U2 Elevation Tour
Starting from “ideas on a napkin” or highly specified plans, PRG’s custom fabrications help lighting designers turn their visions into showstoppers.
The Challenge: Create custom fixtures that generate high-impact moments.
The Solution: Having worked with Irish rockers U2 for more than a decade of stadium spectaculars, PRG helped the band realize a very different vision for its 2001-02 Elevation tour. Moving the show indoors, the group wanted to scale back the production, engaging the audience instead with striking simplicity. This approach meant using fewer images and effects, and each element had to heighten the experience in novel ways.
Working with the design team, PRG developed new lighting instruments that enabled the group to realize its exacting vision. Building on a simple designer’s sketch, PRG created custom four-way DWE Mole striplights, set in deep wedge-shaped boxes, that washed the stage with a distinctive, contemporary light. For the song “Bad,” we designed and built custom “ripple drums,” perforated, rotating drums whose beams pierced the air with dramatic light and motion. In addition to these custom items, PRG supplied other carefully chosen fixtures and large-format projection equipment, helping U2 once again present a tour that exceeded its audience’s high expectations.