The Zoo TV Tour (also written as ZooTV, ZOO TV or ZOOTV) was a worldwide concert tour by the Irish rock band U2. Comprising five legs and 157 shows, the tour supported their 1991 album Achtung Baby and later their 1993 album Zooropa, visiting arenas and stadiums from 1992 to 1993. Intended to mirror the group's new musical direction on Achtung Baby, the Zoo TV Tour departed from their previously austere stage setups by providing an elaborately staged multimedia spectacle, satirising television and media oversaturation by attempting to instill "sensory overload" in the audience. To escape their reputation for being earnest and over-serious, U2 embraced a more lighthearted and self-deprecating image on tour. Zoo TV and Achtung Baby were central to the group's 1990s reinvention.
The tour's concept was inspired by disparate television programming, coverage of the Gulf War, the desensitising effect of mass media, and "morning zoo" radio shows. The stages featured dozens of large video screens that showed sampled video clips, live television, and flashing text phrases, along with a lighting system partially made of Trabant automobiles. The shows incorporated channel surfing, prank calls, video confessionals, a belly dancer, and live satellite transmissions from war-torn Sarajevo. On stage, Bono portrayed several characters he conceived, including the leather-clad egomaniac "The Fly", the greedy televangelist "Mirror Ball Man", and the devilish "MacPhisto". Contrasting with other U2 tours, each of the Zoo TV shows opened with six to eight consecutive new songs before older material was played.
The tour began in Lakeland, Florida, on 29 February 1992 and ended in Tokyo, Japan, on 10 December 1993. It alternated between North America and Europe for the first four legs before visiting Oceania and Japan. After two arena legs, the show's production was expanded for stadiums for the final three legs, which were branded "Outside Broadcast", "Zooropa", and "Zoomerang/New Zooland", respectively. Although the tour provoked a range of reactions from music critics, it was generally well received. It was the highest-grossing North American tour of 1992, and overall it grossed US$151 million (equivalent to about $ million today) from 5.3 million tickets sold. The band's 1993 album Zooropa, recorded during a break in the tour, expanded on Zoo TV's mass media themes. The tour was depicted in the Grammy Award-winning 1994 concert film Zoo TV: Live from Sydney. Critics regard the Zoo TV Tour as one of rock's most memorable and influential tours.
Background
U2's 1987 album The Joshua Tree and the supporting Joshua Tree Tour brought them to a new level of commercial and critical success, particularly in the United States. Like their previous tours, the Joshua Tree Tour was a minimalistic, austere production, and they used this outlet for addressing political and social concerns. an image that became a target for derision after their much-maligned 1988 motion picture and companion album Rattle and Hum, The project was criticised as being "pretentious", and U2 were accused of being grandiose and self-righteous. With a sense of musical stagnation, lead vocalist Bono hinted at changes to come for the band during a 30 December 1989 concert near the end of the tour; before a hometown crowd in Dublin, he said on stage that it was "the end of something for U2" and that they had to "go away and ... just dream it all up again".