Vincent Paterson, who had worked with Jackson on several videos, was brought in to choreograph and co-direct the tour with Michael. Rehearsals for the tour's 1988 leg took place at the Pensacola Civic Center in Pensacola, Florida from January 22 to February 18, 1988. While off stage, he spent time visiting sick children at their homes in the Sydney suburbs. Jackson performed five concerts in Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane in Australia in November. Nippon Television was a co-sponsor with Pepsi for the Japanese dates. Crowds of 200,000 were what past performers could manage to draw for a single tour. Attendance figures for the first 14 dates in Japan totalled a record-breaking 450,000.
Jackson dedicated his Japanese concerts to Yoshiaki Hagiwara, a five-year-old boy who was kidnapped and murdered, and gave £12,000 to the parents of Hagiwara. He was accompanied by Bubbles, who was the first animal allowed inside the city's town hall.
On September 18, Jackson was handed the Key to the City by Yasushi Oshima, the mayor of Osaka. While in Tokyo, Australian pop music critic Ian "Molly" Meldrum conducted an exclusive interview Jackson and DiLeo that was featured on 60 Minutes in the United States. Performers wore 70 costumes, four of which were attached with fiber optic lights. The stage set used 700 lights, 100 speakers, 40 lasers, three mirrors and two 24-by-18 foot screens. A chartered jumbo jet was used to carry 22 truckloads of equipment, along with Jackson's entourage of 132 for the tour. His pet chimpanzee Bubbles, who took a separate flight, was greeted by more than 300 people. Over 600 journalists, cameramen and fans waited for Jackson's arrival to the country at Tokyo's Narita International Airport. The first nine scheduled concerts that began on September 12 sold out within hours, and five more were added due to high demand. Sponsored by Pepsi, the tour began in Japan, marking Jackson's first performances in the country since 1973 as part of The Jackson 5. On June 29, 1987, Jackson's manager Frank DiLeo announced the singer's plan to embark on his third solo world concert tour.
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