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Michael Jackson tribute concert industry continues to thrive in Canada

Michael Jackson's death didn't seem to be bigger news in Canada than anywhere else in the world.

The country's interest in staging tributes to the King of Pop, however, seems to have increased over the past two years.

A charity event scheduled for Friday in Toronto as part of the International Indian Film Academy awards and festival will feature a performance from Jermaine Jackson on the eve of the anniversary of his brother's passing.

While a visit from a surviving member of the Jackson 5 probably wouldn't be as newsworthy under the usual circumstances, Jermaine will appear alongside Indian pop star Sonu Nigam, with the most famous faces of Bollywood expected in the audience.

An entirely different Michael Jackson tribute show was once anticipated for that evening in Summerside, P.E.I. A promoter promised the likes of Beyoncé, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake and Usher were willing to fly up to the Maritimes to make it happen.

While the city wired some $1.3 million to the promoter, it later sued to get the money back on the grounds the offer was a fraud. Starlink Promotions countered Summerside breached its contract and forfeited its right to recover the deposit when it filed suit to recover the money in January. Negotiations were supposedly still going on until Beyoncé's staff were informed of the lawsuit.

Regardless, the debacle revealed just how much posthumous interest there was in MJ, whose music wasn't taken as seriously Canada during the last decade or two of his life.

The last time he performed in the country was when the Jacksons' "Victory Tour" stopped in Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver during 1984.

Yet, impersonators who might have hung up their glitter glove and socks around that time have seen a resurgence in popularity since 2009.

Bishop Soul, a 42-year-old discovered busking in Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square, has performed live in venues around the country, as part of a show called "King of Pop: The Michael Jackson Experience." A similar U.K. production, "Man in the Mirror," recently returned to a Niagara Falls casino for the second consecutive year.

The biggest bet on Jackson's legacy, however, has been placed by Montreal company Cirque du Soleil, whose officially licensed $57 million retrospective spectacle, "The Immortal" is scheduled to visit nine Canadian cities this fall.

Cirque's ultimate destination for the show, naturally, will be Las Vegas.

(Reuters Photo)