U2 To Sell Off Stages
Three of their \"claws\" will be sold as permanent venues
Billboard reports that after the record-setting two-year-plus 360 trek, U2's management plans to sell off three of the full, four-legged, 29,000-square-foot steel structures as venues unto themselves.
"It's certainly our intention to see these things recycled into permanent and usable ventures," U2 tour director Craig Evans told Billboard.biz earlier this month. "It represents too great an engineering feat to just use for the tour and put away in a warehouse somewhere."
Evans added that the U2 camp is "now in discussions to send them into different places around the world and have them installed as permanent venues. Some major events have shown interest in these, from four different continents - and we haven't even really put the word out yet."
Evans declined to mention specific potential buyers for the structures but said that most of the ideas are "for turning them into full interior pavilions and amphitheaters. They're something you can put up on a waterfront and become an instant skyline icon. We know that the inquiries will keep coming in."
And, Evans added, it hardly hurts that the 360 Tour is the biggest in history, on track to play to some seven million fans and gross $700 million by the time it finishes.
"Having been part of the biggest tour of all time, they're pretty well tried and tested," he said. "They can carry weights no other structure can consider, and since they're already developed and designed you can probably complete a venue in a one-month period instead of a two-year build period."