Tickets for the Crunchies startup awards ceremony and party, which will be held on January 18 in San Francisco, are available now for purchase. The event will be held at the Herbst Theatre at 7:30 p.m. and will be followed by a party. This event is being produced by Read/WriteWeb, Venture Beat, GigaOm and TechCrunch.

We’ve got a number of surprises that we’ll be announcing over the next couple of weeks. The first - in addition to the startup awards, Richter Scales will be singing their famous (infamous?) Here Comes Another Bubble song live at the event.

Over 45,000 votes have been cast for 100 startups in 20 award categories. Who’ll win? That will be a closely held secret until the night of the event. Voting goes through midnight pst, January 10.

Details:

• Friday, January 18, 2008 at 7:30 pm
• Herbst Theater, San Francisco
• Festive attire welcome. After-party to follow.
• Tickets are available here, hosted courtesy of amiando.

The Herbst Theater has 916 seats, so we have just 450 general admission tickets in the balcony and dress circle to release for the event. Tickets are $40, and $10 from each ticket will be contributed to the American Heart Association in honor of Om Malik and in memory of Marc Orchant. The balance of the tickets are reserved for the 100 finalist companies, press and corporate sponsors. If you are interested in orchestra seats as an event sponsor, please contact Jeannie Logozzo. Sponsorship packages range from entry-level event tickets to sponsorship of specific award categories, and all creative combinations in between.

Thank you to the sponsors of the 2007 Crunchies who are underwriting the event and making it possible to recognize outstanding contributions in our industry. Award Benefactors: Adobe, Charles River Ventures, The Mayfield Fund, Microsoft, Our Stage and Sun Microsystems. Thank you also to our Program Sponsors, including amiando our official ticketing sponsor, WeBreakStuff for design and MediaTemple for hosting.