How to get tickets to Barack Obama's inauguration

WASHINGTON — Looking for one of the 240,000 tickets to President-elect Obama’s inauguration on Jan. 20, 2009? Want your marching band to play in the parade down Pennsylvania Avenue? Seeking a ticket to one of the many glitzy inaugural balls?

Here are some details on tickets, applications for the parade and other events:

Tickets to the inauguration ceremony are free and distributed through the newly elected and re-elected members of Congress in January 2009. Members of the public interested in attending should contact their senator or congressman to request a ticket.

Congressional offices will get the tickets about a week before the swearing-in ceremony in January; in-person pickup is required.

Be wary of any Web site or broker claiming to sell tickets. ‘‘Any Web site or ticket broker claiming that they have inaugural tickets is simply not telling the truth,’’ Howard Gantman, staff director for the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies, said in a statement on the panel’s Web site. ‘‘Tickets for the swearing-in ... are all provided through members of Congress, and the President-elect and Vice President-elect through the Presidential Inaugural Committee. We urge the public to view any offers of tickets for sale with great skepticism.’’

A number of groups automatically gets tickets, such as members of Congress, former lawmakers, Supreme Court justices, Medal of Honor winners and of course, the president-elect, vice president-elect and their families. The remaining tickets are distributed to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

Most people will have to stand through the ceremony at the Capitol, as there are just 30,000 seats.

Bands seeking to march in the parade need to apply to the Armed Forces Inaugural Committee by 5 p.m. EST on Friday, Nov. 14.

Applicants can apply either by mail or through the Web, with photographs and audio/video recordings optional. The application calls for a descriptive narrative.

The committee prefers online applications.

The Presidential Inaugural Committee, the organization representing the president-elect, will make the selection on the parade participants.

Tickets to at least one inaugural ball are already sold out. The $200-per-person tickets to the Hawaii State Society Inaugural Ball at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel are gone. The new president and the first lady typically make the rounds of the nearly dozen balls in Washington, D.C., and the Hawaiian-born Obama is certain to stop by this one.

Other balls are still in the planning stages.

On the Web:

Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies:

http://inaugural.senate.gov/index.cfm

Armed Forces Inaugural Committee: http://www.afic.northcom.mil/