A logistical breakdown of U2’s next world tour:

Colin Gronning, Production Manager

The main stage, just the manta ray’s head and wings, rolls out in one hundred and ten, eighteen-wheeler twelve-ton trucks. Those vehicles are our lead roll, so those trucks are first out of the current stadium and first in to the next one. And we’ve got three sets of those trucks, because we’re leapfrogging three manta rays. In other words, while you’re watching this show tonight in Hyde Park, we’ve already got a one hundred and ten truck convey on its way to the Go-Green EarthAid™ festival in Oslo with our second manta ray rig, and another one hundred and ten trucks on convoy to, say, Iceland for The World is Hungry® Global Relief Concert. So the band does three nights on and one night off and we’re always set up at the next stop on the tour, all over the world. People say, “Do you really need to roll with three hundred and thirty 18-wheelers for the stages, and the answer, obviously, is yes.” It seems a lot less extravagant when you consider we’re able to roll the band’s instruments and gear using only nine trucks, the outboard lighting grid in just twenty trucks, and the crew on thirteen busses. Then we’ve just got four planes for the band and front office management. When you look at it like that, you realize we’re pretty scaled down out here. It could’ve been a much bigger transportation setup, but the band stepped in and said, “Let’s do the right thing here, let’s keep it small, let’s let the music speak for itself.” So we did.

More at McSweeney’s