The 2019 tour visited Oceania and Asia in November and December, marking the band's first ever concerts in South Korea, Singapore, the Philippines, and India.

The band played the whole Joshua Tree album during the concerts, which included their first live performances of the song "Red Hill Mining Town".

U2 originally wanted to play a set of one-off shows in the US and Europe to commemorate the 30th anniversary of The Joshua Tree, but ultimately decided to stage a full concert tour instead.

The band cited world events, such as the 2016 US presidential election, for what they perceived to be renewed resonance of the album's subject matter and a reason to revisit it.

[2][3] Initially, the band were interested in marking the 30th anniversary of their 1987 album, The Joshua Tree, with one show in the United States and Europe each, but they eventually decided to expand it into a full tour.

[4] Guitarist the Edge cited the 2016 US presidential election and other world events for what he judged to be renewed resonance of The Joshua Tree's subject matter.

'"[1] Longtime U2 set designer Willie Williams said that there was a misconception that "because of the nature of the show, the staging could be very simple, which meant it would be achievable with a reduced lead time".

[5] Williams said, "After talking over many possible approaches, we looked at the original Joshua Tree stadium stage and then allowed its bold, simple aesthetic to guide the design.

[2][7][8] Only at the largest North American stadiums was video reinforcement used, behind the front of house sound mixing station, but it was visible to only half the audience.

[8] While reviewing design proposals in one of the band's creative meetings with Stufish and Williams in December, Bono drew an outline of a Joshua tree breaking through the top of the video screen.

To see their ideas through to fruition, the band and the creative team traveled to Lititz, Pennsylvania, the site of the corporate campus of Tait Towers, the architectural engineering company behind many music tours.

The duo used Arri Rental's Alexa 65 camera, since it captured resolutions higher than 6K but was easy enough to operate that it did not interfere in the creative process.

The duo shot in a special 4.5:1 wide aspect ratio, filming mostly single takes of limited action that could play during concerts for 5–6 minutes.

After tickets for the tour sold out quickly, second shows were added in London, Rome, Paris, Amsterdam, East Rutherford, Pasadena, and Chicago.

[34] In a joint statement, U2 and Live Nation said, "We have been informed by the St. Louis Police Department that they are not in a position to provide the standard protection for our audience as would be expected for an event of this size.

[44] Billboard said that securing a U2 concert in India was a signifier of the country's growing appeal as a touring destination for high-profile Western acts.

Arthur Fogel of Live Nation said that one of the factors in finally bringing U2 to India was that they were already "going to Southeast Asia, and there was the ability to add on a week at the end to accommodate Mumbai".

Each one comprised eight smaller tiles, each of which was covered by a black "shader", which Lipson described as a "louvered plastic piece" that shielded the LED panel from sunlight to help with contrast.

[8] For the 2019 shows, the crew opted instead to render the tree silhouette through video, as it would not have been cost effective to reinstall the painted shaders on rented equipment for a shorter tour halfway across the world.

A combination of several products, it connected cameras and LED wall processors via optical fibre cable, a necessity due to the large amount of data transferred and the long distance over which it needed to travel.

[59] Selected works included: "The Border: A Double Sonnet" by Alberto Ríos;[60] "Kaddish for Leonard Cohen" and "Ain't You Scared of the Sacred" by George Elliott Clarke;[61] "I Hear America Singing" by Walt Whitman; "Ghazal for White Hen Pantry" by Jamila Woods;[62] "One Today" by Richard Blanco;[63] "Filipineza" by Bino Realuyo;[59] and works by Pedro Pietri, Lucille Clifton,[64] and Langston Hughes.

"[4] Williams described this part of the show as "U2 opening for U2", much like how they performed at music festivals with a lower billing earlier in their career.

[11] The album's opening song "Where the Streets Have No Name" was accompanied by a slow tracking shot of a desert highway featuring migrants walking.

[3] For "Bullet the Blue Sky", the visuals showed men and women of various ages and ethnicities putting on army helmets while standing in front of a shed painted with the American flag.

[71] During the song's performance, Bono shone a handheld spotlight on the Edge, evoking the cover image of the band's 1988 album, Rattle and Hum.

[71] "Trip Through Your Wires" was accompanied by visuals of the Edge's wife, choreographer Morleigh Steinberg, dressed as a cowgirl while an American flag was painted on a wooden shack.

Speaking about the inspiration behind the idea, Williams said, "The thought was that we are currently living in a time when we could really use a more feminine spirit in our leadership and a way to illustrate this might be to celebrate some of the great female pioneers of the past.

[4] The song was accompanied by footage of the camp's bleak conditions,[76] while audience members passed a large sheet of fabric printed with Omaima's passport photo around the venue.

[79] The third verse of "New Year's Day" was dropped from the Adelaide show onwards, with the song ending after the final chorus similar to previous tours.

The encore would open with the Influx Remix of "Elevation" playing over the PA, whilst also using the same video that the band used walking out of the "barricage" on the Experience + Innocence Tour.