U2 gets sponsored by BlackBerry
The tour U2 are soon to be embarking on is brought to you by those Canadian Smartphone manufactures Research In Motion – expect to see a U2 branded handsets any day now.
U2’s 360 degree tour is backed by BlackBerry to promote their 12th album ‘No Line On The Horizon’, kicking off in Barcelona on June 30th this year.
The name of the tour comes from its apparent effort for the concert goer to experience an uninterrupted, unobstructed, full view, of their stage performance.
Those of you who remember the last album might recall or even purchased one of the U2 branded iPods that came out at the time. Which begs the question; Why BlackBerry and not someone bigger like Apple to back the tour? Surely greater tie-ins can be obtained elsewhere and with a more apt backer?
Questions such as those will probably relate to the economy not being all that great at the moment, in the US of A. We could always be wrong on that point, or they just missed the boat on this one.
RIM has been for the past few years trying to ever so eagerly break into the mass consumer market, with their candy bar Pearls and more recently the Vodafone/Verizon Storm backed touch screen handset.
This new move from them could very well cement this deal, or at least add a greater impression that they play nicely with consumers too along with the business world.
Just in case you were wondering when and where you might be able to catch U2 and BlackBerry on stage, the following are dates produced by Live Nation.
EUROPEAN TOUR SCHEDULE:
30-JUNE BARCELONA, SP NOU CAMP
07-JULY MILAN, IT SAN SIRO
11-JULY PARIS, FR STADE DE FRANCE
15-JULY NICE, FR PARC CHARLES EHRMANN
18-JULY BERLIN, DE OLYMPIC STADIUM
20-JULY AMSTERDAM, NL ArenA
24-JULY DUBLIN, IE CROKE PARK
31-JULY GOTHENBURG, SE ULLEVI
06-AUG CHORZOW, PL SLASKI STADIUM
10-AUG ZAGREB, HR MAKSIMIR STADIUM
14-AUG LONDON, UK WEMBLEY STADIUM
18-AUG GLASGOW, UK HAMPDEN PARK
20-AUG SHEFFIELD, UK DON VALLEY STADIUM
22-AUG CARDIFF, UK MILLENNIUM STADIUM
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR SCHEDULE:
12-SEPT CHICAGO, IL SOLDIER FIELD
16-SEPT TORONTO, ON THE ROGERS CENTRE
20-SEPT BOSTON, MA GILLETTE STADIUM
24-SEPT NEW YORK, NY GIANTS STADIUM
Now, the details passed to the press today mentioned the tour is presented by ‘BlackBerry Revolutionary Production Design Revealed’. We’re not entirely sure if this is just word play, or if there is anything on the horizon named ‘Revealed’ in the BlackBerry portfolio.
We are however expecting some tie-in at a later date, with exclusive content or a limited edition branding of a handset, as the tour kicks off. As why else would there be a deal like this announced, someone has to make some money somewhere out of this.
Let’s hope it’s a BlackBerry U2 Storm handset, then we can write headlines such as – U2 Storms the charts with mobile phone tie-in.
What about a Curve or Pearl branded mobile, in order to produce such gems as – U2 launches a Pearl of a handset or Curve your mind around U2’s new phone.
