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April is a mixed season for Prince fans. The 21st is the annual reminder of Prince’s passing, which in 2025 reaches its ninth anniversary. It is also the month Prince Celebration is announced and this year the dates are Thursday 5 June to Sunday 8, the weekend what would be his 67th birthday.
The theme for 2025 is a blend: the ‘year of’ the 40th Anniversary of Prince’s iconic Purple Rain as well as the 40th of Around The World In A Day. Celebration of the latter is arguably most tantalising to fans. While Purple Rain remains Prince’s most successful album, since his death in 2016 it hogged much of the light with a range of releases by the Estate while other anniversary’s passed unmarked.
The Estate has faced criticism these last two years as 2024 promised a full celebration of Purple Rain, a Super Deluxe Edition to upgrade 2017s Deluxe Edition was hoped but all that transpired was a reissue of the original album on purple splatter vinyl. So bland it did not ignite interest among collectors even. The reason for the lack of releases, as documented in the commentary The Anniversary That Never Happened was that the entire content of the vault, as it became apparent, hinged on the deal with Netflix to produce a six hour documentary on the music icon. The direction this documentary took met the disapproval of the Estate who have since renegotiated the deal. The Estate announced the settlement on 6 February in which declared the vault is now #free. A replacement documentary is currently in the works this time produced by The Estate and due sometime in 2026/27. It remains to be seen what releases appear in 2025, a Dolby Atmos audio remix of the original LP is scheduled for release on 25 April.
There will be many that will argue the 40th of Purple Rain anniversary was not appropriately honoured in 2024. The Estate’s view being that it was released in June 1984 is grounds for the purple celebrations to continue into 2025 to honour the occasion in ‘the year of’. Celebration 2025 is thereby focussed on the year 1985 – Prince’s most successful awards season, garnering him three Grammys plus an Oscar. His hugely successful 100-date Purple Rain Tour also wrapped in April that year, and the fame resulting from the album, movie and the tour led him to self-fund the construction of his studio complex Paisley Park. While on the road touring Purple Rain, Prince wrote and recorded his seventh LP Around The World In A Day, widely considered among fans one of his best, although it divided critics at the time.
Celebration 2025 opens on 5 June with events taking place across downtown Minneapolis as well as at Paisley Park. The event this year features headlining performances from Morris Day and The Time and the original lineup of The Family. The latter also celebrates the 40th year since the band’s first and only LP in collaboration with Prince.
The two tiers of tickets are VIP and General. VIP is priced $1300 ($1150 if you buy early) and includes a 60-minute tour of the studios, listening session with unreleased material from the vault, and a DJ dance party (downtown Minneapolis). There are panel discussions on topics including Around The World In A Day and the year 1985 and The Family. The panel most intriguing is ‘The Vault & Future Plans’ which will hopefully offer substantive updates to the advert printed in January’s Billboard magazine on the promised ‘new Prince music’ and Prince Estate’s alternative vision for the Netflix documentary. Live concert footage is also being screened at Celebration 2025 and a public block party will be staged downtown. It is as yet unclear whether the archive concert footage and vault recordings are previewing what could be part of a forthcoming Super Deluxe set. An announcement was expected at the 2024 Celebration but no information was given. With that event getting good press coverage due to the 40th year anniversary it was a missed opportunity, one that will hopefully not be repeated in 2025.
VIP is available in two packages Purple and Gold and priced the same, the difference is simply the order of event programming to manage flows. General Admission is priced $750. 2025 will hopefully become a year every fan will have a reason to party like its 1985. The Estate’s whole income strategy for the past few years has been centred around the Celebration events.
There is no substitute for the real thing, but Prince left a legacy of thirty-nine studio albums, released 100 singles, as well as created many albums for other artists. Prince is one of the most prolific and successful songwriters in history.
