I Am... (Beyoncé tour)

I Am... Tour (also referred to as the I Am... World Tour) was the fourth concert tour by American singer Beyoncé, in support of her third studio album, I Am... Sasha Fierce (2008), consisting of 110 concerts across six continents. Two months of preparations for the tour began eight months prior to its commencement, with daily twelve-hour rehearsals. The tour was announced in October 2008, and began in March 2009 with five preliminary ’rehearsal’ shows in North America. Beyoncé has described the I Am... World Tour as her best and most theatrical of all of her tours.

The set list for the tour included songs from Beyoncé's previous three studio albums, several covers of songs by other artists, as well as a Destiny's Child medley. The central theme of the tour was to showcase the differences between Beyoncé's dual ‘personas’—her real, ‘Beyoncé's self compared to her confident, sexier stage-persona, ‘Sasha Fierce’—a theme which was also explored on her then-album, the dual record I Am... Sasha Fierce. The show featured two stages – the primary performance stage and a smaller B-stage, which Beyoncé was transferred to during the middle of the show. She was backed by a ten-member, all-female band, The Sugar Mamas (also known as Suga Mama),^[2] female background dancers, and a large LED video screen. Thierry Mugler collaborated with Beyoncé on the costumes and was given a creative-advisor role, further collaborating on choreography, lighting and production. Chris March made the costumes usable and wearable for the stage and helped in their construction. For the ballad performances, Beyoncé wore longer, glamorous dresses; for the performances of up-tempo songs, more make-up was applied and more revealing outfits were worn. The fashion, as well as Beyoncé's looks and overall physique, received notable praise from critics and fans. The show was directed and choreographed by Frank Gatson Jr.

I Am... received critical acclaim from music journalists and fans alike, with many praising Beyoncé's performance skills and calling her the “best” current female performer. A concert in Malaysia, however, was cancelled by Beyoncé herself, after several Muslim groups tried to ban it on the grounds of revealing costumes—despite it being a family-friendly show, and Beyoncé having originally agreed to tone-down her looks, as per the country's standards. Nevertheless, the entire tour was commercially successful, grossing $86.0 million from the first 93 shows in total. Separate and one-off performances of several songs were broadcast on different channels; two concerts were released as live albums, and the live performance at the I Am... Yours revue was released as a CD/DVD recording (2009). Footage of the tour was released on a similarly titled live album (2010).