U2's 360° Tour Finally Comes to An End
Monday, 01 August 2011 Written by Elliott Batte


They topped Billboard’s Top 25 grossing tours list, and managed to sell out 23 stadiums along the way, but U2’s monstrous 360° tour finally came to an end last Saturday.

The Irish rockers set the record for the highest grossing tour of all time, clocking in at an incredible £448 million (or a much nicer looking $736,137,344) for the two year and one month trip around the world. They managed to beat the previous record holders The Rolling Stones by almost $200million, with the Stones managing a meagre $588million.

The figures for the tour are simply incredible – after their show on saturday the band would have played to a massive 7.26million people. And they were all paying customers. Which makes you wonder how the band was ever accused of tax evasion... These 7million+ ticket sold mean this tour was also the most attended tour of all time. Every show sold out, including the 23 stadiums dates – some within minutes of tickets going on sale. It also took gold in Billboard’s Touring Award for highest grossing tour of the year in both 2009 and 2010, and came 1st in the highest grossing of the last 6 months.

In fact, there wasn’t many records it didn’t break – their show in Rose Bowl in California, which was filmed for a DVD release, was streamed on YouTube live and was subsequently crowned as the most watched live video stream YouTube’s ever hosted. It even won an award for ‘best box score at a single venue’ for a gig in Croke Park, Dublin. And, just in case any U2 fans who weren’t around on Earth to catch them on tour, a video link was established at some gigs for astronauts in the International Space Station.

Countless superstars have supported the band along the jaunt, including Jay Z, Muse, Snow Patrol and Arcade Fire – not to mention the astronauts who performed intergalactic versions of tracks for the tour - all to support the band’s 2009 album No Line on the Horizon.

If you thought Take That’s eight-day streak in Wembley was good, think again. U2 have set the standards at practically unobtainable heights. To break this new highest-grossing tour record it may be necessary that Jesus himself team up with a born again Elvis for a 3 year tour of the world. And even then, it would still be a close-call. If you caught U2 at one of their hundreds of shows in the past three years, leave a comment to tell Stereoboard what you thought.
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