The tour was announced in a press conference held beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City. The tour began on 9 September 1997 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and comprised fifty-six shows in North America, nine shows in South America, six shows in Japan and thirty-seven shows in Europe. It concluded on 19 September 1998 in Istanbul, Turkey. Five shows were cancelled and five were postponed. The production was designed by Mark Fisher, Charlie Watts, Mick Jagger and Patrick Woodroffe. The show opened with a circular central screen exploding with fireworks, from which guitarist Keith Richards emerged playing the classic riff to " Satisfaction". The stage design included a 46 m long telescoping cantilever bridge that extended from the main stage to a 'B' stage in the center of the field. One of the innovations was a "web vote" – fans who purchased a ticket could vote for a song they wanted to hear. If a song was picked by the web vote 4 shows in a row it became a permanent part of the set list. A few shows had no web vote. This was the first tour where a B-stage was featured at most shows. The band normally played three numbers on the B-stage, with the exception of the final show where only two were played there. The Bridges to Babylon Tour was the second-highest-grossing tour at the time, behind their own record-breaking 1994–1995 Voodoo Lounge Tour. It was believed 4.577 million people attended the tour over the 108 shows – 2.02 million in Europe, 2.009 million in North America, 348,000 in Argentina and Brazil, and 200,000 in Japan. The tour reached 25 countries and is the second–largest North American tour of all time – second to the Rolling Stones' 2005–2007 A Bigger Bang Tour. The tour is documented by the live albumNo Security and a DVD release of the St. Louis, Missouri show. In 1999 the band commenced another tour called the No Security Tour, which played smaller venues and fewer destinations. Among the opening acts was, in October 1997, Sheryl Crow. "They invited me to go on their private plane…" she recalled. "Three weeks before I went on the tour, my band and I watched the Stones film Cocksucker Blues. It's a riot – it's complete debauchery and there are several scenes where they're practically having orgies on their private 747 back in the early '70s. So I got on their plane and I thought, 'Wow, what a difference! We definitely have changed our tune here, haven't we?'" "Bridges to Bremen", a double CD / Blu-ray / DVD live album, was released in June 2019. "Bridges to Buenos Aires", a double CD / Blu-ray / DVD live album, will be released in November 2019.
