Prince’s highly anticipated Piano and a Microphone tour kicked off in Melbourne last night, garnering rave reviews from numerous outlets, who are calling it a rare insight into the master musician’s personality.
However, it’s not been without its hiccups. Just hours before Prince was set to take the stage for his first of two shows last night, the pop icon was informed that his friend and former protege, singer Vanity, had passed away.
A clearly shaken-up Prince performed anyway, breaking the sad news to the crowd and dedicating several songs to Vanity, who was best known for her time as frontwoman of the band Vanity 6, who had a hit with ‘Nasty Girl’.
Whilst his 6pm show was unaffected, Pedestrian.tv reports that Prince’s 10pm show was cut short by up to 40 minutes, with fans waiting around for up to 10 minutes for an encore before being ushered out by security.
Former Channel V presenter Marty Smiley told Pedestrian that the mood of the audience quickly turned sour. “You [could] hear people yelling ‘you said it would go for two hoooooours. I want my money back!!’ ‘BULLLSHIIIIT’,” he recounted.
When reached for comment by Pedestrian, the State Theatre said the duration of Prince’s shows “depended on the performer”. They claimed yesterday’s shows went for between one hour and 15 minutes to one hour and 45 minutes each.
Whilst the reaction from the crowd was decidedly in poor form, it’s important to remember that some audience members paid upwards of $1,000 for seats to the last-minute tour and not everybody got what they thought they paid for.
As the Sydney Morning Herald reports, some Prince fans are calling foul on Ticketmaster after they were informed of a mistake that meant they were no longer getting the best seats in the house, even though they’d paid for them.
“One peeved ticket-holder paid $1,500 for two front-row tickets but was later told she would be sitting in the sixth row, to the side.”After paying huge sums for seats in the first five rows of Melbourne’s State Theatre, premium ticket-holders were told they would be sitting in rows 6-15. Angry ticket-holders promptly responded with a collective, “Uh, nah son.”
According to Fairfax, the ticket-holders were sent emails claiming a ticketing glitch produced “incorrect seating locations” in their original booking emails, shortly before promoter Dainty released more tickets for the tour.
“Due to human error, a small number of VIP package customers received email confirmations with incorrect seating details. Fewer than 100 customers were affected across four shows. Ticketmaster has rectified the issue and contacted the impacted patrons,” a Ticketmaster spokesperson told Fairfax.
One peeved ticket-holder paid $1,500 for two front-row tickets but was later told she would be sitting in the sixth row, to the side.
“It’s meant to be for my 40th,” she told Fairfax. “It’s not a small amount of money. For all of that to happen is such a nightmare. They’ve handled this so badly. It’s something I should be excited about and now I’m like, ‘Who cares?'”
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“Thank you for sending me an email six minutes after your call centre closed for the week to inform me that two VIP seats I purchased on Tuesday were incorrectly allocated,” wrote one commenter, addressing Ticketmaster.
“Now I’m relegated to undesirable seats further back, to the side of the theatre… My contract with you was for seats in row BB.” Customers aren’t all that stoked on Ticketmaster’s consolation prize of a $100 ticket voucher, either.
“It’s unfair for his real fans that have jumped on a midday straight away and have been slammed through the website and then to see this ticket re-release days later. When I saw the Facebook stuff last night I was beside myself,” wrote yet another ticket-holder.
