U2 announced on October 15, 2026 the first six dates of Carnaval De Luz presents: The Greatest Show On Earth, its first stadium tour since 2019. It opens at Mexico City's Estadio GNP Seguros on February 23, 2027, then plays São Paulo and Buenos Aires, with Beck supporting. Paid U2.com subscribers get tickets first, from October 19.
The band calls the title a dare. The bolder bet is commercial: in its 50th year, U2 starts its comeback lap not in Dublin or London but where the stadium business is hottest, and sells the first tickets to people who paid to be on the list.
Where and when does the tour play?
U2.com lists two nights in each city, all with Beck. One trade report printed the second Buenos Aires show as March 26; the band's own tour page and announcement both say March 25, and that is the date here.
| Date (2027) | City | Venue | General on-sale |
|---|---|---|---|
| Feb 23 | Mexico City | Estadio GNP Seguros | Oct 23, 10am |
| Feb 26 | Mexico City | Estadio GNP Seguros | Oct 23, 10am |
| Mar 10 | São Paulo | Estádio MorumBIS | Oct 22, 10am |
| Mar 12 | São Paulo | Estádio MorumBIS | Oct 22, 10am |
| Mar 23 | Buenos Aires | Estadio River Plate | Oct 22, 10am |
| Mar 25 | Buenos Aires | Estadio River Plate | Oct 22, 10am |
The tour supports Carnaval De Luz, U2's 16th studio album, due November 13. Its third single, “The Greatest Show On Earth,” co-written with Brian Eno and filmed by Anton Corbijn in the Californian desert, came out with the announcement. These are the only Latin American cities on next year's route; Europe and North America dates are due “in the coming weeks,” with a return to Ireland in the works. No changes to any date had been reported as of October 16.
“The Greatest Show on Earth”? Now that's a throwdown. It's a dare, to ourselves as much as anyone, to try and have the best night of anybody's life.Bono, Edge, Adam and Larry, U2.com, October 15, 2026
Why open a world tour in Latin America?
Follow the grosses. In Pollstar's 2026 mid-year rankings, covering November 13, 2025 to May 13, 2026, Estadio GNP Seguros was the top-grossing stadium on earth, with $217.6 million and 1,654,367 tickets. Second place went to Buenos Aires' Estadio Más Monumental, River Plate's home, the venue U2 plays on March 23 and 25. Two of the tour's three stops are the world's two biggest stadiums by gross.
The same report found North America going the other way: per-show grosses there averaged $1,141,221, down 7.8% on 2025, while across the global Top 100 the count of stadium tours at mid-year fell back to 11 from 18. In September 2025, at the VenuesNow Conference as recapped by Pollstar, OCESA's Fernanda Martínez put it bluntly: “Latin America is leading, a historic moment.” Promoters are betting the same way; Live Nation has just agreed to buy into Chile's Bizarro. U2 has not said why the tour starts south; that is our reading of the numbers, not the band's stated reason.
Two of the tour's three stops are the two highest-grossing stadiums in Pollstar's 2026 mid-year ranking.
Who gets tickets first, and how is that different from a sign-up list?
U2's presale is a fan-club gate with a price on the door. Subscriptions on U2.com start at $60. The Feedback Group, subscribers who were paid up by September 25, 2026 and never lapsed, enters Monday, October 19 at 10am local time. The Hype Group, anyone who joined or renewed after that, enters Tuesday, October 20. Both close October 21 at 10pm. Mexico City adds a Ticketmaster artist presale on October 22, with sign-up closing October 18.
The rules lean on identity rather than volume. Each subscriber gets a unique code; for the Feedback Group, the U2.com email must exactly match the Ticketmaster account email; there is a four-ticket cap across all Latin American shows; and U2.com says all code use is audited, with abusers risking cancelled tickets and subscriptions.
Contrast that with another big October presale. Raye says free registration for her Royal Albert Hall show drew 1.8 million sign-ups for 5,000 seats, many of them bot-made. A paid, dated, email-matched list does not make bots impossible, but it makes every fake entry cost money and leaves a trail, which is more than a free form can say. It also means the first fans through the door are the ones who could afford to pay before they knew there was a tour, a trade-off worth naming while the bots fight plays out in court.
A subscription does not guarantee a ticket, U2.com warns. The bigger test comes when Europe and North America dates land.