the point of doing a show unless you offer something that is going to mind-boggle the senses. It's not enough to get on stage and sing a song. It's all about theatre and drama and surprises and suspenses". The Drowned World Tour officially began at Barcelona's Palau Sant Jordi on June 9, 2001, and ended at the Staples Center in Los Angeles in September; it was originally scheduled to kick off with two shows in Cologne's Kölnarena, but said concerts had to be canceled due to technical difficulties; as a result, 35,000 tickets were refunded. The show on August 3 at New Jersey's Continental Airlines Arena was also cancelled, this time due to illness, reducing the dates from fifty to forty-seven. Development The tour took its name after J. G. Ballard's 1962 novel The Drowned World and Madonna's 1998 single of the same name. Liz Rosenberg stated that it would be her "grandest spectacle to date". In May 2001, AOL, the tour's main sponsor, offered its subscribers advance tickets to the US shows before they went on sale to the general public. Like Madonna's previous tours, Drowned World was divided into different thematic segments: Rock 'n' Roll Punk Girl, Geisha Girl, Cyber Cowgirl, and Spanish Girl/Ghetto Girl; each of these segments represented a phase of Madonna's career. The singer herself said that she envisioned the show as "a theatrical representation of my music [...] I have taken my inspiration from many things — martial arts, flamenco, country, punk, rock and roll, dance, and circus". The set list consisted mainly of songs from Music and Ray of Light; among her pre-1990s singles, only "Holiday" (1983) and "La Isla Bonita" (1987) were included. Entertainment Weekly reported that this was Madonna's choice, as she didn't want to do a "'Solid Gold' hit parade". The tour's production manager Mark Spring said in an interview for The Independent that it was the "most complicated thing" he had ever done. He further elaborated: "The [Madonna] mystique figures very highly, so you have a whole other level of professionalism you have to attain. [It's] not that you wouldn't do your best, of course. But this is Madonna. Her show is perfect. There are no mistakes". Two Boeing 747 aircraft were needed to ferry the tour from Europe to the United States, and 300 cargo vehicles were used for transporting over 100 tons of equipment. The stage was