Beatles Personality Poster

This poster was made to commemorate the Beatles Royal command performance at the London Palladium in 1963 and sold to teens in the US the next year. It was printed on very thin paper as it wasn’t meant to be saved for all these years and was reprinted several times. The originals – like this one – are 20 ½ “ wide and 28 ½” tall while most of the reprints are 24” x 36”. The reprints also don’t carry the printer credit “litho by Louis F. Dow Co., U.S.A.  We had this one backed with archival linen to protect it.

The Beatles Royal Command Performance poster is said to have been created around their first, 1964, visit to America, during which they appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show and played Carnegie Hall and Washington Coliseum. Printed in America by NEMS and widely distributed, the poster has became a mainstay among Beatles posters. 

What’s wrong with this picture? Well, for one thing, this annual show usually go under the name of “The Royal Variety Show” and second, it didn’t take place, like the poster says, at the London Palladium, but rather at the Prince of Wales Theatre, November 4th, 1963. The Beatles did play a gig at the London Palladium in 1963. That happened on October 13th, but that was for the TV show “Val Parnell’s Sunday Night at the London Palladium“.

But they were selling to kids and so didn’t get bogged down by details. The photograph was evidently floating around the NEMS office in 1964 but no one could find any receipts identifying the photographer, and despite the popularity of the poster the photographer never came forward to claim it as their work or ask for a royalty.