Today we celebrate the fifth birthday of Britney’s eighth concert tour, ‘The Femme Fatale Tour.’
The Femme Fatale Tour was the eleventh highest grossing tour of 2011, with a gross of $68.7 million. After the first ten shows, the Femme Fatale Tour had already grossed $6.2 million bucks. Not bad for a week and a half’s work.
On show day, set up required 23, 18-wheeler trucks and would start as early as 5am. The crew builds the stage from the ceiling downward, rather than starting from the bottom up. It took on average seven hours from start to finish.
50,000 refrigerators could run solely on the power produced from the Femme Fatale stage each night! If you placed all of the LED screens used in the show next to each other, it would create 56 feet of Britney viewing pleasure.
Britney’s tour by the numbers: 140 workers, 125 crew members, 14 tour buses, 16 dancers, 2 band members and 1 icon! The 265 people that make the show possible do not go hungry. On average, 8 grocery trips are made in each venue’s city.
Britney’s costumes on this tour were designed by Zaldy Goco, who has also worked with Gwen Stefani and Lady Gaga. In the encore number of the show, Toxic, Britney wears a handmade Japanese Kimono with Toxic written in Japanese on the right sleeve and a handmade portrait of the pop queen on the left sleeve.
Keeping with the international woman of mystery theme, Britney changed her hairstyle for each location on the Femme Fatale Tour, to reflect the city she’s in. Britney’s also had a chandelier in her dressing room that followed her around the world. The set locations included many countries that Britney had either never been to, or never toured before.
.jpg)
When the tour was announced in May 2011, Enrique Iglesias was confirmed as the supporting act for the tour. Minutes after the worldwide announcement, Enrique’s team pulled out stating that he could fill arenas on his own and would not be a support act, they were under the impression that it would a combined tour with both artists as headliners. Nicki Minaj was brought in shortly after the announcement, which was by far a more suitable choice and more relevant to the tour.
Nicki Minaj joined Britney on stage to perform, ‘Till The World Ends (The Femme Fatale Remix)’ on numerous dates.
3ality Digital filmed the Toronoto tour in 2D and 3D which aired on Fox in the United States only.
On 9 July 2011, Britney headlined Summerfest with the tour, making it her first time headlining the festival since 2000. Britney was due to headline Summerfest in 2004 but had to pull out due to a leg injury.
Britney included a lap-dance on her tour, much to the excitement of many of fans young and older…
The tour paid tribute to many female artists including Marilyn Monroe, Sarah Jessica Parker (she mentioned most of her looks and hair styles were inspired by the SATC star), Brigitte Bardot (Make up style) and Madonna. Britney performed Madonna’s debut single as part of her set-list and also included her duet with Rihanna, ‘S&M.’
Professional footage of the show was released on DVD, which is the first time since Britney’s early career days.
Celebrate with us by watching the full tour below. Unfortunately due to copyright, the better quality versions have been removed from Youtube.
Ahh the special memories – Happy Birthday!
