Sunday, January 6, 2008

Sweet niblets! The three-month-long Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus "Best of Both Worlds" concert tour is creating quite a stir. The 69-date event lands at Verizon Center tomorrow, with a follow-up Tuesday in Baltimore.

Some tidbits from the tour:

¿ Tickets at most stops sold out within minutes. Resellers have been asking for more than $1,000 -- for tickets with a face value of $66.

¿ Can't afford those prices? A 3-D movie of the tour hits theaters Feb. 1. Tickets for that will be $15.

¿ A 6-year-old Texas girl who wrote an essay describing how her father had died in Iraq won airfare for four to Albany, New York, to attend the Jan. 9 concert. The essay, it turns out, was a lie. Said the girl's mother: "We did the essay, and that's what we did to win. We did whatever we could do to win."

¿ Meanwhile, three sisters and their mom gave away their tickets to the Jan. 3 concert in Cleveland, Ohio. The recipients: a girl with cancer and a girl who suffered serious brain injuries when a tree fell on the car she was in. Both were going to the concert with their moms.

¿ The concert tour also is helping sick kids. A dollar from every ticket sale -- an estimated $500,000 -- will be donated to the medical research and treatment center City of Hope in Duarte, California.

¿ Miley celebrated her 15th birthday Nov. 23 at a concert in Nashville, Tennessee. The show ended with a duet performance of "Ready, Set, Don't Go" with her daddy, Billy Ray Cyrus.

¿ Miley/Hannah is backed up by a seven-piece band and eight dancers. The Jonas Brothers are part of the tour through Jan. 9. They will be replaced by Aly & AJ for the Jan. 11-24 shows. Another special guest -- not yet identified -- is scheduled to play Jan. 25-31.

¿ The biggest-selling items at the concerts are a $30 Hannah Montana T-shirt and the $20 tour program.

¿ The "Hannah Montana" album has sold more than

3.2 million copies in the United States and more than 4 million worldwide. The two-disc "Hannah Montana 2: Meet Miley Cyrus" has sold more than 2 million copies in the United States and 3 million worldwide.

-- Scott Moore