Publication: San Fransisco Chronicle [US]
Date: April 13, 1997
Section:
Page Number(s):
Length:
Title:
Written By: Joel Selvin

Prince canceled his planned concert tonight at the San Jose Event Center after he got word of ticket scalping, his spokesman said yesterday.

The concert will be rescheduled "very, very shortly," said spokesman Billy Sparks, as soon as dates, venue availability and a voucher ticketing system are finalized. Promoter Bill Graham Presents said the new date would be announced next week.

At a press conference yesterday, BGP vice president Lee Smith said the level of scalping for the sold-out show at the 7,000-seat hall was not extraordinary -- he estimated between 5 and 10 percent of the tickets. But Sparks, concert and marketing coordinator for The Artist, as Prince now likes to be known, said the musician was incensed because reports of scalping had swamped his Internet Web site.

"The fans got shut out because of some fat cats," Sparks said. "It's not right." He said Prince canceled a series of East Coast dates earlier this year after reports of scalping.

BASS Tickets president David Mendelsohn said he had studied the ticket distribution records for the show and could find no unusual activity. Tickets for tonight's show must be returned to place of purchase for a refund. There will be no exchanges for the new show.

Sparks said he regretted that the 90 to 95 percent of fans who had bought tickets through legitimate channels would be forced to return them and go through a voucher system for a rescheduled performance. "(But) if we have our fans," Sparks said, "they'll stick with us through this situation." Tickets to tonight's show sold out in five minutes.

Although none of the spokesmen at the press conference, held at the San Francisco offices of Bill Graham Presents in a room festooned with sheets of purple foil and purple light, quoted any actual scalper prices, a KMEL-FM radio staffer said he heard of the $50 tickets changing hands for as much as $300. In yesterday's classified ads the highest price being asked was $90.

Fans buying tickets to the rescheduled show will have to present photo identification at the point of purchase and fill out a detailed form; they will then be given a voucher, for up to two tickets, bearing their name. At the concert the nontransferable vouchers will be exchanged for tickets. Photo identification must again be presented and ticket holders must enter the hall immediately. Only the voucher holder and one guest will be permitted to enter the venue. BPG said the vouchers will not be available at BASS outlets.

BGP executives privately expressed concern over the potential problems of using a voucher system at a venue as large as the Event Center. The promoter has used such procedures in the past for high-demand concerts at smaller halls, such as the Warfield theater and the Fillmore Auditorium, but those halls are a fraction of the size of the Event Center.

Sparks said Prince intends to employ a voucher ticketing system for all his future concerts. The system was used in his appearance last night at the 1,500-seat Pantages Theater in Hollywood. "This is the start of a new day for us," Sparks said.

Smith expressed confidence in the ability of the BASS system to distribute tickets on a "democratic" basis. "Vouchers would be a very different system," he said.

"It was a costly mistake," BGP's Smith said of the cancelation, "but I don't want to say it was our mistake."

"Everybody loses," Sparks said.

The event was intended to raise funds for a Prince's private charitable organization, Love 4 One Another.