Recently in the Tour News Category

The band's 360 Tour was a big hit, with Bruce Springsteen coming in second place for the year

Los Angeles Times

In just 20 beautiful days on the concert trail last year, U2 racked up the highest-grossing North American tour of 2009, pulling in $123 million at the box office in a year in which overall concert business was one of the music industry's remaining bright spots.

The Irish quartet's bar-raising 360 Tour of sports stadiums, which visited 16 cities, sold more than 1.3 million tickets, translating to a nightly average of just more than 82,000 fans, according to Pollstar, the concert-industry tracking publication.

U2 was the only act to cross the $100-million mark last year, and its nightly average at the box office pummeled the competition, at nearly $7.7 million per show. Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, which tallied nearly $95 million from 58 shows, follows U2 at No. 2 in Pollstar's ranking. But the hard-charging New Jersey outfit also drew more than 1 million fans to those shows, one of six tours to cross that threshold last year.

Compare that with 2008, when only one act -- country star Kenny Chesney -- topped 1 million in total ticket sales.

Daniel Kreps, Rolling Stone

U2's massive 360° Tour wasn't just the biggest trek this year in terms of sheer size: the band's latest jaunt supporting No Line on the Horizon has also been named the year's most successful show by concert tracker Pollstar. Their research also revealed that despite the recession, concert ticket sales for the top 50 tours were up this year across the board compared to 2008's final numbers. That's thanks largely to U2, who easily surpassed all other acts by selling 1.3 million tickets during the first leg of their 360° Tour, grossing $123 million along the way.

U2's 360° Tour: photos of the band's opening night.

by Whitney Pastorek, Entertainment Weekly

Billboard published its list of the Top 25 touring artists of the decade today, documenting those artists and bands who have seen several million faces, rocked them all, and charged handsomely to do it in the years since 2000. The Rolling Stones (watch "Sympathy for the Devil," above) and U2 come in at Nos. 1 and 2 with both bands making over $800 million in live revenue during the past 10 years. Madonna also made upwards of $800 mil; bringing up the rear at No. 25 is the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, who took in a paltry $200 million, still enough to confuse those of us who thought they just made Christmas music. (Top 10 located after the jump, and you can check out the full roster at Billboard.com.)

by Richard Moore, Spinner

After Monday's announcement confirming U2 as the first headliner for the 2010 Glastonbury Festival, some music industry commentators have been quick to suggest the show could be a tough one for the Irish megastars.

With their experience of massive venues and crowds, the undertaking is unlikely to be daunting for the band, but their lack of experience of festival crowds could be their undoing, some have warned.

U2's concert at TCF Bank Stadium sold out in a hurry, leaving many fans unhappy with the procedures.

By BOB VON STERNBERG, Star Tribune

People hoping to score tickets for U2's Twin Cities concert next summer most likely still haven't found what they're looking for.

Tickets for the concert at TCF Bank Stadium went on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday. Within minutes, only single seats were available at the websites of the merged ticket brokers Live Nation and Ticketmaster. It was sold out within two hours.

Dozens of U2 fans vented their frustrations on the Star Tribune's website, most often angry at commercial ticket brokers who routinely scoop up large numbers of tickets and resell them at a premium.

Montreal Gazette

MONTREAL -- U2 is putting up $3 million to expand Montreal's former horse racing stadium so it can accommodate 60,000 to 80,000 people for a show this summer.

The fact that the band is fronting the costs of building the venue for the July 16 event is a testament to its love of Montreal, according to Jacques Aube, vice-president and general manager of promoter Gillett Entertainment Group.

Gillett and tour promoter Live Nation have been working on the possibility of a Montreal date for months. The biggest problem was finding a venue big enough to host the show (including the 150-foot-wide (45-metres) stage, featuring a massive, steel spider-like structure) and comply with U2's request for an open-air stadium.

By Louise Hogan, Irish Independent

FINES imposed over U2's breach of noise-level regulations during their Croke Park homecoming concerts have been branded "paltry" in comparison to the estimated €20m the concerts made.

Promoters MCD have been hit for €36,000 by Dublin City Council after the rockers soared over the barrier 12 times during their three concerts in July.

"It is a paltry penalty, it really isn't a disincentive. They would write that off in terms of planning for such things," Pat Gates, chair of the Croke Park Area Residents' Alliance, said.

"Any fines that do accrue to the city council should be invested back into the local community as they were the ones that put up with it."

Fontana Herald News

U2's groundbreaking 360° Tour continues to score sellouts with each Southern California stop.

First, last month's huge Rose Bowl show, a historic performance that drew the largest concert crowd in the venue's history and gained a worldwide audience in the millions thanks to YouTube's first-ever live webcast, sold out minutes after going on sale.

Then, on Monday, the band's June 6, 2010 Angel Stadium concert also sold out within minutes.

Now, in an attempt to satisfy such strong demand from their Southland fans, U2 has announced a second and final Angel Stadium date for June 7. The tour is once again produced by Live Nation Global Touring and sponsored by BlackBerry(r).

By Ellen Lampert-Gréaux, Live Design

Inventor Chuck Hoberman joins Willie Williams and Frederic Opsomer to discuss the U2 360° expanding video screen

The ground-breaking expanding video screen that added a WOW factor to the current U2 360° tour was designed by Chuck Hoberman, founder and president of Hoberman Associates, Inc., a New York-based design firm, in conjunction with Innovative Designs and its parent company Barco. Hoberman joins U2 designer Willie Williams and Frederic Opsomer of Innovative Designs on a special panel on the design on the U2 360° tour at LDI2009 in the PRG Light Lab on Saturday, November 21 from 2:00-4:00pm, followed by the LDI awards ceremony at 6pm where they will be honored for their innovative design.

Hoberman, along with Williams and scenic designer Mark Fisher, conceptualized the fusion of architecture, stage scenery, and extreme technology the led to an elliptical video display, approximately the size of a tennis court that morphs into a seven-story high cone-shaped structure, enveloping the band as it extends.

With tickets going on sale today, two fans discuss whether seeing U2 still justifies the price

By Andrew Reilly And Steven Hyden, A.V. Club

Andrew: Steven, you may have heard that U2 plans to bring its gargantuan U2 360 tour back to Chicago's Soldier Field next July. Tens of thousands of people are lining up to buy tickets as we speak, but I can't help but wonder why any self-respecting fan would bother at this point. It's not that I dislike U2--I submit my exhaustive collection of U2 records and my 2001 Elevation Tour T-shirt as Exhibits A and B proving my U2 fandom. What bothers me is the almost laughable similarity between that Elevation show and the current U2 360 show: a ridiculous stage (the band having traded the pink heart for the multi-colored spaceship), all the big hits from U2's middle years, and the remainder of the set dominated by cuts from the lackluster recent album. In 2001, new material at least meant the anthemic, self-aware nostalgia of "Beautiful Day" and effortlessly cool "New York," but this time around the band showcases an album you pretty accurately described as "half-baked" and "a grab bag of underdeveloped ideas"--not exactly a compelling sales pitch.