The text message ticket lottery for London's LIVE 8 concert has already attracted more than 1.5 million entries from British music fans desperate to be present at the historic event which will be staged in Hyde Park on 2 July.

An estimated 150,000 tickets have been made available and people can enter the competition as many times as they like - but they will have to pay £1.50 ($2.85) every time they enter before lines close on Sunday (12JUN05).

A computer will then choose 72,500 random winners, who will each receive a pair of tickets to see Coldplay, Sir paul McCartney, U2, REM and Sir Elton John perform live at the charity extravaganza.

A spokesperson for SIR Bob Geldof's Live 8 organisation says, 'Bob's delighted. I've just told him and he said, 'It's great.'

The first £1.6 million ($3 million) raised by the text lottery will be donated to British charities The Princes Trust and Help A London Child, with the remaining profits going towards covering the costs of staging the concert. Any remaining funds will then be donated to the Band Aid Trust.