So have you texted in yet? Well, seemingly millions of people have since details of how to win tickets for the Live 8 London concert were announced on radio stations across the UK at 8am this morning. Everyone who texts in with the right answer to the question given by participating radio stations will be entered into a draw to win one of the 150,000 tickets available.
Each person who sends in a text will be charged £1.50. As previously reported, some of the monies raised from the text lottery will go to the Princes Trust, who cancelled their own fundraising event, Party In The Park, to free up Hyde Park for the Live 8 event. The rest of the money raised will go to cover the costs of producing the event and then to other selected charities.
Artists already confirmed on the bill for the Live 8 London event include Coldplay, Keane, Sir Elton John, U2, REM and The Cure. The aim of the event isn't so much to raise money, but more to put political pressure on G8 leaders to act more proactively in the Make Poverty History campaign by axing third world debt.
Launching the event last week, organiser Bob Geldof said: "The G8 leaders have it within their power to alter history. They will only have the will to do so if millions of people show them that enough is enough."
The Live 8 London event will be one of five taking place on the same day. It is yet to be confirmed how tickets will be distributed for events in Philadelphia, Paris, Berlin and Rome.
Elsewhere in Live 8 news, Bob Geldof has defended the line-up for the London event following all that criticism about the lack of ethnic minority acts scheduled to appear. He says: "It's not a cultural event, it's political. If I have a band that sells 15 million albums I am guaranteed 15 million people minimum watching. We need to create domestic heat in each of the countries that are having the concert." Not one black or African artist is scheduled to appear, presumably, then, because only acts with sales of over 15m per album are allowed on stage. Geldof has also commented: "I would love it if the Africans themselves organised concerts."