not a member? click here to sign up

Exclusive: Paul McGuinness on U2's World Tour

Paul McGuinness has been talking to Hot Press about the imminent announcement of U2’s world tour, which is likely to include three Croke Park stop-offs in July.

The Hot Press Newsdesk, 04 Mar 2009

“This is going to be a very big tour, the biggest shows we’ve ever done,” he reveals. “We’re going to play stadiums only. Football stadiums. That excludes, for instance, baseball stadiums because the production that we’ve designed is 360º. It’s a stage with the audience on all sides.”

Will the stage be in the centre of the arena?

“Not quite in the centre, it will be towards one end of the field in a typical football stadium, so the places we’re playing will be tiered football stadiums; no flat fields, no festivals, no baseball stadiums. Only big, tiered stadiums.”

As with previous U2 productions, there’s a heavy emphasis on new technology.

“Well, yeah. I mean the engineering to do this, obviously it has to be a freestanding structure that has to support sound, lighting and video. And that’s never been done before. Some people have performed in the middle of a field or maybe in a stadium on a one-off basis, but this is a touring production designed by Mark Fischer and Willie Williams, as usual. We’ve been talking about it for years, and this is the time we’re going to do it. It will be necessary to tell people a bit about the production before the tickets go on sale because otherwise they’re going to say, ‘hold on, that seat is behind the stage’. Now, it’s not behind the stage. There is no behind. So we’ll be playing to very large capacities and that gives us an opportunity, or we think it’s an opportunity, to scale the house in quite a radical way. So I think, when the tour is announced, which will probably be on March 9th, certainly we are going to start in Europe, and basically do six weeks in Europe, take a logistical break and then six weeks in North America. The large capacities give us an opportunity to scale the house and have some seats at very low prices, and there will be higher prices as well. But the breadth of the scaling will be wider than anyone has ever done in our business. That’s kinda news.”



Page 1/2     <Previous 1 2 Next> 



The Hot Press Newsdesk

Artist Related Content

Latest Related Articles For This Artist

Win Bono's shades at London charity gig!

You can also catch David Gray, Gabriella Cilmi and The Magic Numbers going acoustic for Africa.


News: 2013-01-25

Department of Education join U2 and The Ireland Funds Project

The Department of Education are to start helping fund the Music Generation project, which U2 and The Ireland Funds have bankrolled to the tune of €7 million since 2007.


News: 2013-01-21

New U2 Book

It will feature extensive snaps of the Dublin band.


News: 2012-09-06

Former Adam Clayton Assistant Found Guilty

Carol Hawkins, the former personal assistant to Adam Clayton of U2, has been found guilty of stealing almost €3 million from him.


News: 2012-06-29

U2 photo exhibition opens

Running until the autumn...


News: 2012-05-10

Latest Related Videos For This Artist

Contact Us

Hot Press,
13 Trinity Street,
Dublin 2.
Rep. Of Ireland
Tel: +353 (1) 241 1500

Email:info@hotpress.ie

Click here for more contact information.

Click here to find out more about Hot Press

Hot Press always welcomes feed back so if you've got something to tell us click here.

Advertise With Us

For more detail on how to advertise with Hot Press click here or call us on +353 (1) 241 1540