Formation World Tour

CONCERT SYNOPSIS:

Throughout the concert, a large, rotating LED screen is featured centre stage, projecting live images of Beyoncé and her twenty backup dancers to the audience. The concerts begins with Beyoncé performing “Formation”, alongside her all-female dancers shadowing her and performing a choreography. “Angry” red lighting and pyrotechnics are displayed as “Sorry”, “Bow Down” and “Run the World (Girls)” are subsequently performed. “Mine”, “Baby Boy” and “Hold Up” are performed next, which then seamlessly transition into “Countdown”. During this performance, Beyoncé and her dancers perform and walk down a catwalk leading to the middle of the crowd. Between sets and costume changes, video clips from Lemonade are projected onto the LED cuboid, as well as aerial dancers performing a choreography. Before performing “Me Myself and I” Beyoncé would often stop and talk to the crowd, speaking on the relationship she and the audience have with God and themselves. This act of the show was ended with a performance of “All Night” which Beyoncé stated was her favourite song from her aforementioned new album. “Don’t Hurt Yourself” was performed with many interchangeable snippets of other songs including “Ring the Alarm” and “Independent Women”. The next act consisted of Beyoncé and her dancers performing more up-tempo numbers, such as “Feeling Myself”, “Yoncé”, “Drunk in Love” and “Partition”. Another costume change took place, and the show continued with Beyoncé and her dancers performing “Daddy Lessons” and “1+1”. This was then followed by Beyoncé performing an a cappella rendition of “Love On Top”, which was said to connect Beyoncé with her fans and break down the space between them.

The first of two tributes to Prince is seen as Beyoncé performs a rendition of “The Beautiful Ones”. This is then followed by the large LED cuboid on stage lighting up in complete purple, as an original recording of “Purple Rain” is played to the audience. The stage is then seen to contain human sized boxes, in which Beyoncé and her dancers perform inside of, in sync to the 2014 remix of “Crazy in Love”, which is then followed by “Naughty Girl”. The final act of the show is performed in a large pool of water on the tour’s secondary stage. Here Beyoncé and her dancers perform a choreography and splash in the water to “Freedom”, “Survivor”, “End of Time” and the shows closing number, “Halo”. During “Halo” Beyoncé sings alone, starting the performance on her knees in the pool of water. As the concert concludes, Beyoncé was described as standing on stage “drenched, hair sopping, makeup running and her exhausted body looking at once all but human”.

SETLIST:

“No Angel” (video intro) (contains elements of “Formation”)

Act I

1. “Formation”
2. “Sorry” (contains elements of “I’m Sorry”)
3. “Bow Down” (contains elements of “Tom Ford”)
4. “Run the World (Girls)”

“Superpower” (video interlude) (containing elements of “Made It”)

Act II

5. “Mine” (contains elements of “Standing on the Sun Remix”)
6. “Baby Boy” (contains elements of “Freaks”)
7. “Hold Up” (contains elements of “Bam Bam”)
8. “Countdown” (contains elements of “Pop My Trunk”)
9. “Me, Myself and I”
10. “Runnin’ (Lose It All)”
11. “All Night”

“I Care” (video interlude) (contains elements of “Ghost”, “New Slaves”, “The Hills” and “6 Inch”)

Act III

12. “Don’t Hurt Yourself”
13. “Ring the Alarm” (contains elements of “Five to One”, “Ring the Alarm (Tenor Saw song)”, “Independent Woman Part I”, “Lost Yo Mind”, “Naughty Girl” and “I Been On”)
14. “Diva”(contains elements of “U Mad” and “Cut It”)
15. “Flawless (Remix)”
16. “Feeling Myself”
17. “Yoncé”
18. “7/11”
19. “Drunk in Love” (contains elements of “Swimming Pools (Drank)”)
20. “Rocket”

“Hip Hop Star” / “Freakum Dress” (video interlude)

Act IV

21. “Daddy Lessons”
22. “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)”

“Purple Rain” (video interlude with the original recording)

Act V

23. “Crazy in Love” (contains elements of the 2014 Remix and excerpts from “Bootylicious”)
24. “Naughty Girl”
25. “Party” (contains elements of “La Di Da Di”)
26. “Blow” (contains elements of “Give It to Me Baby” and “Nasty Girl”)
27. “Sweet Dreams” (contains elements of “Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)”)

“Die With You” (video interlude) (contains elements of “Blue”)

Act VI – Encore

28. “Freedom”
29. “Survivor”
30. “End of Time” (contains elements of “Grown Woman”)
31. “Halo”

TOUR FACTS:

Chairman of Live Nation Global Touring Arthur Fogel confirmed in an article with Billboard that The Formation World Tour had already exceeded $100 million in gross revenue, as well as stating that Nashville’s Nissan Stadium date of the tour, which had gone on sale the day of the article, had already sold 33,000 tickets and grossed $4 million. In July 2016, Pollstar‘s top 100 worldwide and North American tours charts were announced. Beyoncé ranked at #1 in North America with a domestic gross of $126.3 million from the first North America leg of the tour, and at #2 with $137.3 million on the worldwide chart, accounting for the first 25 shows of the tour.

According to Billboard Boxscore, the first North American leg of the tour generated $123 million in ticket sales and played to 972,719 fans over 23 sold-out shows. These included a two night stint at Chicago’s Soldier Field, playing for 89,270 people and two nights at New York City’s Citi Field, playing for 73,486. The highest grossing single show of the leg was at Los Angeles’ Rose Bowl, playing for 55,736 and grossing $7.1 million. In Europe, the tour continued to be a success, with another 17 sold-out shows being reported by Billboard. The leg included two sell out nights at London’s Wembley Stadium, playing for 142,500 fans and grossing $15.3 million, the sixth largest boxscore of the year reported by Billboard at the time of the article. The highest attended stop of the European stint, and the tour overall, was at Saint-Denis’ Stade de France, which played to a crowd of 75,106 people. The leg grossed $86.9 million and played for 867,025 people in total. Following the final leg of the tour being reported to Billboard Boxscore, the tour’s total gross revenue reached $256,084,556, with total attendance topping out at 2,242,099. Beyoncé, with The Formation World Tour, also ranked at #2 on Pollstar‘s annual Year End Top Worldwide Tours chart. Other Pollstar year end charts showed that Beyoncé’s two performances at Wembley Stadium during the tour were the 6th largest grossing shows of the year worldwide, whilst the tour’s two stops at New York City’s Citi Field were the 5th highest-grossing concerts within the US. Chris Hunt, writing for ticket merchant AXS, reported that The Formation World Tour was one of the top 20 highest-grossing tours of all time. Hunt also noted that within the same top 20, the tour had the fewest shows.

TOUR PHOTOS:

To view more of these photos, simply click on the ones on top.

TOUR DATES:

ADDITIONAL NOTES

• Starting with the show in Tampa, “7/11”, “Sweet Dreams” & “Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It)” were dropped from the setlist. “1+1” was added to the set list in replacement for “Single Ladies”.
• During the show in Raleigh, the stadium was evacuated during the middle of “Daddy Lessons” after lightning had been spotted in the area. The show later resumed after almost an hour with “Crazy in Love” with “1+1” not being performed that night.
• Starting with the first show in Houston, “Partition” and an acapella version of “Kitty Kat” were added to the setlist.
• During the first show in Houston and the show in Arlington, “Still Tippin'” was included in the “Diva” dance break. Starting with the San Diego, “Panda” replaced “Still Tippin'” for the remainder of the first North American Leg and the European Leg. Although, during the first show in London, “Cut It” & “Panda” was replaced with “Man”. Starting with the St. Louis show, “Cut It” & “Panda” was replaced with “I Got the Keys”.
• Starting with the show in Arlington, “Love On Top” was added to the setlist. Additionally, a cover of “The Beautiful Ones” by Prince was performed. The song was performed during the rest of the first leg of the tour, except in Toronto. On the European leg, the song was only performed at the following concerts in Cardiff, London, Dublin, Milan, Copenhagen and Frankfurt.
• During the show in Minneapolis, the stadium was evacuated due to near by lightning strikes. The show was postponed for forty-five minutes.
• During the show in Detroit, Beyoncé dedicated “Halo” to the victims affected by the Orlando nightclub shooting.
• During the show in Sunderland, Cardiff, Manchester and Dublin, “Partition” was not performed.
• Starting with the show in Sunderland, “Blow” was removed from the setlist.
• Starting with the show in Cardiff “Kitty Kat” was removed from the setlist and replaced with an a capella version of “Irreplaceable”.
• During the show in Glasgow, Beyoncé started the performance of “Freedom” in a capella, as tribute to Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, and other victims of police brutality.
• During the show in Barcelona, “Irremplazable” was performed instead of “Irreplaceable”.
• Starting with the show in St. Louis, “Irreplaceable” was removed, adding “Kitty Kat” back to the setlist. Additionally, “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It)” was performed.
• During the show in New Orleans, Big Freedia introduced Beyoncé to the stage starting the “Formation” performance.
• During the second show in Atlanta, “Dey Know” replaced “I Got the Keys” during the Diva dance break, paying tribute to Shawty Lo who had just passed away 5 days prior to the show.
• During the last show of the tour at East Rutherford, Serena Williams, Jay-Z & Kendrick Lamar joined Beyoncé on stage while performing “Sorry”, “Drunk in Love” and “Freedom”. “6 Inch” was performed.

STAGE

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The stage for the tour was described as “a game-changer for what can be achieved in a stadium touring environment. The entire collaboration from scenic, to structure, to mechanics was custom-made to create an epic experience for both Beyoncé and her fans”. Designed by Es Devlin and engineered and built collaboratively by Stageco and Tait Towers, the tour’s stage features a centrepiece of a revolving 60 foot tall box, made with video screen walls. Known as the ‘Monolith’, Devlin spoke on the box stating of “wanting this to be the tallest object in the stadium, a piece of kinetic stadium architecture the equivalent of a seven-story, revolving LED building”. Devlin also commented the box was perceived as “a giant 3D billboard, a huge LED armor within which Beyoncé is revealed as an all-too-human-scale, real-life figure” and noted that Beyoncé was heavily involved in the creative process of every inch of stages design. The rotations of the box were said to represent a new chapter of the show, in a similar chapter line to that of Lemonade. The box takes approximately 4 minutes to achieve one rotation.

The stage also consists of a runway, which also acts as a treadmill leading onto a B-stage that fills with a pool of water. The treadmill on the catwalk was designed to be waterproof in order to withstand unpredictable weather found in outdoor stadiums. The B-stage stores 2,000 gallons of water inside of it and takes approximately 10 minutes to fill up, which occurs without the audience even realizing. The inspiration for the water within the B-stage was inspired by the tour’s supporting album Lemonade, in particularly the song “Forward”, as the songs message is described as a turning point from anger to forgiveness. “The pool of water is the antithesis to the fire-spitting monolith; the most joyful, redemptive sequence of the show takes place here, from “Freedom” through to “Halo””, stated Devlin. The tour’s stage and production was said to be so large that the maximum capacity of some venues was reduced in order to make space for it. A writer for the Belfast Telegraph stated that the maximum capacity for Beyoncé’s concert in Dublin at Croke Park was reduced from 82,500 to 75,000 people to allow for the size of the stage, with event organiser Eamon Fox stating “It’s a jaw-dropping production and stage show and one of the biggest that’s ever been in Croke Park”.