The 360 Tour features a round stage positioned on the stadium floor with the band surrounded by their audience, the natural progression of their previous tours. By elevating the sound and lighting equipment, the walls that traditionally obscure performers from their audience are removed. This has also allowed greater capacity and a lower general ticket price.

The stage is designed by long-time collaborator Willie Williams and architect Mark Fisher who have worked together with U2 since ZooTv. Advances in technology and digital communication have allowed Williams to create an overhead expandable cylindrical screen made up of 500,000 pixels.

“The band has been moving further into the crowd with every tour. Tonight they’ve arrived. Willie and Mark have spent five years perfecting this beautiful and extraordinary frame, once the crowd came in tonight, we got lift-off!” said U2 manager Paul McGuinness.

“U2 has always put on the most exciting live show. They’ve really raised the bar with this production. They want the best for their fans and based on the reaction they have absolutely delivered,” said Arthur Fogel, CEO Global Touring/Chairman – Global Music Live Nation.

The U2 360 Tour will play 15 cities in Europe finishing at Cardiff’s Millennium on 22nd August before heading to North America 20 shows starting in Chicago September 12th. In 2009, in just 44 shows the tour will perform for over 3 million fans.

U2 360 Tour is produced by Live Nation Global Touring. For complete tour and ticket information visit: www.livenation.com and www.U2.com

ABOUT LIVE NATION

Live Nation’s mission is to maximize the live concert experience. Our core business is producing, marketing and selling live concerts for artists via our global concert pipe. Live Nation is the largest producer of live concerts in the world, annually producing over 22,000 concerts for 1,600 artists in 33 countries. During 2008, the company sold over 50 million concert tickets and drove over 70 million unique visitors to LiveNation.com. Live Nation is transforming the concert business by expanding its concert platform into ticketing and building the industry’s first artist-to-fan vertically integrated concert platform. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, California and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, trading under the symbol LYV. For additional information about the company, please visit www.livenation.com/investors.

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SOURCE: Live Nation