MONCTON – 75,000 plus fans descended on Magnetic Hill for the final U2 show of its 360 tour, millions of diehard fans were in Moncton in spirit as social media and smart devices became the eyes and ears of the show to the world.
Fans around the world that could not attend the show live could follow any show via twitter with show hastags assigned to them, Moncton was #U2360MON the tags used communicate news, comments, share the set list, photos to bring fans even closer.
Fans from Brazil, Chile, Portugal and Australia shared the tweets, photos and kept communication going with the pleas for more show details.
“It’s kind of funny that I’ve never heard of Moncton before in my life, but now I’ll never forget it! Wish I was there!!” tweeted @U2junkie, a fan from the United States. Our social media channels had over 1 milllion vistors on Saturday night. At one point it looks as if U2 was trending on every social media outlet.
“It seemed like a whole other audience had tuned into the gig, reading rather than listening. It’s not my idea of rock ‘n’ roll but whatever turns you on. Virtual music. Read the tweet, hear it in your head.”
From Tyler, Texas, Lauralynn Wagner followed the show on Twitter from beginning to end. People around the world were interacting on Twitter during the set, she said, giving the event the feel of a “global experience.”
“It’s just really amazing how technology has been able to connect us, as fans, that way,” Wagner said, adding that she saw people re-tweeting concert tweets from as far away as Argentina.
“There were tweets in Spanish. To get to talk to people from all over the place sharing in this experience - it was just really cool to be able to do that.”
For fans who couldn’t make it to the show, Twitter provided the next best thing, said Dale Rideout-Moores from Paradise, Newfoundland. Rideout-Moores, a U2 fan since the 1980s, followed a handful of Moncton concert-goers online along with a group of about 50 other U2 fans who didn’t make it to Moncton.
“A bunch of us stayed online and talked about the songs as we got individual updates on Facebook or on Twitter,” she said.
“It was nice, because even though you couldn’t be there in person, you sort of had the opportunity to be online and feel like you were at the last show.”
The hashtag #U2360Mon had close to 5,000 significant mentions by the end of the concert, according to the social media analytics site Topsy.
is due on October 31, 2011.
