Warped Tour sells VIP seats for charity

04/08/2008 1:00 PM, AP


The Vans Warped Tour is auctioning VIP tickets — complete with onstage seats — to benefit leukemia, cancer and AIDS research.

The 14th annual music and extreme sports festival will partner with the T.J. Martell Foundation to auction off a pair of tickets to each concert on the 46-city tour, it was announced Tuesday. The highest bidders score stage-access passes to see their favorite bands up close.

Angels & Airwaves, Cobra Starship and Gym Class Heroes are among the performers on the tour, which kicks off June 20 in Pomona, Calif., and winds down Aug. 17 in Los Angeles. Other stops include San Francisco, Phoenix, Denver, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta, Miami, Detroit and Milwaukee.

The auction begins April 21 on eBay. All proceeds will benefit research at the Mayo Clinic, the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and the Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, among other institutions.

The T.J. Martell Foundation has raised more than $40,000 from the Warped Tour ticket auction in the past four years.

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On the Net:

Warped Tour:

http://www.warpedtour.com/

The T.J. Martell Foundation:

http://www.tjmartellfoundation.org/