If you saw a post on Facebook, or perhaps in a forum, about what U2’s stage will look like and what sort of experience to expect in the arena for this year’s Innocence + Experience tour, don’t believe it. As far as we know here at @U2, no one is sharing reliable facts just yet about what’s in store.
This is NOT a design for U2’s tour stage.
Earlier this week on a Facebook page, this image (without the red “X,” which I added) was posted with a link to the designer’s website. The Facebook poster claimed,
This is U2’s stage setup (a PA sketch, in this case). End of last month, additionally, U2.com by accident posted an animated preview of the stage for like 10 mins or so. It showed the same thing, with Larry having a 360° rotating set in the middle, a little orchestra on the right of the stage and the guitar techs on the left. It’s only the large rectangle running across the whole arena (you won’t be able to walk around the stage, gotta stick on either side), the band plays to both sides, there is literally no “behind the stage”-seat in any arena. That’s why all the seats on the long sides are high priced and the seats on the short sides are not the lowest prices but cat 3 or 2. A video screen runs above the stage, screening to both sides. Where the numbers are, this highly likely will be what is printed “GA (floor) left” on tickets, which probably might be the “main” direction they play. The RED Zones are approx where the number 13 is printed, on both sides of the stage.
The man who created this image is Jeg Dudley, but he’s not the one who started passing it around on Facebook. I contacted Mr. Dudley and he denied this design is for U2 and the upcoming tour.
Dudley told @U2:
That project I briefly worked on with Es [Devlin] is actually quite a few years old, and is not (for) a U2 tour. It was going to be a collaboration between Lady Gaga and another artist, however the tour never happened. Sorry I can’t be of help, but I can assure you I’m not working with or for Es Devlin, and I’m not involved in any U2 work. I did some freelance work for her on a Lady Gaga tour many years ago, which the screenshot you found was related to, but I’ve not been involved in any of her work since then. I now work as a computational designer for an engineering firm, so I get more involved in bridges and buildings, than sets and scenery!
Es Devlin is working for U2’s tour and is credited with set design on Willie Williams’ page. For more about Devlin and what she might have in store for us on the tour, take a look at @U2’s OTR from Feb. 1, written by staffer Sherry Lawrence.
I used this picture to explain the constructure that was seen in the animation and that fits perfectly to the seating plans in 90% of the venues and exactly the description given in Billboard in December 2014. Probaly it’s not the desgin for THAT stage, but i resembles it extremely close. But yeah, copy someone’s post instead of talking to them. Tells a lot.
I recall the tour that never happened, referred to in that quote. It was supposed to be Lady Gaga and Kanye West co-headlining. The tour was announced just before the whole “Kanye/Taylor Swift” controversy, and then he decided to disappear for a while, and the tour was called off. Pre-sales for that tour already begun, just before it was called off….and yes, that was the stage layout in the seating chart used.
And then Gaga eventually went out on her own headlining tour, with a totally different stage.