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10,000 people falsely claim to have been at Manchester attack to get free Ariana Grande tickets, sales outlet says

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June 2, 2017 at 2:21 p.m. EDT
Ariana Grande sent a message out on May 26 that she will hold a benefit concert in Manchester for the victims of the suicide bombing. (Video: Reuters)

Music fans in Britain will come together Sunday for the event “One Love Manchester,” featuring major international acts including Ariana Grande, Justin Bieber and Usher, plus many more.

The event was announced after a suicide bombing shortly after a Grande concert in Manchester last month left 22 people dead. Proceeds from the concert, which will also be broadcast around the world, will go to a fund designed to help those affected by the attack and their families.

But planning for the event has been hindered by allegations that 10,000 people have fraudulently applied for tickets.

Thousands of tickets for the concert went on sale Thursday, but organizers had also set aside a substantial amount of free tickets for those who had been at the Grande concert where the attack occurred. Later that day, Ticketmaster announced that more than 25,000 people had applied for those tickets, when only around 14,000 people are thought to have been at Grande's concert May 22.

“Sadly, over 10,000 unscrupulous applications have been made,” Ticketmaster said in a statement.

In addition to the 14,200 places set aside for attendees of the original concert, around 35,000 additional tickets had been available for sale through the Ticketmaster. These tickets are reported to have sold out in just 20 minutes. The BBC reports that some tickets have appeared for sale on eBay, where they were listed at inflated prices.

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Both eBay and Ticketmaster are working to block any reselling of the tickets, but that has slowed the process of getting tickets to genuine attendees of the first concert and has led to some frustration among fans. On Friday, Ticketmaster announced that it had processed  12,000 tickets for fans from the first concert.

“We will not stop until we have as many genuine fans at the show as possible,” the statement read.

Sunday's show is due to take place at the Emirates Old Trafford cricket ground, which houses around 50,000 people for a music event. Grande had pledged to return to Manchester to raise money and honor the victims of the attack, which the Islamic State claimed responsibility for.

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