The Estate of Michael Jackson has organised the usual Michael Jackson Birthday bash in Las Vegas on August 27 to 29 – and we’re here live from Las Vegas to give you all the updates.
As part of the celebrations, called Blue Sapphire as Michael Jackson would have turned 65 if he was still with us today.
THE IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE:
The first part of the celebration, the Estate and Sony have set up a Michael Jackson Blue Sapphire Celebration Immersive Experience opened from August 27 to August 29.
In the spirit of what has been already done for “Thriller 40” in Germany and New York, the experience is a bit smaller this time.
Once you enter the building, you are waiting in queue to enter the main event. This place has the Sapphire logo on a brick (Off The Wall style) wall and a smoke curtain with the same logo.
Entering the first room which is a replica of the Club 30 in “Smooth Criminal”, you are greeted by actors dressed like in the short film, the barman offers you a drink and snack while actors are pretending to be in the club. Then the music starts! “Smooth Criminal” blasting through the room and the actors start dancing… including the lean!
Once the performance is over, you are taking a small corridor which at the end as a shadow of the man with the knife on the wall, just like in “Smooth Criminal”. This is actually a nice touch!
Then you go through a long corridor with vegetation all over, wall to ceiling, before entering a forest devastation zone. This room is “Earth Song”. There were two activities there: the first one is you can be Michael and recreate the short film. You are recorded and a video is sent to you via email. The second one is a bit weird. You have to walk on digital wooden sticks and you can feel the floor moving under your feet. I am not sure what this was about and the relation with “Earth Song”? I also feel that this could have been an opportunity for the Estate to pass on the message Michael created with “Earth Song”: The conditions of the Human race, the devastation of the Earth and the Animal Kingdom. What would have made it better is having huge screens on each side of the room with the footage from “Earth Song”, massive wind fans and flashing light until it goes full dark with Michael’s quotes on the planet. But this is just my feelings.
Once you finished walking on the sticks, you then get confronted to a huge red curtain, and with surprise, you enter the club from “You Rock My World” short film. This is actually a nice surprise to have the only short film representation of “Invincible” album. The room is composed of a huge shadow of Michael from the video on one side of the room, replica booths from the club and a huge screen with the short film playing where you can stand in front of, and move sparkles on the screen with your body and movements. It is cute and while we loved it, this technology and activity would have made more sense with “Stranger In Moscow” where you could move rain drops on the screen. But great effort from the Estate to be honest.
The last main room is the iconic “Billie Jean”. There you could follow up the lighting flooring and dance to the song, while a paparazzi takes Polaroids of you, which you can keep. Also the nice touch is the light-up bin!
And finally you entering the Merch stand room, with a big mural of the Sapphire celebration logo where you could take a souvenir photo, a wall full of screens playing Michael’s iconic short films, a wall with his solo awards and of course buy your souvenir merch which included a tote bag, a t-shirt, a hoodie and a paperweight in a shape of a sapphire. In true Estate fashion though, the prices were not for the smaller wallets.
All in all, it was a good experience, with surprises and some great attention to details.
To mention, Taj Jackson, Prince Jackson, Bigi Jackson and Brandi Jackson had a private viewing of the Immersive Experience with members of their families on August 28.
THE MICHAEL JACKSON BIRTHDAY BASH:
10:00am – The Brunch:
Fans who managed to get tickets for the Michael Jackson Brunch (100 tickets only), got treated with some food over Michael Jackson’s music in the lobby of Michael Jackson ONE theatre.
Prince Jackson, Bigi and Myles Frost came also to meet the fans, supervised by the Estate’s Karen Langford.
While, it was nice to see so many fans talking to each other and celebrating Michael, the whole ambiance changed when Michael’s kids arrived and it descended into more of a photo op for the fans, forgetting a main key element of the brunch which was Michael. There was nothing to mark that this brunch was in honour of his birthday.
02:00pm – The Q&A:
For those present and or watching live on Youtube, this was a Karen Langford’s Show featuring the Myles Frost story, heavily promoting Frost and MJ The Musical. And if you did not know, Frost was just 21! If that wasn’t mentioned 20 times!
This was the most infuriating hour of my life! Where is Michael!? Are we not here for Michael’s Birthday?? But we were invited to give a round of applause for Karen.
The performers of MJ ONE did a magnificent performance of “Dangerous” and Thank you so much for mentioning “Happy Birthday Michael”
04:00pm – Michael Bush Book Signing:
What to say… Again and again and again…. Bored of this!
05:30pm – Meet & Greet with the Michael Jackson Estate:
We did not stay for this! Why bothered as they are clearly not listening to the fans and the only fans going are pro-estate and licking deep arse cracks!
Over all, the Immersive Experience was good, not perfect but just good; the Birthday celebration was a shit show and it seems more and more like Michael is just a by-product of the Estate putting in the spot light the key people such as John Branca, Karen Langford, Myles Frost and Michael Bush.
Not to mention, a dozen of “influencers” have been invited for free to the Birthday Celebration by the Estate & the King of Style aka Branca. While in the past, the Estate has invited fans to the birthday, it seems that they are now shifting to a more glamourous option. What would have been nice is to actually find fans that due to their location or financial despairs, would never be able to come to Las Vegas to see the MJ ONE show or to celebrate Michael’s Birthday in the States.
Also present at the celebration, Jackie Jackson, Taj Jackson & Brandi Jackson:
It just make me realise how much I miss Michael and how pissed he would be seeing this!
Sebastian for MJVibe
