Pop star Prince cancels Dublin show without an explanation

PRINCE HAS cancelled his Croke Park show next Monday without an explanation for his fans or concert promoters MCD.

Prince's management informed MCD of the decision in the early hours of yesterday. Although rumours had been circulating for days that the notoriously volatile star, who turned 50 this week, was about to cancel, MCD believed the concert was still on as late as Monday afternoon.

Though officially MCD are stating that the cancellation was due to circumstances "beyond the control" of either themselves or Prince, it is understood the decision was down to Prince himself.

MCD is said to be furious with Prince's decision, especially given that the scheduled date is just five days away and the promoter is likely to lose thousands of euro as a result of the cancellation.

MCD said more than 55,000 tickets were sold for the event, which had a capacity of 62,000. The firm said rumours of poor ticket sales were well off the mark.

"The stage was being built, everything was in place for it. The concert was on course to be sold out. It has nothing to do with money or contracts. The guy's just being a superstar. He just didn't want to do it," said one industry source.

MCD will hope to recover the booking deposit from Prince without having to go to litigation, which could take years.

Prince has a reputation for regularly cancelling shows. His only other European shows on the tour, in Paris and Milan, were cancelled several months ago.

Uniquely among major artists, he does not have an official website to offer an explanation to fans.

Long-suffering fans were scathing about his decision on various websites. "People went out of their way for Prince, and we have pretty much been treated like s**t . . . how rude of him and his people." Another wrote: "I'm fed up defending you (Prince). You don't care about anyone but yourself. Just do us a favour and retire," while a third wrote: "There's no way Prince can let down 80,000 fans (sic), but my God, he did."

The cancellation will seriously inconvenience UK fans who were due to travel for the only show in Britain or Ireland that the artist was scheduled to do this year.

Ticket holders, who paid between €66.50 and €125.50, excluding handling fees, can obtain a full refund including booking fee from their Ticketmaster point of purchase from 9am on Friday.

It is not the first time that MCD has been let down by a volatile star. Eminem cancelled his concert at Slane in 2005 citing "exhaustion", and MCD, which claimed losses of €2.1 million from that cancellation, had to make an out of court settlement with three insurance companies as a result.

Croke Park stadium director Peter McKenna said they were as mystified about the cancellation as everybody else. "It is a temperamental business and artists and performers are probably the most temperamental," he said. "We're annoyed and disappointed. There is a huge amount of planning that has gone into that . . .There are knock-on effects all the way down and suppliers have to cancel orders and a lot of people who were due to work that night will now have to cancel."