Sting to headline Olympic ceremony

Sting will share the same stage with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the opening ceremony of the Salt Lake City Olympics.

The February 8 event also will feature the Dixie Chicks, country singer LeAnn Rimes, former member of The Band, Robbie Robertson, and Rita Coolidge.

Other performers will be cellist Yo-Yo Ma, the six-man a cappella group Eclipse and Utah's Deseret String Band, which played cowboy tunes at the 1998 Nagano Games.

Some of the artists already have held rehearsals with the 320-member Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the Utah Symphony,

After selling 44,000 tickets to the opening ceremony, Olympic organizers have only 450 tickets left and intend to shut down their eBay Internet auction of prime tickets on Thursday.

Salt Lake organizers were the first to sell their own Olympic tickets this way, and they raised more than $1 million selling 1,000 pairs of tickets on eBay.

Only 48 pairs of tickets remain on auction, including those for prime events such as men's gold medal hockey; the US vs. Russia game; men's freestyle aerials and some figure skating.

The highest eBay bid was $11,100 for a pair of men's figure skating tickets.