concert will also include a performance by the English National Ballet and songs by Andrew Lloyd Webber in honour of the princess’ love of dancing and theatre.
As well as the concert, there will be a church memorial service for Diana, who died in a high-speed car crash in Paris on August 31 1997 along with her lover, Dodi al-Fayed (42); and their driver, Henri Paul.
Members of the royal family, including Queen Elizabeth II; princes Philip and Charles; the young princes’ stepmother, Camilla; and Princess Diana’s siblings plan to attend the memorial service.
”The service is going to include both sides of the family, our mother’s side and our father’s side — everyone getting together,” Harry said.
Spy mystery
Were United States government spies bugging Princess Diana’s telephone on the night she died? If so, which agency actually did the deed is very much a mystery.
A long-awaited British police report, due on Thursday, is expected to divulge new details surrounding the car crash that killed Diana.
British newspapers, citing leaks from the Scotland Yard inquiry, have reported that American spies monitored the phone in Diana’s Ritz Paris hotel room without the knowledge of their British counterparts. That stirred media speculation in the United States about which agency might have been the culprit.
A CBS News report cited long-circulating rumours that Diana had come to the attention of the CIA because of her high-profile activism against land mines. ”Rubbish,” a CIA spokesperson responded on Tuesday.
The National Security Agency, recently the centre of controversy because of its domestic spying programme, took the rare step of stating that it did not ”target” Diana. The agency, which specialises in electronic surveillance and code-breaking, did acknowledge in a statement that it has 39 intelligence documents on file which refer to the princess. But it added: ”She was never the communicant.”
One news report suggested the spying was conducted at the hands of the US Secret Service, a law-enforcement agency that protects the president and vice-president and investigates counterfeiting.
”They probably should have said ‘intelligence’ service,” said a Secret Service spokesperson who denied any complicity by the federal police agency.
The office of US intelligence chief John Negroponte, who oversees the 16 agencies of the US intelligence community, declined to comment, saying Diana’s death occurred long before post-September 11 reforms created Negroponte’s post in 2004. — Reuters, Sapa-AP