The American Idols Live! Tour 2002 was a fall concert tour featuring the top ten contestants of the inaugural season of American Idol, which aired earlier that year. The tour visited 30 cities across the United States starting October 8, 2002 in San Diego,[1] and became the template for concerts tours following each of the succeeding American Idol seasons. Select performances of Clarkson are also released in the Miss Independent DVD album in 2003.
The show, as well as those from all subsequent tours, was organized into two halves. The first half had the Top 10 contestants performing a song each in elimination order, with Kelly Clarkson the winner ending this section. Each performer was introduced by the preceding performer accompanied by a video montage of their time on American Idol, the exception being the first performer EJay Day who was introduced by Randy Jackson on video.[2] Most of the solo performances were of songs the performer had previously done on the television show.
After the intermission, the second half started with the guys and the girls each performing a group song, with the rest of the show consisted of a series of group numbers with medley of songs interspersed with some solo performances, similar in style to the television special "American Idol in Las Vegas" aired after Season 1 finale.[2] The runner-up Justin Guarini and the winner Kelly Clarkson each had their final solo performance before the last group songs by the Top 10 finalists which ended the show.
The response to the tour was well-received, with some dates sold out and most generally did well. A total of 258,526 tickets were sold with a revenue of $8,119,342 as reported by Billboard.[3]
