While the COVID-19 pandemic put a major halt on rock tours for more than a year, now is the time for legendary bands and singers to return to the stage, after having experimented with virtual concerts on Web 2.0 platforms1 instead of the traditional live gigs. Just like the restoration of a “new normal” in companies, 2023 is a return to the big tours for dozens of artists and bands in the United States2. More broadly, the entertainment industry, including major sporting and cultural events, is experiencing an economic renaissance, as evidenced by the popular success of the 2022 World Cup football tournament in Qatar. If the public is now accustomed to seeing the impressive images of thousands of fans gathered in a stadium for the concert of a famous band, it does not suspect that worldwide tours are the result of the perfect coordination of hundreds of people, a prerequisite for a total ‒ and successful ‒ experience for fans. To illustrate the “logistical overkill” and the stakes involved, one of the best examples is undoubtedly the Rammstein Stadium tour.
The tour of the German metal band, with its “sulphurous” reputation, uses 180 semi-trailers, more than 1,000 tons of equipment, and two stages 230 feet wide and 130 feet high. It is the biggest rock tour in the world, organised in two sequences, from May to August 2019, then from May 2022 to August 2023, for a total of 104 concerts in Europe and North America with exceptional attendance (including 80,000 people at the Song Festival Grounds in Tallinn, Estonia, on 20 July 2022). Each concert ties up a stadium for 10 consecutive days, while setting up the stage requires seven days of work and the presence of 300 technicians. As for the concert itself, the pyrotechnic effects lead to the burning of 265 gallons of fuel oil per evening, to which must be added the electrical consumption of the 2,000-light shows and 370 music speakers. With tour in 2004 and 2005, which had required Rammstein to employ “only” 10 to 13 semi-trailers.
