Celebration 2020 & Minneapolis Events Cancelled

Paisley Park officially made the announcement on Friday the 13th, 2020 that the Celebration 2020 event scheduled for June 4-7, 2020 has been canceled due to the Coronavirus pandemic making the Prince Celebration the latest cancellation in the music world and taking a long list of other Prince centered Minneapolis events with it in its wake.

Paisley Park‘s announcement read:
“After consultation with our local health officials, and in accordance with Minnesota Health Department and CDC guidelines, Paisley Park must regretfully confirm that Celebration 2020 has been postponed from June to fall 2020 due to Coronavirus concerns.

The health and safety of our visitors and staff are the top priority at Paisley Park, and postponing Celebration 2020 is a necessary part of the aggressive efforts to mitigate the spread of the COVID-19 virus in our community.  Despite how disappointing this is, all of us here at Paisley Park are committed to doing our part.

Guided tours are continuing, and we expect no further disruptions to our operations. More information on the new dates for Celebration 2020 will be released soon.  Current Ticket holders can contact us at info@paisleypark.com. We appreciate your continued support and look forward to seeing you soon at Paisley Park!”

The announcement comes just 3 days after they released an email to the VIP attendees from the 2019 Celebration to get advanced access to purchase tickets for $1499 for a new Gold VIP level or a Silver VIP price level of $999. It also announced that the general admission tickets (priced at $499) would be released March 19 (aka 319). All of which was followed a few days later by the cancellation post on the Paisley Park website.

This is yet another bad turn for Minneapolis as many Prince-related events also scheduled for that week in June also dropped off of calendars. These were events designed to coincide with the influx of Prince fans from around the world that descend into the city to honor the legacy of Prince.

Some larger events designed to accentuate the festivities included Prince 78-88: The First Decade which is a 2-day conference discussing Prince‘s first 10 years of music featuring panels and afterparties has still yet to announce their fate. The same with Paisley 5 & Dime’s Kickoff Party, Jellybean Johnson’s Nothing Compares 2 P, Martin Kember & The Unit at The Pourhouse and many others that still have futures that remain unknown.

There were also a handful of major events that technically (schedule-wise) would conflict with Celebration 2020 that still haven’t made any official announcements regarding any cancellations. Some among those would be PRNAlumni’s planned 3-day event also taking place June 4th-7th (the exact same days as the Celebration) and also the City of Henderson, which has planned an entire day of Prince-related events on June 7th (Prince‘s birthday) surrounding the unveiling of a bronze Prince statue. Both of which have yet to announce their plans in lieu of the pandemic.

However, there are some venues that actually have announced cancellations due to COVID 19. The biggest of which is the iconic music club First Avenue which announced that they are closing their doors indefinitely “until further notice“, which also includes all of their related venues such as The Fine Line, 7th Street Entry, Turf Club, Fitzgerald Theater, and Palace Theaters. This also includes their family of independent venues as well.

Prince‘s former band The New Power Generation also announced that they are canceling their tour just after they completed creating the schedule and then changed their minds about releasing the dates deciding to resume touring in the fall. They were also scheduled to be one of three announced performers at the Celebration 2020 which was only one of two performances remaining on the books.

Direct texts from St. Paul Peterson to Funkatopia’s Mr. Christopher during a Facebook Live event indicate the there is an unannounced event coming June 5th window that was planned, but now it hangs in the balance as undecided. Prince 365 A Celebration founder Rodney Fitzgerald had three separate sold-out events including a party at Perkins Pancake House, a dance event and a pajama party. All of which Fitzgerald announced during Funkatopia‘s Facebook Live show that their 3 events will move to whatever new dates that Paisley Park decides to postpone to, but that so far has only divulged as “Fall 2020.”

One of the biggest bummers (not not the biggest) is that with the MLB season in a holding pattern, the planned Minnesota Twins Prince night that was rumored to be taking place on June 5th in Minneapolis was going to give attendees free Prince bomber jackets. Gone before it was even officially unveiled.

Celebration 2020 had originally been scheduled in April in previous years before they made the announcement to move it back to June. A few events in April were still in place even though Celebration 2020 had moved, but now also face potential cancellations.

The first of which was Alphonso Starr’s Starr Party at the Pourhouse in Minneapolis, until Starr told Mr. Christopher via text during the Facebook Live show on March 13th that he is on the fence as to whether he should pull the plug due to the health concerns of the public.

The biggest April event is still PRNAlmuni‘s “Family Reunion” which features the reunion of The Family Stand with Sandra St. Victor and includes Princely guests like Shelby J, St. Paul Peterson, Ingrid Chavez, Tommy Barbarella and many other guests on April 18th at the Fine Line.

While no cancellation announcements have been made by PRNAlumni, First Avenue has already announced that the Fine Line venue will be closed until further notice, which may push the event into a forced cancellation unwillingly.

Stay tuned to Funkatopia and the Funkatopia Facebook page for the latest information on any more developments in the Prince world tied to Paisley Park Celebration 2020.