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From the time a show closes at one venue to the time it opens at another, the logistics of concert tours can baffle even those who have been touring for decades. The take down, transition and instalment of a show can take anywhere from several hours to several days. Some concert tours are the size of small cities, especially when the performer or band is an extremely well known ‘A-Lister’.
‘A-Lister’ tours such as U2’s 360° tour, or Beyonce’s Formation tour of Europe, or Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, need dozens of logistical factors taken into account. Logistics of concert tours are rarely something people outside of the industry think about. Everything from merchandise being deplenished at every venue, to the endless forms that customs makes you fill out to tour between countries. Companies often employ over a hundred people on crew for a single tour.
A rigger constructing part of U2’s 360° tour set, photo by Ralph Larmann.
U2’s 360° tour employed 120 trucks to be the transport for everything on their tour, including the set itself, the 888 individual video panels, and 250 speakers. The video screen alone took 8 hours on average to set up for each show, and 6 hours to dismantle. Their 360° tour started in the summer of 2009 and finished in the autumn of 2011. During this time, the band visited dozens of areas in North America, South America, Australia, Russia, and Europe. They had a crew of 300 people, and a budget of $750,000 per day (￡585,672.96). The show was seen by over 7 million people, and planning for this massive record-setting tour began while U2’s Vertigo tour was coming to a close in December 2006.
“After two years, three birthdays, a back injury and a hell of a lot of heartache, we’re finally coming up with something that we’re proud of.” stated Bono towards the end of the tour.
Beyonce’s Formation tour of Europe employed 7 Boeing 747 Cargo planes, which took up two airports, in need of transporting all of her stage equipment across countries. Even though it is six times more expensive to send them by air than by see, superstars like Beyonce rely on this. The European leg of the Formation tour also needed 70 trucks to get her gear to and from each venue. Her video wall consisted of 70 panels, and even had a treadmill runway stage. During this tour, she performed for 49 shows and the show was seen by 2.24 million people. The Formation tour earned Beyonce over $250 million in ticket sales.
During Taylor Swift’s Eras tour, the world renowned singer employed 90 trucks, and gave bonuses to each of her truck drivers and crew totaling $55 million. The estimated cost of employing just the transport for the tour is roughly $30 million. It’s also estimated that by the end of the Eras tour, Taylor Swift will have earned $1.4 billion from ticket sales. Each show on the Eras tour consists of 44 songs, multiple costume changes, and has a run time of just over 3 hours. Her crew had to split into two separate teams that needed to operate simultaneously in separate parts of the US. On average, setting up the show in each new city took 2 weeks to set up and Taylor was performing every weekend on her Eras tour. Pictured below are some of her trucks at a venue on a stop during her North American leg of the tour.
Janine has always been a part of music and performing. The first show that inspired her to go into theatre was the Velveteen Rabbit which she saw as a child, and Drew works to keep that magic alive in her work. When Drew was accepted into an internship program for audio engineering at a recording studio, she jumped at the opportunity. That was at the start of 2020, and so much has happened since then, both in her career and in the world. Since then, Drew has taken several opportunities to work at recording studios, concerts, festivals, and even large theatres while spending some time on tour. Drew's favorite by far though, has been the chance to work on Broadways and West End shows, as this was a dream come true. Drew is honoured to get to share these experiences from being inside the entertainment industry.
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