Over forty thousand people have been disappointed trying to get tickets for an audience with Michelle Obama at London’s Royal Festival Hall.

Mrs Obama will be discussing her memoir, Becoming, with award-winning novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.

They will talk about her experiences from childhood, her work, motherhood and “her time spent at the world’s most famous address” but many on social media have said there were more than 40,000 people in the tickets queue with some people tweeted saying that they had been queuing since 4am at the venue.

The former US First Lady is appearing at the 2,900-seat venue on 3 December this year where she will also share “life lessons learned” while hoping to “inspire people to become the very best version of themselves”.Three hundred tickets have been held back to be given free to secondary school pupils in London and the UK, as well as local charities.

The former first lady says she has been ‘humbled’ by the response to her tour so far. Tickets sold fast in the US and Obama tweeted she was “truly humbled by the response to my upcoming book tour”.

Meanwhile, tickets are appearing on Viagogo for thousands of pounds, but the venue said it has asked for them to be removed.“Any tickets bought from unauthorised third parties will not be admissable”, the venue revealed.

The South Bank Centre, a multi-arts venue next to the River Thames, tweeted to say they had sold out tickets and are also in the process of identifying touted tickets. It also added that they do not have exact figures for how many tried to get tickets.The London date is in the middle of a 13 night tour starting on 13 November in the Obama’s hometown of Chicago, where she will be in conversation with Oprah Winfrey.