10:09pm UK, Tuesday April 12, 2011

Technology firms are not doing enough to help the music industry, the manager of U2 has told Sky News, hours after his band smashed a concert tour world record.

Speaking on Jeff Randall Live, Paul McGuinness said that while record sales had not disappeared, there had been little progress in making money from online music sources.

“I really wish those geniuses who bring us Google, Facebook, Amazon and Spotify would get their act together,” he said.

“It’s not the downloading that’s the problem. It’s a bit of ingenuity and generosity that’s required from the people who are making money from the internet.”

Mr McGuinness was speaking after learning that U2′s 360 tour, which began in Barcelona in June 2009, has now become the highest grossing of all time.

U2 had no problem filling huge arenas such as that in Cape Town

A sell-out show at Morumbi Stadium in Sao Paulo on Sunday night helped the band take the record held by the Rolling Stones’ Bigger Bang tour, which took over £340m in ticket sales between 2005 and 2007.

U2 still have 26 more gigs left to play before their final show in Canada on July 30, and the total ticket sales for the 360 tour are due to be over £430m.

“It’s about having something people all over the world want to see,” Mr McGuinness said.

“It’s a satisfying record to set, but the record that goes alongside is even more significant – the number of people we’re playing to.

“By the end of the tour we’ll have played to seven million people in Europe, North America, South America, South Africa and Australia.”

The U2 manager said the format of the tour, which has a 360-degree stage, plus a high proportion of tickets priced as low as £18, had helped fill stadiums to capacity.

While the figures look staggering, Guardian correspondent Alexandra Topping cautioned that the expense of producing the ambitious shows had to be taken into account.

“It doesn’t come cheap – we’re hearing huge sums for how much this tour is making, but it costs $100m just to put that act on. It’s not all profit,” she said.

http://news.sky.com