OK how xactley does the club work? do u have 2 pay a 100.00 every yr or what? U also have 2 pay 4 celly tix right? Me I think that should come with u being a member u know but anyway. Is it worth it joining or not? So maybe u members can help me out here a little bit.

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[This message was edited Tue Jan 14 15:45:04 PST 2003 by katt]

Hey Tangey!

It most certainley is worth it!

I joined to get the CD's / Downloads etc like the others, but I also knew I would have to pay for the concert tix etc. BOY WERE THEY WORTH IT!!


At the London concerts I had probably, no definately, one of the best times in my life. I was feet away from Prince, I heard probably the best concerts that I have ever seen him do and on top of this I saw 3 soundchecks and went to 2 aftershow parties! I met some fantastic people who I didn't know before the first night of the concert, Alex, Sam, Gavin and Thomas et al who made my 3 days all the more special. The people you will meet are great - all nationalities, ages and from all backgrounds all in the same place enjoying the same thing.

I spent a fortune that I didn't have on those 3 days but it was worth EVERY penny and then some. An experience like that cannot be quantified with a monetary value.

The people who criticise the club don't understand or see these benefits and to be honest they piss me off - all they look at is what they get in their hands and personally I don't think that that is what the club is all about.

The stuff I have told you here is what the whinging members won't tell you! (Hi all! )

You never know what you might miss out on so it is worth the money and I would go for it if I were you - what's $100 over a year? - 27 cents per day. If you stop eating some of those Hershey Bars you guys eat then you can afford it. If you don't like it, don't join again.

Sorry it's a bit long, but I hope this helps you out!

And as a final message to all the moaners:

It's a difficult question to answer. Ultimately, only you will be able to judge whether it's worth joining or not.
The people who enjoyed NPGMC 2002 will tell you that it's definitely worth joining.
The people who thought that NPGMC 2002 was a rip-off will tell you to avoid the club like the plague.
High319 clearly enjoyed the club (but unfortunately, shows no respect for those that didn't).
Personally, I didn't think that it was worth the money (I've explained elsewhere, and on many occasions why I wasn't happy with the club).
My advice to anybody (me included) would be to wait for a while and see what the reaction to Year 3 (If there is one) is. If you then feel that you're missing out as a non-member, then join. Although the Org can be controversial, it's a good way to judge customer satisfaction with regards to the Club. For every post that says the Club sucks, there'll be one that says the Club rules, but you'll be able to make your own mind up reading members' responses. This year, it seems to be that those who went to the Celebration/concerts/aftershows were happy, and those who couldn't make it for one reason or another weren't so happy. The previous year, it seemed to be between those with good internet connections who managed to get the downloads quickly, and those who had to give up due to slow downloads. As for Year 3..?

Let's hope that Year 3 is somewhere approaching 100% successful.

No offence intended Haystack - just having some fun

I had a terrible internet connection in the first year :disbelief:and I did have a bit of a bad time - I missed virtually all of the downloads because every time I tried to download them my connection to the server would be reset halfway through. I would leave the computer downloading all night for the sake of 2 songs for example (partly the fault of an awful computer) - so from that point of view I see where you are coming from.

Year one = no concerts = crappy downloads therefore not as happy, but did get free cd.

Year two = concerts, aftershows, soundchecks = 5 free cd's = better computer and therefore better downloads. :wOOt:

Sure there have been problems and it did get frustrating sometimes but hey, 27cents per day?

Year two was much better than year one, so hopefully year three will be better still:deal:

If you wait you may miss out, but as Haystack says, it's your choice - just don't get caught sleeping is my advice

Tangey said:

The way year two worked, you pay 100 bucks and at some point during the year they will mail you out 4 CDs. A majority of this music will be on store shelves by the end of that year.

The concert "perks" consist of allowing you to purchase tickets to the show a couple days before the general public. Tickets run about $125 each, so you and a friend would come to $250. And this is provided the NPGMC site is actually working properly when you try to purchase them (people have had numerous problems with the site freezing up or not working when tickets go on sale). Also, it is provided that you do actually get an email from NPGMC in time to participate in this presale, as quite often their emails don't reach everyone at the same time or on time at all. Also, if you arrive at the concert early enough, you can participate in the rehersal. You sit down with other NPGMC members and watch Prince rehearse before the show. He'll walk over to the edge of the stage, stare at you, and go into some religious discussion, then roll through a couple numbers. These were actually quite fun.

So now with the membership and two concert tickets, you're up to $350. Lets move on...

The Celebration "perk" basically means you are allowed to purchase tickets to it through the site. If memory serves me right, they were about $250 each. So you and a friend go, now you're up to $850. But if you don't live near Minneapolis, you're gonna have travel expenses as well. Lets throw in some cheap airfare at $100 bucks per person round trip. To be modest I will leave out motel expenses and spending money for the several days you would have to stay there. But by now you're up to $1050.

Back to the CDs. In May we got "One Night Alone", a rather short "demo" CD in a cardboard sleeve. Half of the songs on here were already given to us as part of NPGMC year one, and the other half of the songs sorta sucked. The CD sounded very half-hearted and hastily made. Even NPGMC wouldn't refer to it as a complete "album". 7 months later, if you're lucky, ONA Live arrived at your doorstep. Its 3 CDs of live tracks from the ONA tour, plus that ONA "demo" cd again, in case they screwed up and forgot to send it to you the first time. The cuts chosen for ONA Live certainly aren't the best versions of the songs he did throughout the tour, but these 3 CDs are better than nothing.

There was a retail section, including an exclusive area for members. Supposedly this was to be "xploding with new merchandise" but that never happened. The members page contained like 4-5 items such as The Rainbow Children mousepads and a $1500.00 cloud guitar that was seldom in stock.

The NPGMC package mentions some downloads as well. From Feb to Dec we had about 3 downloads for the whole year. One of them, "Silicon", was such a shitty song I don't think I have seen anyone on this board say they liked it, not even the diehard fams. The other download was a snippet of "1+1+1=3" live, basically as a commercial for the upcoming live set. Strangely though this version never made its way on to the actual CD. There was another live mp3 made available to select fans overseas for a brief period of time as well.

Several emails to and from the NPGMC around November and December inquiring about any final releases indicated that ONA Live was the last stuff coming out that year.

Some members were dissapointed that A.) there was hardly any new music released through the club this year and B.) most of it was not "xclusive" as advertised as it was hitting retail a couple weeks after we got it. Some members were also unhappy with the overall cost of the club, because all the $100 covers is the CDs and the opportunity to buy other stuff. To get the complete package as you can see above will cost you around $1000.00.

As a result, some members begain filing complaints to the BBB, USPS, and writing letters to NPGMC, Star Tribune, and others.

Then, during the 1st week or so of December, the NPGMC site went down. Its been pretty much down ever since.

Finally, on Jan 1, NPGMC members were emailed a link to download one last album of material called "Xpectation". Some of us believe this was in response to our complaints given the timing of its release, the fact that it was put out on MP3 rather than CDs, and the nature of the tracks themselves. There was also about 5 more live MP3s from the ONA tour made available selectively to members around the globe.

NPGMCsucks said:

You left out a few things, like the misleading advertising, the ignored requests to join and how they fumbled and scrambled to re-edit the website. In many ways the club was seriously mis-managed this year. But the reasons for the wrath started with the cryptic & sarcastic nature that the club engaged in interacting with the customer base.

It simply backfired when Prince & his staff started declaring things that many saw as a sarcastic solution to the problem in that there would be "better seats at the concerts" Then came the flurry of "don't join next year" as if that was the answer. Many swallowed it, while memebers and non-members saw through the fiasco.

Finally (after the tour ended) the NPG Legal team stepped in to respond to the fiasco and through some rushed communication from the web team, criss-crossed. It can be debated that they made flawed statements that were not entirely consistent to what was advertised and when it was shown to the AG's office and the federal postal inspectors.. they simply shut down the site and HID..

Finally (and I don't think anyone has said this before) but when you join NPGMC.. at this juncture in 2003, you have to understand that ur becoming a member of a special cult.. and these music lovers don't take kindly to any disloyalty to their hero. Some will swallow anything he says, buy anything he sells at any price without expectation. Yet in the end of 2002 with the release of xpectation.. Prince who is a good man, made good and his fans should be very happy.