The concerts featured more elaborate special effects than the previous tour, including two custom designed airships. The arch-shaped stage was designed by Marc Brickman and Mark Fisher with lighting by Marc Brickman. Three stages leapfrogged around North America and Europe, each long and featuring a arch modelled on the Hollywood Bowl. All in all, the tour required 700 tons of steel carried by 53 articulated trucks, a crew of 161 people and an initial investment of US$4 million plus US$25 million of running costs just to stage. This tour played to 5.5 million people in 68 cities; each concert gathered an average 45,000 audience. At the end of the year, the Division Bell Tour was announced as the biggest tour ever, with worldwide gross of over £150 million (about US$250 million). In the U.S. alone, it grossed US$103.5 million from 59 concerts. However, this record was short-lived; less than a year later, The Rolling Stones' Voodoo Lounge Tour (like the Division Bell Tour, also sponsored in part by Volkswagen) finished with a worldwide gross of over US$300 million. The Stones and U2 (with their Vertigo Tour) remain the only acts ever to achieve a higher worldwide gross from a tour, even when adjusting for inflation.