U2's Experience + Innocence Tour Kickoff Impacts New Hot Tours Roundup

U2 scores the third slot on Billboard’s weekly tally Hot Tours (see below) based on grosses reported from its Experience + Innocence trek, running in North America and Europe this year through November. Box fice stats from the first three venues on the tour — reported during the past week by promoter Live Nation — include a combined gross $7.8 million from 61,449 sold seats at four sold-out concerts.   

The premiere performance on May 2 at the BOK Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma, produced a gross $2.1 million to kick f the six-month jaunt booked in 30 cities worldwide. The second show on the itinerary followed two nights later at Scottrade Center in St. Louis, and the third stop was the tour’s first two-show engagement: a May 7-8 event at San Jose’s SAP Center with 28,579 fans in the house.    

The Experience + Innocence tour includes new music from the band’s 14th studio album Songs Experience, released on December 1, 2017. It is the sequel to the Innocence + Experience tour that grossed $152 million in 2015 and earned U2 the No. 3 ranking that year on the Top 25 Tours list.    

The veteran rockers will be playing arenas on this tour just as they did on the 2015 trek. The opening North American leg will run for nine weeks, hitting 17 cities on the continent through early July. In late August, they head to Europe for a run through nine countries that will stretch into November. The final stop will be in U2’s home country: a four-show stint at 3Arena in Dublin, Ireland.

Last year the band was on the road in celebration the 30th anniversary its album The Joshua Tree. From 50 performances at stadiums in 15 countries worldwide, the tour grossed $317 million and ended the year as 2017’s highest-grossing tour. It marked the fifth time since 2000 that U2 took No. 1 on Billboard’s annual ranking the year’s Top 25 Tours — the most any touring act.