The Dream Within a Dream Tour (also referred to as the Britney Tour) was the fourth concert tour by American entertainer Britney Spears. It was launched in support of her third studio album, Britney (2001). The tour was promoted by Concerts West, marking the first time Spears did not tour with Clear Channel Entertainment. On September 21, 2001, a North American tour was announced that kicked off in November after various dates were postponed. In February 2002, Spears announced a second leg of the tour. It was directed and choreographed by Wade Robson, who explained the main theme of the show was Spears's coming of age and newfound independence. The stage was designed by Steve Cohen and Rob Brenner and was composed of a main stage and a B-stage, united by a runway. Inspired by Cleopatra's barge, a flying device was developed so Spears could travel over the audience to the B-stage. The setlist was mostly composed by songs from the supporting album, as Spears felt they were more reflective of her personality. Songs from her previous two studio albums were also included in remixed form by Robson.

The show was divided into seven segments with the last one being the encore. Spears opened the show hanging from a gyrating wheel; it continued with Spears performing a medley of older hits, jumping in bungee cords from the flying device onto the stage and dancing in a jungle setting. Most of the performances were accompanied by extravagant special effects, including confetti, pyrotechnics, laser lights, and artificial fog and snow. In the encore, there was a water screen that pumped two tons of water into the stage; this was considered one of the signature performances of the tour. During the 2002 leg, some changes were made; several songs were remixed, and Spears premiered various unreleased songs which included "Mystic Man". The show received acclaim from critics, who praised the show for being innovative and entertaining, while some dismissed it for taking the attention away from the music.

According to Billboard, the 2001–02 dates in North America had an average of $803,683 in gross and 14,344 in attendance. Pollstar stated that the tour had a total gross of $53.3 million and 946,169 tickets sold in 66 of 69 shows. On April 25, 2002, Spears performed at a Japanese sold-out show at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo for 62,011 fans, grossing $2,921,302. On July 27, 2002, Spears performed for 51,261 fans at Foro Sol stadium in Mexico City. The show grossed $2,251,379 and was the 37th on Pollstars Top 200 Concert Grosses in North America. During the second show in Mexico, Spears left the stage after the sixth song due to a lightning storm; the show was canceled and angered the audience. The tour was broadcast live on an HBO special on November 18, 2001, and went on to win an Emmy for Outstanding Technical Direction on the 2002 ceremony. A DVD titled Britney Spears Live from Las Vegas was released in January 2002. In Spears' 2023 memoir The Woman in Me, she names the Dream Within a Dream Tour as her favorite tour of her entire career.

Background

On July 19, 2001, Spears's band announced there would be a tour to support her third studio album, Britney (2001). The following day, Spears's label Jive Records confirmed that there was a tour planned for the fall. The Dream Within a Dream Tour was promoted by Concerts West, chosen after a much publicized battle with concert promoter Clear Channel Entertainment (CCE), who had handled her previous concert tours. It marked the first time Concerts West outbid CCE, with reports claiming Spears would earn between $13 and $15 million during the tour. Spears's manager Larry Rudolph commented on the situation, saying, "Clear Channel is an incredible company, and I'm sure we'll be doing more business with them. We went with Concerts West because they're a strong touring company and because they have ancillary properties, in that [parent AEG owns] arenas and some 7,000 movie theaters throughout the country. This decision was not made to exclude Clear Channel. It was made to include Concerts West. [AEG] has the ability to help us market our core products—the album and tour—and our secondary properties—the movie— in ways that tipped the scale for us." On September 20, 2001, dates were released along with the track listing of the album. The tour was slated to begin on October 26, 2001, but the opening of the show was pushed back until October 31 after Spears became ill and was prescribed five days of rest. The tour was postponed one more day due to production delays and finally kicked off at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. Before the tour began, Spears announced she planned to give $1 of each ticket to the children of firefighters and police officers killed during the September 11 attacks. She also planned to sell merchandise and auction front row seats, hoping to raise $2 million. On February 26, 2002, more North American dates were released through her official website to kick off in Las Vegas at Mandalay Bay. The second leg of the tour was sponsored by Samsung. In conjunction with entertainment company WFX, they offered a cell-phone service that featured collectible merchandise and a membership card with access to backstage reports directly from Spears. She stated that "[the offering] is an exciting new way for me to stay connected with my fans".

Development

The name of the tour was based on Edgar Allan Poe's poem of the same name. The tour was directed and choreographed by Australian choreographer Wade Robson. He explained the concept of the tour, saying, "The show is gonna be really, really theatrical—it's really complicated. It's a massive show with a lot of new music. It's just gonna be really different. [...] You're gonna learn a lot more about her as a person. The show is gonna be really about how she's becoming a woman, how she's finding herself and her independence. She knows what she wants to do, she knows who she wants to be, and that's what the show's about." The stage was designed by production designer Steven Cohen and production manager Rob Brenner for the HBO special. This was the first time Spears used an entire new stage design after having used a typical end-stage with a ramp and stairs at the center as on her first three concert tours (the ...Baby One More Time Tour, the (You Drive Me) Crazy Tour, and the Oops!... I Did It Again Tour). Cohen designed the main stage with an oval shape so that Spears could perform around the stage and so that it would look good from multiple camera angles. He said that the rest of the stage was created with three main components in mind: a runway, a B-stage, and a flying device over the crowd. The last was developed, as explained by Cohen, "around this Cleopatra's barge concept I got into my head while designing when the movie Cleopatra was playing in the background. It needed to be elegant and stylized but also high tech, because it was going to have to be traveling on conventional motors and transport mechanisms. Plus, it had to have a big enough performance area for her and the dancers." Brenner continued, "I wanted to try to give the kid in the back of the house the same experience as the one in the first 10 rows." The runway uniting the main stage and the B-stage was suggested by one of Spears's managers, Johnny Wright. The entire stage was built by Michael Tait. Cohen said, "We took a more expanded role in preparing the drawings for Michael. We wanted to retain the essence of the look of the show, both in its overall footprint and in the execution of these various pieces. [...] [He] did a great job on executing the fine details like the hand railings and the floor lights and the MR-16 covers. When you're doing something for TV, all of those pieces are foreground pieces. The mirrors on the platforms and the floor painting made the show look better on TV."

The video screens showed both live shoots and special footage directed by Robson. Cohen worked by Danny O'Brien at BCC Video to create double-sided custom video LED cubes that hanged above stage right. There were three larger-sized video screens above the stage area. The gyrating wheel in which Spears opened the show was made by Branam Enterprises and was attached to a platform. 171 white light yag lasers were provided by Spectra. The giant music box from which Spears emerged in "Born to Make You Happy" (1999) was designed by Michael Cotton. Confetti was shot from machines provided by Pyrotek. Pyrotechnics were done by Gerb Fountains, whereas artificial snow was provided by Little Blizzard. During the encore performance of "...Baby One More Time" (1998), there was a water screen in which it was poured nearly two tons of water pumped at 360 gallons a minute. Cohen said, "The water screen is the keystone of the entire design because it impacts every system—electrics, staging, dancing. Rob discovered the company (Chameleon Productions of Orlando, Florida) that makes the screen, and I immediately looked at what they had in stock, which was a straight line. And I knew we didn't want a straight line. We wanted a circular water screen so we could physically build a shower for her to stand in the middle of and not get wet and then walk through when she wanted to. Of course, everyone thought I was crazy, so I suggested a six-sided shape. Everyone was concerned that the gaps between the sections might cause gaps in the actual sheets of water. But I kept saying that if you put them 40' to 50' up in the air, gravity will cause the water to attach to itself, so you end up getting a solid sheet."

The lighting was designed by Cohen and his partner in Steve Cohen Productions, Joel Young, who served as the tour's lighting director. Cohen continued saying, "All of our shows [are] heavily color-based—everything is rich in color. There is a lot of layering that is not confusing so the purity comes through". Young programmed the show on a Flying Pig Systems Wholehog II console, which he ran while simultaneously calling the 13 followspots for each show. There were eight truss spots and five house spots: four Lycian 2.5 kW instruments on the back, four Robert Juliats on the front truss, four FOH spots and one in the back." Steve Cohen Productions also served as the tour's lighting vendor and sublet the gear they required from Westsun and Fourth Phase/LSD. Syncrolite provided its own 3k lights. Apart from the Syncrolites, the rest of the lighting was a combination of Coemar and High End Systems automated fixtures and conventional luminaries. There were a total of 215 active lights.

A week before the tour began, Spears said of the show: "I come from Broadway, so I want it to be very theatrical. The whole process for me is magical. Hopefully it will be something people have never even imagined or envisioned in their head. I was going through a run-through yesterday and was thinking, 'By the time I'm 30, there's not going to be anything left for me to do'". Initial rehearsals for the band started on September 9, 2001. She joined them later after rehearsing the choreography in Los Angeles. The setlist was composed mostly by songs from Britney. She explained her decision in a press conference, saying, "I just want my fans to see me in a different light than they have ever seen me [in] before. This music I am singing right now is such a reflection of me and who I am. Hopefully [the fans] will come to the show and be inspired and have a lot of fun." Several songs from her previous albums ...Baby One More Time and Oops!... I Did It Again were remixed by Robson to "take [them] in a new direction – flip [them] up a bit".

Concert synopsis