Femme Fatale Tour

The Femme Fatale Tour was the eighth concert tour by American entertainer Britney Spears. It was launched in support of her seventh studio album, Femme Fatale (2011). It was officially announced in March 2011, initially with dates for North American venues revealed. The tour was originally planned as a co-headlining tour with Enrique Iglesias, but he canceled only hours after the announcement. The show was inspired by the concept of the "femme fatale" and iconic femmes fatales throughout the ages. The setlist was mostly composed of songs from the album Femme Fatale, although Spears also performed hits from her previous albums for her fans. Zaldy Goco designed the costumes. In July 2011, Spears announced her plans of a South American leg on the tour, in territories she either had never been to or had not played for over a decade. Spears has named the Femme Fatale Tour as the "best" show of her career.

The tour, divided in five segments, portrays a story in which Spears is a secret agent, who is chased by a stalker named Tormento Lancie (played by Rudolf Martin). The first section features her escaping from prison, along with other female inmates. The second segment displays upbeat dance numbers, and ends with a performance inspired by Marilyn Monroe. The third section features an Egyptian theme, with fireworks and acrobatics. The fourth segment displays energetic routines and motorcycle costumes. The encore begins with a video interlude of Spears capturing the stalker, and is followed by two performances in which she defeats a group of ninjas.

The Femme Fatale Tour received mixed to positive reviews from critics. Some described it as Spears' most entertaining show and praised her performance, while others criticized her dancing and lack of audience interaction. The tour, in total, grossed $6.2 million in the first ten shows, and was included on Pollstar’s Top 100 North American Tours list.

An unofficial, high-quality recording of the Las Vegas show was leaked onto YouTube in July 2011; it was removed after the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) threatened legal action against the site, in order to obtain information on the uploader. 3ality Digital filmed a special of the tour during the Toronto shows, in August 2011, in 2-D and 3-D. The special, titled Britney Spears Live: The Femme Fatale Tour, aired on Epix in the United States. BBC Worldwide acquired the rights to both the 2-D and 3-D versions outside the United States.

According to Pollstar, the 39 dates in North America grossed $38.3 million, with 423,017 tickets sold. Internationally, the tour was the eleventh highest-grossing tour of 2011, with a gross of $68.7 million. 697,957 tickets were sold worldwide, with an average attendance of 8,724 (some venues were considerably larger), paying an average of $98.43.

In an interview on Ryan Seacrest's radio show on March 4, 2011, Spears stated she would tour the United States in the "early summer" in support of Femme Fatale. On March 29, 2011, following her performances on Good Morning America, she announced a co-headlining tour with Enrique Iglesias, starting in June 2011. Hours after the announcement, it was reported by Billboard that Iglesias had pulled out of the tour. Ray Wedell of Billboard speculated that the reason may have been that Spears was deemed by news outlets as the headliner, while Iglesias was considered the opening act. The first twenty-six North American dates were also announced on March 29, 2011. The opening acts were announced on April 12, 2011. Spears stated, "This is the Femme Fatale tour and I'm thrilled to have Nicki Minaj, Jessie and the Toy Boys, and Nervo join me and get everyone on the dance floor. Can't wait to take the Femme Fatales on the road." Tickets for select markets went on sale on April 30, 2011 via Ticketmaster and tour promoter Live Nation's websites.

In May 2011, it was announced that Spears would headline Summerfest on July 9, 2011, at the Marcus Amphitheater in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. She previously headlined the festival on July 8, 2000, during her Oops!... I Did It Again Tour, and had to cancel her performance during The Onyx Hotel Tour in 2004 due to a knee injury. Summerfest entertainment director Bob Babisch said, "It's going to be a great dance party. [...] This is going to be the biggest production we've ever put in the Marcus Amphitheatre. There's a thrust that goes out on the stage about 80 feet, and it's about 80 feet wide, and there's all kinds of things flying in and out." The European tour dates were announced on her official website on June 5, 2011. On July 25, 2011, Spears announced through her Ustream page at 18:00 EST (23:00 UTC) a South American leg of the tour. Accompanied by two of her dancers — one translating in Spanish and the other in Portuguese — she also apologized for not touring in the region during The Circus Starring Britney Spears in 2009. A notice following the stream announced the first two dates in Brazil and ten more dates to be announced in the near future. This would mark Spears' first concert in Brazil in ten years, since her 2001 performance at Rock in Rio. During the following days, concerts in countries such as Argentina, Chile, Colombia and Perú were also announced. On September 26, 2011, it was announced that Spears would perform on the first day of the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix.

In March 2011, Spears's manager Larry Rudolph told MTV News that the tour would have a "post-apocalyptic vibe", and commented that "Till the World Ends" "keeps becoming a theme for us." He also confirmed Jamie King as the tour director and Brian Friedman as the choreographer. The following month, Friedman announced that he had pulled out of the tour due to scheduling conflicts with his own reality series. In a video interview posted on Spears's official website, she said, "The Femme Fatale Tour will hopefully just be outrageously spectacular. I'm just hoping that the choreographers will come up with just the most outrageous things, and I'm really excited. This is the most excited I've been about a project in a really long time, so I can't wait." The script of the show was created by Jamie King, and was inspired by the concept of the femme fatale and femme fatales throughout the ages. Rudolph stated that the idea for the show was to have Spears as an "international woman of mystery". The setlist was composed mostly of songs from Femme Fatale, but also included her most popular hits from her earlier albums; as Spears explained, "The fans really like a lot of the old songs, because that's what they are used to. So it's just about finding the balance, and how many songs I wanna incorporate from the past and from the present."