After announcing additional dates in Australia, New Zealand, Mexico City and South Africa, Billboard.biz confirms that U2 will take its record-breaking 360 tour to Nashville’s Vanderbilt Stadium on July 2 of next year, the band’s first trip to the market in more than 29 years.
By the time the tour returns to North America, it will have been seen by well over 4 million fans and is marching toward becoming the highest-grossing tour of all time. A press conference is announcing the Nashville show today.
U2 is adding some select dates to its re-scheduled second North American leg, which was postponed due to back surgery for the band’s frontman, Bono. The will be U2’s first appearance in Nashville since December 2, 1981, also at Vanderbilt. Commenting on U2’s return to Nashville after such a long absence from the market, tour producer Arthur Fogel, chairman of Live Nation Global Touring, tells Billboard.biz, “In rescheduling the postponed dates to 2011 it opened up the opportunity to add a few additional cities. It has been a very long time since U2 has played Nashville — too long — and it will be a great show in a great city.”
At about 50,000 capacity for the show, Vanderbilt Stadium will be one of the smallest-capacity venues to be played on the tour, which boasts a ground-breaking production and staging that allows for an attendance-boosting 360-degree configuration, a first for a touring stadium show. U2 is a finalist for the Top Tour and Top Draw awards at the 2010 Billboard Touring Awards in New York Nov. 4, and band manager Paul McGuinness’ Principle Management is a finalist in the Top Manager category.
Tickets for the Nashville show go on sale Oct. 29 and are priced at $30, $55, $95 and $250.