Watford hope next summer’s Sir Elton John concert at Vicarage Road will be close to selling out by Monday evening after 14,000 tickets were sold before going on general sale tomorrow.

More than 8,000 seats were purchased in the first two hours on Monday morning – a Watford FC record for any event.

Michael Jones, head of customer sales, said: “We anticipated having sold around 15,000 by the time we went to general sale on Friday morning so we are delighted to have nearly achieved that level.”

On Monday and Tuesday, Watford season-ticket holders were given first priority to purchase up to 20 tickets for the concert, before the rest of the ‘Watford FC database’ on Wednesday and Thursday.

Tickets go on general sale online at 8am tomorrow before phone bookings start from 9am on Monday.

Around 12,500 seats had been sold by the end of Tuesday and Jones hopes the concert will be close to a sell out by Monday night.

He said: “It is very difficult to be accurate on the number of tickets we will sell on Friday as we are appealing to a national audience now and of course Elton’s specific fan base away from Watford.

“We would like to be in a position where the concert is approaching a sell out by the close of sales on Monday evening.

“However if that is not the case we have plenty of time to roll out a wider advertising campaign to generate sales. ”

Watford’s ticket office suffered technical problems when the 2005 concert tickets went on sale but Jones has been delighted with how the club’s system has coped with demand.

He said: “It has been a fantastic week for us having experienced some problems last time around. We’ve gratefully received many emails from supporters complimenting the club on such a smooth process and the staff in the ticket office should be congratulated for all the effort they have put in over the last few weeks to make this possible.

“On the first day of sale we successfully processed over 11,000 tickets, of which 8,000 were in the first two hours, which I think endorses how well the systems have coped at such a busy time.”

To book tickets, go to www.watfordfc.com or call 0844 856 1881.