The U2 360° Tour is an ongoing worldwide concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. Launched in support of the group's 2009 album No Line on the Horizon, the tour will visit stadiums from 2009 through 2010, whereas the previous two tours, the Elevation Tour and the Vertigo Tour, featured indoor arenas (all but three shows on the Elevation Tour were in arenas, and all North American Vertigo Tour shows were in arenas). The U2 360° Tour is named after the 360-degree staging and audience configuration it uses for shows, which U2 claims is "the first time a band has toured in stadiums with such a unique and original structure." In an era of declining CD sales, the tour is expected to be a major source of income for the band.

Extraordinary Stage design

The tour features a 360-degree configuration, with the stage being placed closer to the center of the stadium's field than usual. The stage has no defined front or back and is surrounded on all sides by the audience. The stage design also includes a cylindrical video screen and will increase the venues' capacities by about 15–20%. Only tiered football stadiums can be used with this scheme; flat fields and baseball stadiums are not possible venues. Willie Williams, who has worked on every U2 tour since 1982, is again a designer for this tour; Mark Fisher serves as the architect. As with many large-scale tours of its era, the U2 360° Tour will have both the workforce and the revenues associated with a medium-sized company.

Williams had been toying with ideas for 360-degree stadium staging for U2 for a number of years,[8] and presented sketches of a four-legged design to the group near the end of their Vertigo Tour in 2006. The inspiration for the "spaceship-on-four-legs" design, nicknamed "the Claw", came from the landmark Theme Building at Los Angeles International Airport. The stages are built by the Belgian company Stageco, and construction of each requires the use of high-pressure and innovative hydraulic systems. The steel structure is 164 feet tall – doubling the size of the stadium set for The Rolling Stones' A Bigger Bang Tour, the previous highest – can hold up to 200 tonnes underneath it, and requires 120 trucks to transport. Each leg of the structure contains its own sound system. The cost of each structure is between £15 million and £20 million each. Daily costs of the production are approximately $750 000, not including the stage construction; the majority of this comes from truck rentals, transportation, and staff wages. The tour is not expected to break even until the conclusion of the second leg.

As the tour was announced, U2 guitarist The Edge said of the show's design: "It's hard to come up with something that's fundamentally different, but we have, I think, on this tour. Where we're taking our production will never have been seen before by anybody, and that's an amazing thing to be able to say. For a band like U2 that really thrive on breaking new ground, it's a real thrill." Lead singer Bono said the design was intended to overcome the staid traditional appearance of outdoor concerts where the stage was dominated by speaker stacks on either side: "We have some magic, and we've got some beautiful objects we're going to take around the world, and we're inside that object." He also said that the group's goal was for the show to not be too choreographed. Williams said the goal is to establish a physical proximity: "The band is just sitting in the palm of the audience's hand." At the conclusion of the tour, the intent is to leave each one of the three structures in a different part of the globe and turn them into permanent concert venues.

The video screen is broken into segments mounted on a multiple pantograph system which enables the screen to "open up" or spread apart vertically as an effect during different stages of the concerts. It is also mounted on a cabled pulley system to enable the entire screen and pantograph system to move lower and closer to the band.

U2 will purchase carbon offsets to take into consideration the environmental impact of the massive production, which has been estimated to be up to 65,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide; approximately the same amount that would be emitted in flying a passenger plane to Mars. Most of the carbon emissions are a result of transporting the three stage structures across Europe and North America. An environmental consultant to carbonfootprint.com noted that to offset the tour's 2009 emissions, the band would have to plant over 20,000 trees. In an interview with BBC Radio, The Edge reiterated that U2 were offsetting their carbon emissions, also stating, "We'd love to have some alternative to big trucks bringing the stuff around but there just isn't one."