Double ticket offer for Live 8 hopefuls

One hundred music fans are being offered the chance to go to both UK Live 8 concerts this summer, described as the “hottest combined ticket in the world”.

Fifty pairs of tickets are being put up for grabs allowing the lucky winners to attend the Live 8 gigs in London and Edinburgh next month.

People texting in to the lottery draw for the Edinburgh show, which opened on Monday, will automatically be put forward for the chance to win the special combined ticket.

Comics Lenny Henry and Peter Kay have been confirmed as hosts at the Scottish event, which will see Annie Lennox, Travis, Texas, Ronan Keating, Snow Patrol and Midge Ure perform at Murrayfield Stadium on July 6.

Live 8 London is taking place in Hyde Park on July 2 and boasts a line-up including Madonna, Pink Floyd and Coldplay.

Around 75,000 hopefuls texted the hotline on its opening day and this latest offer is expected to further boost the demand.

An organiser said: “Right now you if you text in you have a one in seven chance of going to Murrayfield.

“The odds on Live 8 London are a little longer but not by much so get texting.

“This has got to be hottest ticket offer in the world.”

The Scottish concert has been dubbed Edinburgh 50,000 – The Final Push by organisers, in reference to the number of poverty-stricken people who die in Africa each day.

BBC Scotland confirmed today it had won the rights to screen the eagerly-awaited event.

It follows the announcement that the BBC will broadcast the Hyde Park concert.

Screenwriter Richard Curtis, who is supporting the Make Poverty History Campaign, said of the event: “This is the final push, pushing the leaders of the world’s richest nations towards a historic breakthrough agreement on doubling aid, trade justice for the world’s poorest nations, and the confirmation of this weekend’s milestone announcement on debt.

“Fifty thousand people are dying of extreme poverty each day, and the crowd at Murrayfield represent Edinburgh, which represents the world, asking the eight men in one room at Gleneagles to begin, at last, to make poverty history.”

The text lottery closes at midnight on Saturday.

Organisers say all the funds generated from the competition will go directly to funding the event costs, with any extra being invested into an African school-building programme co-orindated by The Hunter Foundation.

Live 8 frontman Bob Geldof earlier welcomed the decision by internet auction site eBay to withdraw the sale of tickets for the Hyde Park gig.

He earlier criticised the company for enabling people to cash in on the charity event.

More than two million text entries were sent in to the competition to win tickets for the London concert before the line closed on midnight on Sunday.