SquirrelMeat said:

Looks straight forward to me.

Instead of an artist gving his time for free (or at cost), like many charity gigs, Prince charges $1.5M, and has lawyers set it up that the charity is fucked over if something goes wrong.

Seem like the Purple Yoda has learned since Dublin.

Let's say this contract was signed and carried out, which would mean Prince would have already been paid before the show was canceled. Even if he had gotten his 1.5million up front, but the promoters decided not to go on with the show because they didn't want to spend more money, etc. then you think Prince shouldn't get to keep the money? Even though it was the promoters who canceled and not him? Looks to me like these promoters didn't do their job, and either couldn't come up with the other 1/2 of Prince's money and decided to just let it be with only giving him 1/2 the money or whatever. I'm sure Prince ain't complaining with a free $750,000, nor should he be blamed! He's just going by the terms of the contract agreed upon by both parties.

electricberet said:

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

I found this interesting, also:

[img:$uid]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e70/SexyBeautifulOne/payment.jpg[/img:$uid]

10% upon written confirmation and another 40% due 30 days prior...which would have been January 4, 2011.

So I'm guessing that Prince actually received approx. 50% of the money since he didn't cancel in January. That would be about approx. $750,000.

The major investors "supposedly" didn't pull out until after that money would have already been paid. So the only reason I can see for them possibly doing so at that point...would be if they didn't see the sales...giving them a return on their investment.

I don't think this mess is over by a long shot!

Stop talking about this contract and Prince! This is a story about the organizers and Chris Arnold. Shame on WFAA for talking about Prince. Also, you are speculating here! It could be that Prince got no money and decided to come and play anyway because he is such a wonderful guy. If only he had made it to Dallas... Prince is the real victim here, not the people who are waiting for their refunds. On behalf of the ticketholders, I apologize to Prince for any emotional turmoil that this has caused him.

Just thought I would save others the time of making these comments.

Well said!

So it looks like Prince will get paid (if he hasn't been already). The contract says he gets the money unless he himself causes the event to be canceled. And then you have the event organizer going around all weekend saying to reporters that it wasn't Prince's fault. Seems like Prince has a pretty nice open-and-shut case, right?

purplemookiebut said:

electricberet said:

Good point. I did read the contract and have a few other comments in the main thread:

http://prince.org/msg/7/352263

ohhh what so he got paid anyway? easy $

[Edited 2/10/11 15:33pm]

Don't you just love it; Prince is paid so all is cool.

Those organizers are out of their minds to agree to such a cancellation clause. With Prince out of all people.

Don't feel sorry for anybody involved in this, neither the duped fans. Thousands of bucks to see Prince while you know he might as well not show? Better to spend it on some real charity

hey i'm just jealous cause i had crazy bills b4 the whole W2A shows. now prince made me made 2k to that

I still don't understand the math of this. If this has already been discussed and I missed it, I apologize. But the hotel's website says its largest room holds 4,000 people. At $1,500 a pop, they'd have to sell 1,000 tickets just to cover Prince's $1.5 million. Then you've got all the additional costs associated with booking him, plus overhead, etc. Then there's Erykah Badu's fees--wouldn't she get at least half a mil? Then there's the open bar and food.

How much money was this event going to raise anyway?

Since tickets were going for half price toward the end, sales must have been really sluggish.

Efan said:

I still don't understand the math of this. If this has already been discussed and I missed it, I apologize. But the hotel's website says its largest room holds 4,000 people. At $1,500 a pop, they'd have to sell 1,000 tickets just to cover Prince's $1.5 million. Then you've got all the additional costs associated with booking him, plus overhead, etc. Then there's Erykah Badu's fees--wouldn't she get at least half a mil? Then there's the open bar and food.

How much money was this event going to raise anyway?

Since tickets were going for half price toward the end, sales must have been really sluggish.

They had to be counting on sponsorship to cover some of the costs. In fact, if Prince got paid anything, I'm guessing it came from sponsor money. But it's clear that they were taking a huge risk; the concert had to come close to selling out just to cover the expenses. You can blame Chris Arnold if you want, but someone from Meridian signed the contract. Meridian is based in Lansing, Michigan and seems to be still in business.

Seems like certain people heard stories about big money coming their way and didn't pay attention to the details. As I said earlier, the whole thing reminds me of Enron. Or, to take a more recent example, the Madoff scandal. Some very smart, connected people lost money in the Madoff mess.

HatrinaHaterwitz said:

Did anyone actually read the contract? A pdf. version of it is included here:

http://www.wfaa.com/enter...93539.html

It's in the "related section" just to the right of the article.

I found this part to be the MOST interesting of it all:

[img:$uid]http://i37.photobucket.com/albums/e70/SexyBeautifulOne/cancellationclause.jpg[/img:$uid]

It appears that the organizers couldn't cancel the event. Had they...they'd have still been obligated to pay Prince...in full...and any deposits already paid to Prince would have been forfeited. So it appears that the only one that could cancel was Prince himself.

Yes, but usually promotors are responsible for paying for the travel and boarding of the artist. Apparently no payment was made for travel and hotel for Prince and the hotel, lighting and sound people were not paid. The promotors should have realized that P fee was really high and that if they could not move enough tickets they were going to have problems.

the part i found interesting was the fact that the contracting posted on the website was not signed by prince, hence it means nothing.

BlackAdder7 said:

the part i found interesting was the fact that the contracting posted on the website was not signed by prince, hence it means nothing.

It wasn't supposed to be signed by Prince. Pay attention.

Like I said a hot ass mess

DaphneLovesPR1NCE said:

SquirrelMeat said:

Looks straight forward to me.

Instead of an artist gving his time for free (or at cost), like many charity gigs, Prince charges $1.5M, and has lawyers set it up that the charity is fucked over if something goes wrong.

Seem like the Purple Yoda has learned since Dublin.

Let's say this contract was signed and carried out, which would mean Prince would have already been paid before the show was canceled. Even if he had gotten his 1.5million up front, but the promoters decided not to go on with the show because they didn't want to spend more money, etc. then you think Prince shouldn't get to keep the money? Even though it was the promoters who canceled and not him? Looks to me like these promoters didn't do their job, and either couldn't come up with the other 1/2 of Prince's money and decided to just let it be with only giving him 1/2 the money or whatever. I'm sure Prince ain't complaining with a free $750,000, nor should he be blamed! He's just going by the terms of the contract agreed upon by both parties.

I think you are missing the point.

I think any artist that charges for a charity event is out of order. Can you imagine if all the artists at live aid asked for a fee? They would have been crucified.

To act charitable, but to take a millionaire size fee for one date, which has to come straight out of the charity purse I think is dispicable.

You are trying to defend Prince for basically choosing to work in the name of charity, while all the while making sure he lines his own pocket at the expense of the very people he was supposedly helping.

I don't think its too much of a hardship for these multi millionaire entertainers to give one night free for a charity they believe in, if they choose to do so.

I have helped out on several charity events in the past, and I sure as hell haven't charged my day rate for doing so. I do it because I want to give back. If I took a fee, I would basically be taking money from the people that need it the most.

So exuse me if I don't have a bleeding heart for Prince, when it sounds like the very reason this event cocked up is because the promoters didn't sell enough tickets, and with Prince taking his cut, it means the event collapses and the carity loses out on revenue.

Efan said:

I still don't understand the math of this. If this has already been discussed and I missed it, I apologize. But the hotel's website says its largest room holds 4,000 people. At $1,500 a pop, they'd have to sell 1,000 tickets just to cover Prince's $1.5 million. Then you've got all the additional costs associated with booking him, plus overhead, etc. Then there's Erykah Badu's fees--wouldn't she get at least half a mil? Then there's the open bar and food.

How much money was this event going to raise anyway?

Since tickets were going for half price toward the end, sales must have been really sluggish.

Interesting question.

As we were setting up for The Event, there were 30 tables with 10 seats at each table. Definitely not enough to pay anyone. But we were told that the tables were only for people who paid the 25k. If you just bought a single ticket for 1.5k then you were going to be standing only (which would piss me off if I just paid $1500). Still I can't imagine the room that we set up could hold 4000. It wasn't that big.

WFAA-TV has more information on the amounts Prince and the Goss-Michael foundation were supposed to be paid from the concert:

http://www.wfaa.com/news/...16053.html

Prince was supposed to have been paid in two installments on Jan. 14 and Feb. 2. The news story doesn't say whether he received either payment. If he didn't get at least the first payment, why would he have shown up for the event?