Fans swamp Web site offering tickets for Michael Jackson tribute in Austria

Ticket site swamped for Jackson tribute in Vienna

VIENNA — Fans have swamped the Web site offering tickets for next month’s global Michael Jackson tribute in Vienna.

Some 85,000 passes for the Sept. 26 event in the Austrian capital are up for grabs on www.tribute2009.com. Prices range from about $85 to more than $712.

Event promoters say the Web site crashed more than half an hour before the sale was due to start at 11 a.m. EDT after a million people had accessed it.

Jackson’s brother Jermaine is expected to name the performers in the next two weeks.

The tribute will take place at a 17th-century palace. Jermaine Jackson has said Vienna was chosen as the venue because his brother “loved castles.”

Michael Jackson died June 25 at age 50.