Nine Inch Nails, an American industrial rock band fronted by Trent Reznor, has toured all over the world since its creation in 1988. While Reznor—the only official member until the addition of Atticus Ross in 2016—controls its creative and musical direction in the studio, the touring band performs different arrangements of the songs. In addition to regular concerts, the band has performed in both supporting and headlining roles at festivals such as Woodstock '94, Lollapalooza 1991 and 2008, and many other one-off performances including the MTV Video Music Awards. Prior to their 2013 tour, the band had played 938 gigs.

Nine Inch Nails' live performances contrast with its in-studio counterpart. Reznor writes and performs nearly all Nine Inch Nails studio material, with occasional instrumental and vocal contributions from other artists. However, Reznor has typically assembled groups of backing musicians to interpret songs for tours and other live performances. Keyboardist Alessandro Cortini said that "if you see the show and you're used to the CDs it's pretty clear that the studio entity is different from the live entity".

The only constant member of the live band is Reznor. Live Nine Inch Nails performances are typically accompanied by lighting, stage, and video projection effects. From 2005–2014, Rob Sheridan assisted Reznor with the visual design components of live shows. Three tours have been chronicled on live albums and tour documentaries.

Critical and commercial response to Nine Inch Nails live performances has generally been positive. Critics have pointed to the concerts' aggressive on-stage dynamic and visual designs as high points. Reznor decided in 2008 to cease touring with the band after a 2009 farewell tour. The band resumed touring in 2013, with the group planning a set of concerts in the U.S. beginning September 28.

I could have just gone out with tape machines or 50 keyboards or whatever and recreated the sound of the record, but I'm much more interested in the challenge of having 4 musicians interpret what was initially composed by one person on a computer ... The record and the shows are quite different.

Reznor assembled the first live line-up in 1988 to support the Canadian industrial music band Skinny Puppy on tour. The three-piece band consisted of Reznor on guitars and lead vocals, Ron Musarra on drums, and Chris Vrenna on keyboards. The band was only scheduled to play for the last six dates of Skinny Puppy's U.S. tour, and they self-described the performances as "rough". After the Skinny Puppy tour, the band was rearranged and expanded to include a fourth member; Musarra departed and Vrenna moved to drums, Gary Talpas, Nick Rushe, and later David Hymes contributed on keyboards, while Richard Patrick was added as guitarist.

Nine Inch Nails toured North America as an opening act for The Jesus and Mary Chain in 1990, and later for Peter Murphy. During these tours, Reznor began to smash equipment while on stage, and Rockbeat interviewer Mike Gitter attributed the band's early success to this aggressive attitude. Later in 1990, the band undertook a nationwide headlining tour that continued through the first Lollapalooza festival in 1991, where, according to biographer Martin Huxley, they "stole the show". New Musical Express had a sentiment after the performance, describing the show as "genuinely frightening", and asking the reader to "decide for yourself if it's choreographed chaos or unbridled grievous bodily harm". Nine Inch Nails was then invited to open for Guns N' Roses on their European Tour, though they were reportedly poorly received. Before the Lollapalooza date, Chris Vrenna left the band due to a falling out with Reznor, and was replaced for the remainder of the tour by drummer Jeff Ward. Vrenna would rejoin the band for the Self-Destruct tour in 1994. At the conclusion of the Pretty Hate Machine tour, Richard Patrick left the group to form his own band, Filter.

After the 1994 release of The Downward Spiral, the live band embarked on the Self-Destruct tour in support of the album. Chris Vrenna and James Woolley performed drums and keyboards respectively, Robin Finck replaced Richard Patrick on guitar and bassist Danny Lohner was added to the line-up. The stage set-up consisted of dirty curtains which would be pulled down for visuals shown during songs such as "Hurt". The back of the stage was littered with darker and standing lights, along with very little actual ones. The tour debuted the band's grungy and messy image in which they would come out in ragged clothes slathered in corn starch. The concerts were violent and chaotic, with band members often injuring themselves. They would frequently destroy their instruments at the end of concerts, attack each other, and stage-dive into the crowd.