Innocence + Experience Tour
| World tour by U2 | |
Promotional poster for the tour
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| Location | North America, Europe |
|---|---|
| Associated album | Songs of Innocence |
| Start date | 14 May 2015 |
| End date | 7 December 2015 |
| Legs | 2 |
| No. of shows | 76 total
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| Box office | $152.2 million |
| U2 concert chronology | |
The Innocence + Experience Tour (styled as iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour) was a worldwide concert tour by rock band U2. Staged in support of the band's 2014 album Songs of Innocence, the tour visited arenas throughout 2015. It was U2's first time playing arenas since 2005–2006 on their Vertigo Tour. Comprising two legs and 76 concerts, the Innocence + Experience Tour opened on 14 May 2015 in Vancouver, Canada; the tour visited North America from May through July, and Europe from September through December. Shows were predominantly booked in pairs for each market.
Concerts were structured around a loose narrative of "innocence" passing into "experience", with a fixed set of songs for the first half of each show and a varying second half, separated by an intermission—a first for U2 concerts. The stage spanned the length of the venue floor and was divided into three sections: a rectangular segment representing "innocence"; a smaller circular B-stage representing "experience"; and a connecting walkway to represent the transition between the two themes. A 96-foot-long (29 m) double-sided video screen was suspended above and parallel to the walkway; the structure featured an interior catwalk between the video screens, allowing the band members to perform amidst the video projections. For the tour, U2's sound system was moved to the venue ceilings and arranged in an oval array in hopes of improving acoustics by evenly distributing sound throughout the arena.
The Innocence + Experience Tour was well received by critics. According to Billboard, the North American leg of the tour grossed US$76.2 million from 36 sold-out concerts. In total, the tour grossed US$152.2 million from 1.29 million attendees. The final date of the tour, one of two Paris shows rescheduled due to the 13 November 2015 attacks in the city, was filmed for the video Innocence + Experience: Live in Paris and broadcast on the American television network HBO.
U2's previous tour, the U2 360° Tour, visited stadiums in Europe, North America, Asia, Oceania, Africa and South America from 2009 to 2011 and comprised 110 shows. 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 (50 m) tall, it was the largest stage ever constructed. U2 360° concluded in July 2011 as the highest-grossing concert tour (grossing $736 million) and the highest-attended concert tour (selling 7.3 million tickets).
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