No Live Earth concerts to be staged in Istanbul

Organizers said Tuesday that they have cancelled Istanbul Live Earth concert because of insufficient interest and sponsors.

Organizers will, instead, set up a large screen in Istanbul for Turks to watch the Live Earth concerts in other cities, Cengizhan Yeldan of the Purple Concerts, the company that was organizing the Istanbul show, told The Associated Press.

Purple Concerts said last week they hoped to hold a scaled down version of the concerts in Istanbul because of the few sponsorships they received. The company, however, conceded Tuesday that there was not enough time to organize that and pulled out of the concerts.

"Despite all our efforts, there is no possibility to hold a live performance due to a lack of time," the company said in a statement.

Concerts are slated for London, New York, Tokyo, Shanghai, Johannesburg, Sydney, Rio de Janeiro and Hamburg.