Innocence + Experience Tour
| World tour by U2 | |
Promotional poster for the tour | |
| Location |
|
|---|---|
| Associated album | Songs of Innocence |
| Start date | 14 May 2015 |
| End date | 7 December 2015 |
| Legs | 2 |
| No. of shows | 76 |
| Attendance | 1,286,416 |
| Box office | $152.2 million |
| U2 concert chronology | |
The Innocence + Experience Tour (styled as iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE Tour) was a worldwide concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. Staged in support of the band's 2014 album Songs of Innocence, the tour visited arenas throughout 2015. It was U2's first time playing arenas since 2005–2006 on their Vertigo Tour. Comprising two legs and 76 concerts, the Innocence + Experience Tour began on 14 May 2015 in Vancouver, Canada. It visited North America from May through July, and Europe from September through December. Shows were predominantly booked in pairs for each market.
Concerts were structured around a loose autobiographical narrative of "innocence" passing into "experience", with a fixed set of songs for the first half of each show and a varying second half, separated by an intermission—a first for U2 concerts. The stage spanned the length of the venue floor and comprised three sections: a rectangular segment representing "innocence"; a smaller circular B-stage representing "experience"; and a connecting walkway to represent the transition between the two themes. A 96-foot-long (29 m) double-sided video screen was suspended above and parallel to the walkway; the structure featured an interior catwalk between the video screens, allowing the band members to perform amidst the video projections. For the tour, U2's sound system was moved to the venue ceilings and arranged in an oval in hopes of improving acoustics by evenly distributing sound throughout the arena.
The Innocence + Experience Tour was well received by critics. According to Billboard, the North American leg of the tour grossed US$76.2 million from 36 sold-out concerts. In total, the tour grossed US$152.2 million from 1.29 million attendees. The final date of the tour, one of two Paris shows rescheduled due to the 13 November 2015 attacks in the city, was filmed for the video Innocence + Experience: Live in Paris and broadcast on the American television network HBO. In 2018, U2 reprised the tour's autobiographical narrative and stage setup for its sequel, the Experience + Innocence Tour.