Perhaps the average U2 ticket holder takes for granted what goes on behind, or underneath I should say the stage. Its tall, its massive and yes, during a concert the Claw is mesmerizing--I've seen it firsthand! Yet this stage is not some cheap trick to capture an audience of potentially 90,000+, this stage took months of planning and designing--and it was constructed exactly as it was designed--essentially a space-ship looking claw, hence the name.
The technology behind the Claw is actually state of the art. No LED screen was large enough or advanced enough to accommodate such a stage--especially considering that it has to physically expand and shrink! The screen itself weighs 56 tons and carries 1 million pieces...
Constructing the stage is no easy task either...
-164 ft. tall
-189 trucks to transport
-550 crew members/construction workers that are hauled by 12 buses
-8 full days to construct, perform and deconstruct
-Cost of stage: 20 million (Euros..)
-Excluding construction, the stage costs the band $750,000 a day to operate
While your thinking about that, think about this: U2 built three Claws. And while Claw number one is being used for U2 to perform, number two is being deconstructed from a previous concert, and lucky number three is being constructed for the next performance! Two stadiums (Cowboys Stadium in Arlington, Texas and the Hippodrome de Montreal in Canada) actually had to be renovated to accommodate for the Claws presence--costing the band over an extra $5 million.
U2 has yet to break even with their ticket sales which is saying something since most stadiums can accommodate over 70,000 people.
Watch this time lapse of the claw being constructed--very interesting!
-A. Kennedy
U2360 Wikipedia Page
Claw Facts
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