Oct 2, 1988 - probably the greatest day of my childhood

Prince Madison Square Garden, Lovesexy Tour

I was 14, but had already seen Prince once before - when I was 12, I got to see him at MSG for the Parade Tour - yes, eye know I was a lucky boy.

Anyway, I was/am a major Billboard chart geek and my heart broke all through 1988 when Lovesexy and the singles bombed.

I'm still confounded by it, Glam Slam isn't the best - but to not even make the Hot 100?

OMG, I was wounded!

Anyway, there was 'chatter' that the tour was flopping and venues were half empty, etc.

I think it is still generally perceived that way.

But, I dug into the sales figures that I could drum up from online and I'm wondering if it isn't as bad as it is made out to be?

I used the Prince vault and Wikipedia to compile the ticket sales versus the capacities in the venues.

When you look at the big cities, he did pretty great

New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Landover, Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Oakland = sell outs

He could've definitely done another day at Madison Square Garden, for sure.

And who knows, maybe he could've done another day in Los Angeles or San Francisco/Oakland.

That would've added a few more sell outs to the total.

Yes, when you look at the more "middle tier" cities, there's some trouble:

Greensboro only 70% sold = ouch.

Richmond only 71% sold - ouch again.

Cincinatti only 76% sold - really, that low in Cincinatti?

Hartford only 79% sold

Charlotte only 82% sold

Iowa only 84% sold

Dallas only 82% sold
Anyone there for these shows? What was it like to be in a 70% full venue for Prince?

But if you take it all in, there were about 500, 000 tickets sold out of 550,000 capacity = 90%.

That's not a flop, is it?

It isn't great, but not a complete disaster.

Plus all the merch that is sold - wish someone tracked merch sales! I want to know how many YES patches were sold!

**There is some weird info which I didn't account for:

- 3rd night in Chicago on 9/19 only had 4,700 tickets sold out of 17,000?

After two sell outs?
Was anyone there? Is that an accurate #?
And if it is accurate - what the hell was it like in that arena? Depressing?

- 2nd night in Landover = only 7,000 sold out of 17,500?

In DC?

Same thing - was anyone there for this?

And if it is true and you were there, did it feel weird with the place less than half full?

If you put these nights in to the totals, you get to 86% sold out - which, admittedly, isn't a great number.

I know that it was really expensive to put on because of the huge set and the car - so is that the main reason it is perceived as unsuccessful? Because the cost was too much?
And not because of ticket sales? (assuminig 90% sold out)

If they were bleeding $ - they could have pivotted and made things more profitable:

Not sure why somebody didn't say "screw 3 stops in mid atlantic states" (NC, SC, Virginia).
Moving that set to these 3 cities for 70% was DUMB! Cancel them!

And schedule another night or two in Philadelphia and another night in NY and Boston since the tour is going up there next anyway.

(They did add the Nassau Coliseum show in Long Island, NY right after the MSG shows and did pretty well with only 2 weeks notice)
And yep, I get that maybe MSG or Spectrum or Worcester were not available - but I am thinking best case scenario. If 1 extra night in those three cities even just had 90% sell out - that's 44,000 tickets vs. 35,000 sold in VA, NC and SC) -
But almost more importantly, you saved a ton of $ by not having to haul the equipment to these three different places for one night.

Or, they could have thrown in more after-shows in slightly larger venues like they did in:

- NY Roseland = 3,200

- SF Warfield = 2,200

They could have easily done 13 more of these:
1 more in NY,

2 in LA (that aftershow was small-800 tickets)

1 more in Boston (besides the benefit show)

1 in Philadelphia

2 in Chicago

2 in Atlanta

1 in DC

1 in Houston
1 in Detroit (prob 2)

1 in Minneapolis

That would be 15 of these smaller venues - avg 2,500 seats = 37,500 tickets
AND - these shows are much less expensive b/c they don't have to travel (they are already there) and there's no set to lug around)

(this is all pie in the sky b/c maybe they couldn't squeeze all this into the intineray - but I am just going on best case scenario and knowing Prince wanted to play constantly).

And if I remember correctly- the Japanese dates were forced on him to make some $ back.
I would have sat his ass down and said, put your big boy pants on, while we are here - we are going to play 8-10 shows in Australia/NZ

You need to make some money.

And yes, I'm sure Prince would have listened to me!

Yeah, right!

Thanks for letting me get my thoughts out.. I spend way too much time obsessing over the Lovesexy era and it's nice to have somewhere to put these (probably) irrational ideas!

I was at the Dallas show which I think was the last US show from this tour. Loads of empty seats. The album was not very popular in the US. It was banned from some shelves due to the cover pic of Prince. Prince also wore a lot of makeup in some of the art that turned some people off. At the time it seemed Prince was off message with his US fans. The Sign of the Times tour did not tour the US-a tour that would have done a lot better than LoveSexy. Following the incredible Sign Of the TImes album, LoveSexy sounded like B grade material.

On top of this, as you said, the cost of the tour was very high. I recall some saying it took over 50 semi trailer loads to move it around. Imagine the labor costs to handle, assemble and disassemble such a large amount of material.

This era is marked by a lot of bad decisions, each on their own not a big deal but collectively lead to Prince being in a financial crunch that only Batman could save him from.

Toronto, October 5 1988....wow!!!!!

The greatest of all shows!

wonderboy said:

This era is marked by a lot of bad decisions, each on their own not a big deal but collectively lead to Prince being in a financial crunch that only Batman could save him from.

And Nothing Compares to You.

I saw the show in Charlotte NC in the fall of 1988, and it wasn't sold out. Not even close. There were quite a few empty seats.

.

But it didn't matter to me, because that was my first Prince show. And it was awesome.

wonderboy said:

The Sign of the Times tour did not tour the US-a tour that would have done a lot better than LoveSexy. Following the incredible Sign Of the TImes album, LoveSexy sounded like B grade material.

On top of this, as you said, the cost of the tour was very high. I recall some saying it took over 50 semi trailer loads to move it around. Imagine the labor costs to handle, assemble and disassemble such a large amount of material.

This era is marked by a lot of bad decisions, each on their own not a big deal but collectively lead to Prince being in a financial crunch that only Batman could save him from.

yeah,not bringing the SOTT tour to the US was one of his biggest career mistakes.In the fall of '87,that album was really beginning to take off.There was a tremendous amount of excitement and anticipation for a tour.The concert film was fantastic,but it's just not the same as an actual tour.

Yeah, The whole cutting SOTT loose so fast was a disastrous mistake.

I could go down a rabbit hole of all the bad decisions there too - like Hot Thing not being it's own single!
Not my favorite but it was played like crazy in NY

Anyway - yeah, he was so out of sync in 1988
It was all about hair metal and he was naked on a giant flower.

I guess it doesn't matter anymore b/c I still love the album, the cover, the tour and even the videos.

Oh and yes, thank goodness for Batman and NC2U

and then there's GB !

I drove from KY up to Cincinnati for the Sep 22 show, the show sold well and I had nosebleed seats.

I had front row seats for Lexington, KY but it didn't sell enough tickets and was cancelled.

Guess it depends on where you were.

I went to the Nov 6 show in Los Angeles. It was packed, loud, and still leaves me without words. It's the only time I've seen Prince live. The power of music, to hold that many people in your hand, and play so many songs, at a machine gun pace with unseen precision... it was life changing.

I felt nothing but love with everyone in the audience. There was a commonality of respect, and love, and joy, and anticipation, and exuberance that I've never felt at any show before or since.

TrivialPursuit said:

I went to the Nov 6 show in Los Angeles. It was packed, loud, and still leaves me without words. It's the only time I've seen Prince live. The power of music, to hold that many people in your hand, and play so many songs, at a machine gun pace with unseen precision... it was life changing.

I felt nothing but love with everyone in the audience. There was a commonality of respect, and love, and joy, and anticipation, and exuberance that I've never felt at any show before or since.

that's incredible

and I agree - it was so special

As a European... sigh... Americans!

A nude picture of Prince?

Really!

That's not 'nude', that's just a guy without clothes.

Not even in a sexual or pornografic pose, AT ALL.

Sitting on a flower? You don't even see his dick or ass crack.

And the phallus in the flower they talked about, come on.

Even the Dirty Mind album was far more pornografic or sexual...

You could even throw in a story that his pulled up knee is a gigantic phallus.

Puhleaze.

It was by the way his most religeous and soul cleansing album up to that moment, which didn't get that part in the media what it was intended for.

Strange for such an religous driven country imho.

My guess simply is what's been said here; not touring SOTT.

Plus Lovesexy was indeed released fast after SOTT with no support of radio stations in the US.

All resulted in those ticket sales like you mention.

Indeed, why didn't they cancel some shows?

Could be again one of Prince's decisions, as if he had to suffer for his one-time ecstasy trip.

Vannormal said:

I saw the 3rd show at the Rosemont Horizon (Chicago)...it was a great show and looked sold out from our perspective. A lot of energy and I believe Mavis Staples showed up at some point. Seriously one of the best shows I've ever seen and I've seen a LOT of shows over the years!

HOWEVER,

I know friends who went to other shows around the country and a few said the places were half empty. All the comments above are right...the album totally bombed in the US. The nude cover was one major thing...have to remember it was mid-80s in the states it was all about hair bands and mainsteam rock.

I turned a lot of my friends onto Prince with SOTT. They all got totally turned back off with Lovesexy.