U2

It looks like something cribbed from an arcade game. You know, the one with the remote-controlled claw that descends so that you can try and grab this trinket or that.

Except for the fact that it's 164 feet tall.

This gigantic clawlike contraption hulks at the center of one of the biggest road shows ever mounted, U2's mammoth 360 Tour, towering more than 10 stories above a circular stage that rests near the center of the venue.

It's a visual reminder of the magnitude of this undertaking, which is so big, 120 tractor-trailers are required to move the show from one town to the next. There are 137 production crew members on the tour, with more than 100 additional workers hired locally in each city.

It takes 30,000 cables to hook up the tour's monstrous video projection system, and it costs $750,000 a day just to keep the show on the road.

The costs of running the tour are so high, in fact, that it is reportedly not expected to break even until its second leg, despite one sold-out stadium show after the next.

"It's a monster," says Daren Libonati, executive director of Sam Boyd Stadium as well as the Thomas & Mack Center and Cox Pavilion. "This is by far the biggest show we've ever done at the stadium and at the Thomas & Mack Center combined for a one-night concert. Just the cylindrical video system is unbelievable. It spins and comes apart. You're in this huge space, in a stadium, but the 360-degree stage and the claw is so mesmerizing, it sucks you in."

Libonati and some of his production staff already have gotten an up-close-and-personal look at the show, as they recently flew to Chicago to catch U2's stop at Soldier Field.

"When you're doing shows this big, you've got to get your hands on it, touch it, feel it, find out more about it before it comes to your stadium," he explains. "So we were in Chicago, and my production team got to be there with them during the load in. We were there for the show to watch and see how everything was running, and I think that when the tour is over, so many of the fans who have been able to go to all the different shows will say that Las Vegas was a big 'wow.' "

If so, it probably will have a lot to do with the size of the venue. Sam Boyd Stadium is appreciably smaller than some of the other coliseums on the tour, with a capacity right around 40,000, meaning the Vegas show will be more in your face than most dates.

"You're going to be right on top of that stage," Libonati says. "The stage comes right to the very edges of our sidelines and that big claw, when you look at those legs as they come down, they will touch down right at the front rows of the seats. We're smaller in nature than what they're used to."

Still, this remains one huge undertaking. Crews began prepping the stadium for the concert immediately after the UNLV football game on Saturday, with steel for the staging being laid down on Sunday and work continuing every day throughout the week.

It's all been a long time coming for Libonati, who says he started making phone calls to get the tour to stop in Vegas more than a year-and-a-half ago.

"We're winding down now, actually getting to work," he says. "You have so many working parts to make this thing successful. We're working through a huge checklist that walks us through who's doing what, why, where, how, when, what time and all the different show calls and personnel."

The tour marks the rare stadium show in Vegas. Aside from Dave Matthews' headlining stint at Vegoose in 2005 and a stop from 'N Sync in 2001, these types of outsized gigs have been a rarity here this decade.

The concert will be U2's third performance at Sam Boyd Stadium, but according to Libonati, even if you've seen the other shows, you won't have seen anything like this one.

"When they see that thing in the stadium, it will look like a spaceship has landed," he says. "It's just so wild looking."

Contact reporter Jason Bracelin at jbracelin@ reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0476.