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Michael Jackson Funeral: Memorial Service Will Draw Record Crowds
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by Tina Kells | June 26, 2009 at 06:02 pm
20875 views | 5 Recommendations | 40 comments
A date for the Michael Jackson funeral has not yet been set but there is already speculation that his public memorial service will draw record crowds. The Jackson family will likely hold a private funeral for family and friends, but a public memorial will have to be held as well. If an official date of mourning for fans is not declared, it is certain that memorial services will be held around the world.
Sky News: Rev. Al Sharpton says Michael Jackson's family wants to hold memorials in key cities around the world.
Even the private family memorial for Michael Jackson will likely draw a huge crowd. When Princess Diana died more than a quarter of a million people lined the street to see her funeral procession pass. Other famous funerals drew similarly large crowds of mourners, including one of the first pop culture deaths, that of Michael Jackson's would-have-been-father-in-law, Elvis Presley.
Elvis Presley died on August 16, 1977. In 1977, 75,000 people lined the streets to witness Elvis Presley's funeral procession. The population of the US in 1977 was around 220,239,000 meaning. In January 2009 the population of the US was 305,529,237. If the same percentage of the US population attend Michael Jackson's funeral procession the turnout will be near 105,000.
Once the official funeral arrangements have been made and announced look for fans around the world to plan coinciding memorials in his honor. These impromptu public memorials will be in addition to the official funeral procession and the collective mourners worldwide on the day Michael Jackson is laid to rest will could top one million.
Michael Jackson's funeral is likely to be the biggest in entertainment history, drawing tens of thousands of mourners and hundreds of millions of TV viewers.
It is expected to eclipse that of Elvis Presley in 1977, at which 75,000 fans lined the streets of Memphis, and could rival Princess Diana's 12 years ago when 250,000 gathered in Hyde Park alone.
Even the funeral of silent film star Rudolph Valentino in New York in 1926 drew 40,000 fans.
Update June 29, 2009: The Jackson family has announced that they will not even begin to plan a funeral for Michael Jackson until the independent autopsy results they have requested are returned. The Jackson family suspects foul play in the death of Michael Jackson despite a state autopsy report and police investigation that declared The King of Pop's death was not deliberately caused.
Michael Jackson's father says the family is not ready yet to plan his son's funeral as they are awaiting results from the private autopsy.
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at 16:51 on July 7th, 2009
Michael Jackson you would be miss by your fans from Tobago.Miss you a lot . my favorite song came from you :Heal the World .
Good Bye MJ :From Trudy from Tobago.
at 16:59 on July 7th, 2009
i have loved micheal jackson ever since i have known him ? i am a Big fan of micheal
p.s rip meaheal
at 17:51 on July 7th, 2009
Want to watch Michael Jackson's memorial service?
YOUTUBE link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FmVdmRG82Cg (Entire) If you want to download and save it for further use, I remind you Wondershare Youtube Downloader to do so. It’s a software that can download any videos and then save these streaming videos as MP4,3GP,WMV,AVI,MOV,MPG for your iPhone, iPod, Cell Phone, ect. Download: http://www.download-streaming-video.com/youtube-downloader/#159 Other resources TV.com: http://www.tv.com/story/16248.html (Highlights) New York News: http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=news/entertainment&id=6903038 CNN:http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/showbiz/2009/07/07/dcl.ortega.jackson.cnn?iref=videosearch (Highlights) Use Wondershare Video Recorder, http://www.download-streaming-video.com/streaming-video-recorder/#159at 03:23 on July 8th, 2009
It is the last chance to say goodbye to the pop icon, Michael Jackson on the touching.
And the best way to repeat your Michael Jackson memories is to treasure up my favorite Michael Jackson DVDs , playback on your portable player
at 13:26 on July 8th, 2009
Michael you will be miss.You was definite amazing and talent boy growing up until the end of your manhood.It was sadden when people put you down and said things that no one knows true but God the person and yourself. It give me the chill just to think that people judge other and never take a look at self. God power is much greater than any man can imagine, so stop fooling yourself and look how to live, THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT. GALATIANS 5
TO THE FAMILY WE ALL WILL MISS HIM, MAY GOD COMFORT YOU, GUIDE YOU, PROTECT YOU AND KEEP YOU IN GOOD HEALTH.
at 14:52 on July 8th, 2009
In fact for ever reason and I do not claim to know why - Michael Jackson's funeral did not draw record crowds or any where near it. There were under 20K at Staples and about a 1000 outside and these are official figures. These do no match the 70,000 + who were at Elvis funeral where news reel footage shows crowd pandanonium and hysterical fans fainting.
Considering that Memphis has a population of 1/2 a nillion and Los Angles 10 million, I am not sure what to conclusion there is to make of all of this. So never mind trying to compare it to Princess Diane's. Nor do vigils round the world get close to those for Elvis. One is supprised considering all the news reporting , but there it is.
at 05:36 on July 12th, 2009
S Judah, I totally agree with you, the much anticipated huge crowds failed to materialise at all.
In the media they kept telling us that it would likely dwarf the funeral of Elvis,,well the reality is that Elvis funeral crowds dwarfed Jackson crowds by some magnitude.
Jackson fans will tell you that the crowds didn't arrive because they heeded the police warnings to stay away from the Staples centre area, but that surely can't explain the absense of ALL 980,000 fans, at best the very best police warnings might have kept perhaps 50% of the potential fans from gathering, so that still left some 500,000 fans potentially gathering.
Truth to tell though I think one of the primary reasons why you didn't see crowd numbers anywhere near Elvis's is because Elvis was a big mega star when he died, Jackson on the other hand had more or less had his day 10 years earlier.
Sure Jackson could still sell out concerts but he wasn't the mega star that he once was back in the 80's and less so in the 90's.
The media perhaps slightly out of touch with the the public pulse who no longer viewed Jackson as the hottest ticket in town.......those days had long passed by
The Press also grossly over hyped the TV auidience, saying that 1 billion would be watching, that equates to 1 in every 6 people on the entire planet!....and that was before the event started.......err how did they know?......Did they ask people whether they would be watching?
The reality is that in the US the Jackson memorial pulled in 31 million and the UK 6 million, so that equates to 1 in 10.
Now given that vast populations of the third world don't own a tv set and many third countries have little interest in pop music then, it would be generous indeed if we were to assume that Jackson's memorial pulled in 1 in ten people on this globe.
In reality the figure would more likely be 1 in 20 if that.
And in that figure how many people actually watched for the entertainment line up?
My guess is that if it was a more usual memorial with no stars performing then the memorial would have drawn substantially less viewers.
So almost in everyway Jackson funeral/memorial was on a par with a normal star's funeral, but nowhere near in the same league as mega stars like Elvis.
at 04:18 on July 13th, 2009
at 04:22 on July 13th, 2009
how much tears you left here michael.you dont know world is empty without you.you were the brightest star who used to shine in the sky but now you've gone.
almost all the singers are saying that michael's work is "uparalleled". thats your greatness michael. love you.. love you ... love you more than tommorrow
at 10:42 on July 27th, 2009
michael so sad your gone your song said think of children you did and we will miss you being here singing do tours all over the world you where the best and there will be only one person who could sing and dance like youxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxyour sincerly anniexxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx