- image via Rogers & Cowan
- Prince in Vancouver, a few nights before the April 21 Portland shows.
As NME reported last week and OPB reposted yesterday, Prince used part of the proceeds from those very expensive tickets to his two April 21 shows at the Roseland to help send Portland-area high school jazz students on a trip to a competition in New York City. The American Music Program’s Pacific Jazz Orchestra is made up of musicians in grades 7 through 12 and, thanks to Prince, are going to the Essentially Ellington Competition and Festival at Lincoln Center this weekend, where they’re one of only 15 finalists from across the country.
From NME:
Acclaimed jazz trumpeter and Artistic Director of the programme Thara Memory said: “The promoter [of Prince’s Portland gigs] is a longtime friend of mine and he told Prince about the programme. Prince was looking for something to give some money to anyway, and that’s how it came about.”
Tickets for the two Portland shows were $175 for floor seats—substantially cheaper than tickets for Prince’s shows in other markets like Seattle and San Francisco. Assigned balcony seating were $300. I believe there were several day-of-show tickets that went on sale for $100, and those may have been the tickets that, at least in part, went to fund the AMP’s Pacific Jazz Orchestra’s trip.
So if you went to the show, that counts as paying the Arts Tax, yes?
What a guy. The show was awesome, by the way. He played lots and lots of guitar.
Yeah because a multimillionaire needs 200 dollar tickets in order to donate to charity
@The Showstopper At $175 a ticket I doubt he personally made any money on this show. You’re not considering he’s a stadium artist bringing a massive production and the staff it takes to put on that show into a very small room. If he didn’t bring that show and the tickets didn’t cost that much to cover his expenses, he wouldn’t be Prince and you wouldn’t be pissed you couldn’t afford to go or were too typically too slow to get tickets in time to begin with. This article is about the man giving back to a good local cause and you’re chastising him? Come on.