page_title: U2 360° Tour
section_title: Commercial partnerships and philanthropy
hierarchical_section_title: U2 360° Tour / Commercial partnerships and philanthropy
caption_attribution_description: English: An image of several small cars with the Blackberry and U2 branding on them, parked outside of the Rogers Centre in Toronto, Ontario.
context_page_description: The U2 360° Tour was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of the group's 2009 album No Line on the Horizon, the tour visited stadiums from 2009 through 2011. The concerts featured the band playing "in the round" on a circular stage, allowing the audience to surround them on all sides. To accommodate the stage configuration, a large four-legged structure nicknamed "The Claw" was built above the stage, with the sound system and a cylindrical, expanding video screen on top of it. At 164 feet tall, it was the largest stage ever constructed. U2 claimed that the tour would be "the first time a band has toured in stadiums with such a unique and original structure."
  In an era of declining music sales, analysts expected U2 360° to be a major source of income for the band. Every date of the tour sold out, many within minutes of tickets going on sale. To accommodate the time required to assemble and transport "The Claw" between tour dates, three separate stage structures were required on tour. The 360-degree production increased the capacity of venues by up to 25%, leading to attendance records at over 60 venues.
context_section_description: The tour was U2's first under their 12-year deal with Live Nation. It was sponsored by BlackBerry, in a move that broke U2's prior relationship with Apple Inc. and opened possibilities for collaborations between U2 and Research In Motion on mobile music experiences. Lead singer Bono said of the new relationship, "I'm very excited about this. Research in Motion is going to give us what Apple wouldn't: access to their labs and their people so we can do something really spectacular." The explicit corporate sponsorship of a tour was a first for the group, and was due to the anticipated production costs being higher than for any previous U2 tour. The first commercials for a new BlackBerry application, called the "U2 Mobile App", began airing in early July 2009 against the song "I'll Go Crazy If I Don't Go Crazy Tonight"; the application allows the user to listen to the album No Line on the Horizon, contains a news section which features updates about the tour, and an interactive section that allows the sharing of images and enables the user to see their position during a concert relative to the band and other application users. Models of the stage were added to Google Earth approximately a week before the scheduled concert took place; tour architect Mark Fisher stated, "We thought it would be interesting to put up on Google Earth a piece of portable architecture."
  A category of stage-close seats called "The Red Zone" was created to be sold by an auction process, at prices estimated at up to €1,000 ($1,300). All proceeds are to be donated by U2 members to charity, with The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria expected to receive much of it. Approximately €9 million ($11 million) in U2 360° Tour profits is expected to go to charity. The band asked fans to bring masks of Aung San Suu Kyi to concerts and wear them during performances of "Walk On" in her support; the song was originally written for Suu Kyi.
  The tour was subject to minor criticisms, at both the events surrounding the opening concerts in Barcelona, and the concerts in Dublin. When rehearsing for the tour in Barcelona, residents of the city complained about the band's noise after 10 pm, which was the time until which the city allowed the band to rehearse. The setup of the band's stage for the Croke Park concerts in Dublin was criticised by fans for only allowing seating around part of the circular-shaped stage, taking away from the 360° seating configuration that was used at other venues. One fan claimed that only 270° of seating around the stage was being utilised for the three Dublin concerts, and that there was no reason that the stage could not be placed in the middle of the venue. Additional criticisms about the Croke Park shows arose from about 80 Dublin citizens, who protested against the Dublin City Council for allowing the band's crew to dismantle the stage in the middle of the night following the three concerts, due to the loud noises caused by the crew. The protest blocked several crew trucks from exiting the venue, putting the tour behind schedule, and tour promoter MCD Productions delivered a letter to the protesters informing them that they could be sued for any of the tour's financial losses due to the protest. In addition to the loudness of the band's crew, the Dublin City Council decided to withhold the band's €80,000 ($104,000) bond, after breaking the 75 decibel maximum volume at all three of the Dublin concerts.
  Like most concerts, tour venues have benefited from hosting concerts. North Carolina State University's agreement with Live Nation resulted in $166,000 in parking proceeds and $175,858 food and beverage concessions. Additionally Live Nation agreed to pay for replacing the sod on the football field where the stage and floor seating was located up to a cost of $250,000.
caption: Cars with the BlackBerry and U2 branding in front of Rogers Centre in Toronto.
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