Fans continued to register by the thousands early Saturday, hoping to be among the 8,750 people who will be randomly picked to attend the memorial service for singer Michael Jackson next week.

By 5:30 p.m. PT (9:30 p.m. ET) Friday, seven hours since the lottery's announcement, more than half a million people had registered to snag a pair of tickets to the ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles, California, according to Jackson family spokesman Ken Sunshine.

The overwhelming response prompted organizers to open up the lottery to non-U.S. residents as well, he said.

"When you grow up with Michael Jackson's music pretty much your whole life, you feel like you lost a family member and you have to go to the funeral," said Add Seymour of Atlanta, Georgia, who registered soon after the announcement Friday morning and planned to fly out if he was picked. "I got some frequent flyer miles just in case I wanted to do something wild and crazy -- and this is wild and crazy."

Yet, despite the interest surrounding the service, few details emerged by early Saturday. Organizers would only say there would not be a funeral processional to the arena, indicating Jackson's body would not be brought to the public memorial.

Ken Ehrlich, known for producing the Grammy Awards, is producing the memorial show, his company said. Kenny Ortega, who was to have co-directed Jackson's series of concerts in London, England, this summer, will direct it.

Meanwhile, speculation that anesthetic drugs might have played a role in the singer's death June 25 continued to swell Friday after a Los Angeles law enforcement source told The Associated Press that investigators found Diprivan, a powerful sedative, in Jackson's home.

Earlier in the week, a nutritionist, Cherilyn Lee, said Jackson pleaded for the drug despite being told of its harmful effects.

Sources close to Jackson told CNN on Thursday that the pop icon traveled with what amounted to a mini-clinic, complete with an IV pole and an anesthesiologist who medicated the insomniac singer, during his HIStory world tour in the mid-90s.