Tickets for the Queen’s 90th birthday event sell out within hours

The 25,000 places were up for grabs from 9am, but the organiser’s website HMQ90.co.uk showed seats for all four nights had been snapped up within five hours.

The Queen’s 90th Birthday Celebration is taking place from May 12-15 2016 in Home Park, Windsor Castle, and the theatrical spectacular will feature 900 horses and 1,500 participants including musicians, dancers and choirs, as well as famous actors and artists.

Tickets were priced from £55 to £165 for a seat on Thursday May 12, Friday 13 or Saturday 14, and £75 to £195 on Sunday May 15.

The most expensive seats are situated next to the Royal Enclosure and include access to a hospitality suite.

Members of the Royal Family will attend the show each night, and the Queen will go to the last performance on the evening of Sunday May 15, which will be broadcast live on ITV.

The Sunday night show – the one the Queen is attending – was the first to sell out.

A spokeswoman for HMQ90 said: “They were selling very, very quickly. By 9.30am, 4,000 tickets had already been sold.”

Members of the public who were unable to buy tickets will be able to enter a free ballot early next year for a place at a special pre-performance party on the final night on The Long Walk – which leads up to Windsor Castle.

Some 5,000 free tickets will be available which will allow guests to see celebrities arriving on the red carpet and to watch the final performance on giant screens with the castle in the backdrop.

Details of how to apply will be announced in the new year.

Singer Katherine Jenkins will be among those performing at the event, which will also feature the Oman Royal Cavalry, Chilean Huasos, New Zealand Army Band, Royal Canadian Mounted

Police, Azerbaijan Cossack Riders, State Carriages from the Royal Mews, South Australian Police Band, the King’s Troop Royal Horse Artillery, the Fijian Army Dancers and Band, 100 Military and Commonwealth Pipers and the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment.

The Queen turns 90 on April 21.

National commemorations will centre on her official birthday weekend in June with a mass street party in The Mall, a service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s Cathedral and the traditional Trooping the Colour ceremony.