Michael Jackson tribute concert postponed until 2010

Saturday, September 12, 2009

A tribute concert for Michael Jackson has been postponed and relocated.

The concert was originally due to take place on September 26, 2009, just outside the Schoenbrunn Palace in Vienna, Austria. However, the concert has been relocated to the Wembley Stadium in London, England. The date has also been changed to June 2010.

	If these artists are not welcome in Vienna, London is certainly more than happy to have them.
—Jermaine Jackson

Michael Jackson's brother Jermaine, who had organised the concert, said: "Numerous stars were just not able to change their schedules to make a live appearance at the Vienna event possible." Representatives for Mary J. Blige, Natalie Cole and Chris Brown announced that none of these artists could make it to the concert.

Jermaine Jackson stated: "Many artists and performers who I have spoken to personally told me that it would be a great honour to be part of this memorial concert for my late brother. However, due to the short time frame it was not possible for many of them to change their schedules so that they could be on stage in Vienna on 26 September.

"Therefore we decided, after careful consideration, to change the date of the tribute concert to June 2010 – just a few weeks before the first anniversary of his untimely death. Instead of eight weeks we now have eight months to prepare. Some of the stars who were not able to participate in the Vienna concert, but expressed their wish to participate in this event, will be able to perform at Wembley Stadium in London in June 2010," Jackson explained.

Michael Jackson himself had performed in the original Wembley Stadium 15 times. Jermaine said that he could not understand why the Austrian media were ridiculing the acts, stating: "When artists who have won eight Grammy Awards and sold millions of records around the world and are able to sell out large stadiums are then called 'B-list artists', are made fun of and generally disrespected, is something I just cannot understand. If these artists are not welcome in Vienna, London is certainly more than happy to have them."

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Sources

"Jackson tribute concert postponed" — BBC News Online, September 11, 2009
"Jackson tribute postponed to 2010" — Mirror.co.uk, September 11, 2009
Rosie Swash. "Michael Jackson tribute concert cancelled" — Guardian.co.uk, September 11, 2009

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