A total of 1.6 million people applied for tickets for Michael Jackson's memorial service in Los Angeles by Saturday's deadline, organizers said.

The vast majority will be disappointed as only 11 000 tickets are available for Tuesday's service at the Staples Center arena, along with another 6500 to watch a livefeed at another Los Angeles theater.

Concert promoters AEG, which owns the Staples Center, said in a statement it will now begin "scrubbing" of the applications to weed out those that are duplicate or made automatically by computers.

AEG plans to send emails after 11am (6pm GMT) on Sunday to the lucky few who will get the tickets, which are all free.

The company says it will randomly select 8750 registrants, who will each receive two tickets.

Organizers have urged fans to watch the service on television rather than coming in person.

Fearing a stampede of disappointed Jackson fans, Los Angeles authorities have warned that they will turn away everyone without tickets from the arena on Tuesday.

Michael Jackson, who sold 750 million albums, died on 25 June at age 50 of an apparent cardiac arrest.

AFP