U2 are due to play London's Live 8 concert on 2 July

Space has been made available in the park to allow in thousands of extra music fans who were unlucky in the initial text competition for tickets.

The tickets will be distributed on a first-come first-served basis at outlets in London, and cities across the UK at 1500BST on Wednesday.

The additional places will allow people to watch the event on giant screens.

TICKET OUTLETS Carling Hammersmith Apollo (London) Stargreen Tickets - Argyll Street (London) The Apollo Victoria (London) The Dominion Theatre (London) Birmingham Alexandra Theatre Bristol Hippodrome Cardiff International Arena Manchester Palace Theatre Oxford New Theatre Southampton Guildhall

Organiser Bob Geldof said: "This is going to be the biggest event in Hyde Park's history and the biggest ticketed event ever in the UK.

"The park will be filled to the brim. In other cities around the country and around the world, millions of people will be joining in to make poverty history.

"It will be one of those defining moments that come around once in a generation."

About 150,000 tickets have already been allocated for the concert, which is headlined by acts including Coldplay, Madonna, Robbie Williams and Sir Paul McCartney.

Royalties

Live 8 concerts are also happening in other venues including Paris, Rome, Philadelphia and Tokyo, and are aimed at raising awareness of global poverty.

The Live 8 concerts have been timed to coincide with the G8 summit of world leaders in Gleneagles, Scotland, and will attempt to put pressure on them to forgive African debt and increase aid budgets.

Music company EMI is providing a multi-million pound advance to Live 8 for the DVD rights to the concerts in the UK, US, Canada, France, Germany and Italy.

Mali-born singer Oumou Sangare is taking part in the concert

An EMI spokeswoman said that once sales had paid for the advance, Live 8 would pay a "very generous royalty rate" to Live 8 on the rest of the sales.

Geldof said: "I hope this will be the biggest selling DVD of all time. It deserves to be."

Meanwhile, a host of African musicians have been lined up to perform at the Johannesburg Live 8 concert on 2 July.

The show - called Standing Tall Against Poverty - will feature African stars such as Zola, Mali's Oumou Sangare and Senegal's Orchestra Baobab.

Further concerts are planned for Kenya and Ghana later in the year.

Pressure groups

Up to 40,000 people are expected to attend the show, whose organisers include the campaign group Global Call to Action against Poverty.

"The purpose of the concerts is to mobilise political consciousness around the issues of poverty and inequality in South Africa, Africa and the world," said Hassen Lorgat, South African spokesperson for the Global Call to Action.

Live 8 organisers were criticised by artists and pressure groups for ignoring African artists when the original line-up of stars was announced.

A smaller concert, Africa Calling, organised by Womad, will also be held at Cornwall's Eden Project on July 2.