Michael Jackson fans who bought tickets for the 50 planned London shows will be given a full refund, or the chance to keep the ticket as a souvenir.

Tickets have yet to be sent out, but AEG Live, the promoters, have asked buyers to contact them to choose either a refund or to get their ticket. The company says the tickets were designed by Jackson himself.

Randy Phillips, chief executive of AEG Live, said: “The world lost a kind soul who just happened to be the greatest entertainer the world has ever known. Since he loved his fans in life, it is incumbent upon us to treat them with the same reverence and respect after his death.”

The anouncement comes as AEG released pictures of Michael Jackson rehearsing in Los Angeles for the London shows two days before his death. The rehearsal photographs, believed to be the last ever taken of the King of Pop, show an apparently healthy Jackson energetically dancing around the stage of the Staples Centre in L.A.

Seatwave and Viagogo, both ticket exchange websites, said last week that they would refund ticket holders. Although the AEG refunds are only available to fans who purchased them through authorised agents, other sellers, including eBay and PayPal, have pledged to return payments. EBay said it will return sales commission to sellers.

In March, tickets to Jackson’s ‘This Is It’ concerts at the O2 became the “hottest-selling on the planet”, according to organisers, with 750,000 fans snapping them up.

They sold at a rate of 11 per second, 657 per minute and nearly 40,000 an hour with face prices of £50 to £75. Extra tickets for the gigs were released last week.

The AEG refunds will include all ticket service charges.

It is expected that many fans will choose to keep their tickets as a memento. The tickets have been printed with a special “lenticular” process, a method for producing images with a three-dimensional effect.

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