Wednesday, 1 September 2010

U2 Play In Athens On 360 Degrees Tour

Athens will host the next journey of U2's 360 degree tour on September 3rd at the Olypmic Stadium.

This live webcam is in Athens on the day of the concert:

Live Athens webcam

Tour Information:

Willie Williams, who has worked on every U2 tour since 1982, is again a designer for this tour; Mark Fisher serves as the architect] Williams had been toying with ideas for 360-degree stadium staging for U2 for a number of years, 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. Early reports referred to it as being called the Kiss the Future Tour, though the name was later changed.

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 design features a large four-legged steel structure that holds the speaker system and cylindrical video screen and hovers above the performance area. The stage is surrounded by a circular ramp, which connects to the stage by means of rotating bridges. Fans with general admission tickets can be placed both outside of the ramp, as well as between the ramp and stage. The stage has no defined front or back and is surrounded on all sides by the audience.

The stage design can increase the venues' capacities by about 15–20%. Tiered football stadiums were preferred venues in this scheme, compared to flat fields or baseball stadiums, although a few of the latter added to the routing. 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.

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