Prince Celebration 2025: The good, the bad and next year

Longtime Prince aficionado Marilynn McNair couldn’t betray her bliss.

“I can’t talk now,” she said, waiting at a food truck Friday at Paisley Park in Chanhassen. “I’m bliss.”

The ever-opinionated Prince fan from Atlanta has attended all the Celebrations since he died in 2016. She spends a week in the Twin Cities, communing with Prince faithful from around the world, going to Celebration activities, unofficial Prince Week happenings and dinners with her Purple people.

By Sunday, after buying three more Prince T-shirts she said she didn’t need but had to have, she reflected on four days of panels, concert films and live concerts.

“I loved as soon as we got to Paisley Park it was Prince, straight into it,” she said, referring to a screening of Prince’s March 3, 1986, concert at First Avenue.

The other big experience for VIP Celebration-goers was listening to unreleased studio recordings, including a 1989 cover of Aretha Franklin’s “Ain’t No Way” and 1997’s “Love Never Has to Say Goodbye,” McNair’s favorite.

“They are so good,” she said. “My only frustration is when can we get these so we can listen again and again.”

McNair also appreciated a rare audible from the Paisley Park pooh-bahs, who decided on a day’s notice to screen footage of Celebration 2002 when Prince organized the event featuring Norah Jones, Cornel West, Tavis Smiley and others.

“It was amazing. I went back 23 years in two minutes,” said New Yorker Rick Ammirati, a Celebration regular who was at the 2002 event.

The Celebration highlight for him this year was a concert film from the opening of the Gold Experience Tour in 1995 in London.

Donny English of Baltimore, who has been to every Celebration since 2000, is known for being outspokenly critical on X. He tweeted: “This was, by far, the best Celebration since his passing.” He gave it “high praise” and a grade of A.

English, like Ammirati and McNair, was impressed by what he heard at Saturday’s panel discussing Prince’s vault of unreleased material. It gave nearly 600 fans an opportunity to hear from oft-uncommunicative Prince Legacy LLC administrators Londell McMillan and Charles Spicer.

“Londell and Charles are genuinely committed to protecting Prince’s legacy,” English posted. “They gave us more reasons why the music cannot be released than answers when the music will be released.”

Ammirati came away convinced that “they’re trying to move the legacy forward in the right direction.”

Said McNair: “It was very frank. It was good to hear Londell come to the fore and talk about things swirling in the vacuum of information. It gave people a lot of satisfaction and assuaged concerns.

“I’ll be back next year,” she said.

It was cool to have all the live performances in just one night at Paisley Park.

The reunited Family got funky on “Mutiny” and passionate on “Nothing Compares 2 U.”

Channeling Jimi Hendrix visually with his silk bandanna and fringy lace-and-rhinestone top, Jesse Johnson asserted his mighty guitar prowess between his stream-of-consciousness babbling about relationships with women and the challenge of singing angry songs when you’re happy.

Morris Day felt right at home with his spiffily entertaining set with the Time, a huge improvement over his disinterested Celebration 2024 performance backed by the NPG. It was smart of Prince Legacy LLC, the main organizers, to sell separate tickets just to the concert.

Three Purple people gave shoutouts from the Paisley Park stage to Pepé Willie, a godfather of the Minneapolis Sound who mentored many of the local musicians and died on June 1 — Johnson, Day and Prince & the Revolution drummer Bobby Z, who was given a legacy award and gave a heartfelt speech.

The news of a jukebox musical movie helmed by Ryan Coogler was exciting. Also heartening was word of an “Around the World in a Day” boxed set as well as smaller packages, meaning one-disc albums (like “HITnRUN,” both phases) and streaming songs. Fans definitely want to consume more music and films from the vault at Celebration.

The “Vault and New Releases” panel provided a much-needed face-to-face exchange between fans and the Prince estate, particularly McMillan and Spicer. The focus group aspect of the session was enlightening, especially the resistance of the fans — average age about 50-something — to seeing Prince’s music on TikTok, a platform to reach a new and younger audience.

There were many non-Celebration events during unofficial Prince Week, including an exhilarating Adrian Crutchfield concert at the Capri Theater (featuring Naiya, Damon and 10-year-old guitar shredder Mateo from Purple Playground’s Academy of Prince) and the Purple Genealogy “party with a purpose” where everyone was stylin’ as DJ Willie Adams spun Prince tunes.

There were other gatherings like Mayte Garcia’s free dance workshop for teens and DJ Dudley D spinning at Union Rooftop. The must-see Rich Benson Collection at LaSalle Plaza in downtown Minneapolis showcases a history of Prince in memorabilia, curated by Andrea Swensson. (It’s free and on display for the rest of the year.)

It’s time to step up for Prince Celebration 2026, which will coincide with the 10th year of his death.

It’s time for some big-name concerts by stars influenced by Prince such as Janelle Monáe, H.E.R. or Lenny Kravitz (even if it’s just solo acoustic). Or stars who influenced him like Chaka Khan, Mavis Staples, the Family Stone or perhaps Earth, Wind & Fire in an arena show open to the public. And a Questlove DJ session, spinning Prince tracks from concerts and rehearsals.

How about some one-on-one interviews with heavy-hitting elders like Joni Mitchell, Stevie Nicks or Lenny Waronker, the Warner Bros. executive who will be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame this year? Remember how refreshing it was to hear from Bob Cavallo, Prince’s former manager and film producer, at Celebration 2019? And why not add a little chili sauce with an interview with Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis?

How about an “Under the Cherry Moon” panel with actors Kristin Scott Thomas and Jerome Benton and the original director Mary Lambert, credited as a creative consultant on the film? A panel of Prince publicists such as Bob Merlis, Susan Blond, Michael Pagnotta and Howard Bloom?

How about staging a weeklong Prince concert film festival, screening daily double features (there are thousands in the vault) at indie theaters like the Parkway and the Riverview and making them open to the public and free to Celebration-goers. This year’s concert movies from 1986 at First Avenue and 1995 from Wembley Stadium in London thrilled people who paid $1,300 for VIP tickets.

And promote these big names and big events months in advance, not the usual late notice of the schedule. That kind of timing has turned off fans who come from abroad and across the United States. Marketing and communication need to improve big-time. If organizers want to grow the audience beyond the blind-faith hardcore fans, more details need to be shared far in advance. A full-time event coordinator would make a huge difference.