Largest Sms lottery in history

Over two million people applied by text message for the 150-thousand tickets to the July 2 concert in London's Hyde Park in what The Guinness Book of World Records said was the largest ever SMS lottery. Well, isn’t that cute? Tickets began appearing on eBay shortly after recipients learned by text that they had been successful.
The managing director of the auction site said that the company would halt the sale of London Live 8 concert tickets on its web site. More than 100 pairs of tickets had been listed by early Tuesday and some had attracted bids of up to 1,000 pound sterling (1,800 US dollars).
The three million pounds (US$5.4 million) raised by the ticket lottery will go toward the Prince's Trust, a youth charity established by Prince Charles. It will also go to Help A London Child, which campaigns to help children with mental health problems and on materials for the concert.
Live 8 agreed to donate to the Prince's Trust in return for the cancellation of Party in the Park, the Prince's Trust's annual concert in Hyde Park.

We had to create something grand, and free is pretty grand, I’d say. The funding? It’s a massive risk. In the U.K. we raised a lot of it from a text-message ticket lottery. I raised $ 5 million through an underwriting loan. We did an auction of the DVD rights. You find a way

, Bob Gedolf said to Time.
P.s. Glad to hear Bo Gedolf, Bono and Richard Curtis still have the passion for humanitarian actions. We’ll se if they’ll break the G8 barrier…
[Via Eitb24]