Madonna tickets sell for £300,000

She once sang about being a material girl – and at £300,000 to see her you better be winning in the material world.

Last night the staggering sum – 50 percent more than the price of the average house in England – was paid for four tickets to see Madonna in concert.

It dwarfs the £10,000 tickets which were reportedly being sold for the Led Zeppelin show in London last year.

Thrown in with the tickets are business class flights, two nights in the Ritz-Carlton and a private dance aerobics class with Gwyneth Paltrow.

It was one of seven lots at an auction to raise money for Unicef organized by Gucci at the United Nations headquarters, in New York.

At £1,000 each ticket sales for the event alone raised around £3.75m.

Madonna, 49, who was there with her daughter Lourdes, 11, said: “I don't think I've ever been so nervous in my life. It would be easier to stand in front of 80,000 people than address you here about a cause that means so much to me.'

A mystery Japanese businesswoman bought the Madonna tickets.

Guests included Katie Holmes and Tom Cruise, Gwyneth Paltrow and Coldplay's Chris Martin, Salma Hayek, American Vogue editor Anna Wintour, Jennifer Lopez, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Gwen Stefani and Orlando Bloom.

Gucci, which is owned by French retailer PPR, paid for the entire event and said all money raised will be split between Raising Malawi and UNICEF.

Madonna's interest in helping Malawi orphans is personal- she and her husband, director Guy Ritchie, are raising a young Malawian boy they hope to adopt.

But the adoption has hit several stumbling blocks since they took him from an orphanage in late 2006 when he was 13 months old.

Rights groups have accused Madonna of using her fame and wealth to circumvent the country's adoption rules, although the singer has insisted she is following the law.

Malawi's High Court is to hold a hearing this year into whether Madonna and Ritchie are suitable parents and should adopt the child.




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