Tickets to see Tim Peake awarded Freedom of Chichester sell out - in just 11 minutes

The tickets to the Chichester Festival Theatre event were available on the CFT’s website at 10am – but were gone within minutes as scores of people tried to grab some.

Lucinda Morrison from the CFT said: ‘It took about 11 minutes for them to sell out.

‘We are really sorry to have people disappointed but there was just an overwhelming demand.

‘We had a queuing system and there were over 1,000 queuing before 10am.

‘Obviously any returns will be made available online.’

Major Peake will be at the festival theatre on Sunday, February 25, where he will be honoured with the Freedom of the City of Chichester by mayor Peter Evans.

The European Space Agency astronaut, from Chichester, will also give a presentation on the Principia Mission aboard the International Space Station.

He will take questions from school children in the audience, who will then have then chance to meet and greet him in the foyer.

Major Peake is the first British ESA astronaut and during his space mission from December 2015 to June 2016 completed a space walk and ran a marathon inside the space station.