Britney Spears performs her first Dream Within a Dream Tour in concert at the Nationwide Arena in Columbus Ohio November 1, 2001. The Dream Within a Dream Tour was the third concert tour by Spears, in support of her third studio album, Britney. The performances were accompanied by many extravagant special effects – during the encore, there was a water screen that pumped two tons of water into the stage.

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Britney Jean Spears is an American singer, dancer, and actress. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, she performed acting roles in stage productions and television shows as a child, before signing with Jive Records in 1997. Spears’s first two studio albums, …Baby One More Time (1999) and Oops!… I Did It Again(2000), were global successes and made her the best-selling teenage artist of all time. Referred to as the “Princess of Pop“, Spears was credited with influencing the revival of teen pop, during the late 1990s and the early 2000s.

Spears adopted more mature and provocative themes for her next two studio albums, Britney (2001) and In the Zone (2003). She also ventured into acting with her starring role in the 2002 film Crossroads. However, her much-publicized personal issues sent her career into hiatus. Despite being released while her personal struggles were ongoing, Blackout(2007), is often critically referred to as her best work. Her unusual behavior and hospitalizations placed her under a still ongoing conservatorship.

Spears returned to the top of record charts with her sixth and seventh albums, Circus(2008) and Femme Fatale (2011). In 2012, Forbes reported that Spears was the highest paid female musician of the year, with earnings of $58 million, having last topped the list in 2002. During the promotion of her eighth and ninth studio albums, Britney Jean (2013) and Glory (2016), Spears embarked on the four-year concert residency, Britney: Piece of Me, at Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino in Las Vegas.

Five of Spears’ singles have reached number one in the United States: “…Baby One More Time“, “Womanizer“, “3“, “Hold It Against Me” and “S&M“. Other singles, “Oops!… I Did It Again” and “Toxic“, topped the Australian and Canadian charts. Spears has earned numerous awards and accolades, including a Grammy Award, six MTV Video Music Awards, including the Video Vanguard Award, seven BillboardMusic Awards, including the Millennium Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Billboard ranked her as the eighth biggest artist of the 2000s decade. One of the world’s best-selling music artists, Spears has sold over 100 million records worldwide. In the United States, Spears remains the fourth best-selling female album artist of the Nielsen SoundScan era, as well as the best-selling female albums artist of the 2000s. In 2004, she launched a perfume brand with Elizabeth Arden, Inc., from which sales exceeded US$1.5 billion as of 2012.

The Dream Within a Dream Tour was the fourth concert tour by American recording artist Britney Spears. It was launched in support of her third studio album, Britney (2001). The tour was promoted by Concerts West, marking the first time Spears did not tour with Clear Channel Entertainment. On September 21, 2001, a North American tour was announced that kicked off exactly two months later after various dates were postponed. In February 2002, Spears announced a second leg of the tour. It was directed and choreographed by Wade Robson, who explained the main theme of the show was Spears’s coming of age and newfound independence. The stage was designed by Steve Cohen and Rob Brenner and was composed of a main stage and a B-stage, united by a runway. Inspired by Cleopatra‘s barge, a flying device was developed so Spears could travel over the audience to the B-stage. The setlist was mostly composed by songs from the supporting album, as Spears felt they were more reflective of her personality. Songs from her previous two studio albums were also included in remixed form by Robson.

The show was divided into seven segments with the last one being the encore. Spears opened the show hanging from a gyrating wheel; it continued with Spears performing a medley of older hits, jumping in bungee cords from the flying device onto the stage and dancing in a jungle setting. Most of the performances were accompanied by extravagant special effects, including confetti, pyrotechnics, laser lights, and artificial fog and snow. In the encore, there was a water screen that pumped two tons of water into the stage; this was considered one of the signature performances of the tour. During the 2002 leg, some changes were made; several songs were remixed, and Spears premiered various unreleased songs which included “Mystic Man”. The show received mixed reviews by critics, who praised the show for being innovative but dismissed it for taking the attention away from the music.

According to Billboard, the 2001–02 dates in North America had an average of $803,683 in gross and 14,344 in attendance, bringing a total gross of $53,846,761 and 961,048 tickets sold in 66 shows, not including the Japanese sold out show at Tokyo Dome in Tokyo for 60,000 fans. Overall, the Dream Within a Dream Tour grossed $56.8 million and sold more than 1 million of tickets in 68 shows. On July 27, 2002, Spears performed for 51,261 fans at Foro Sol stadium in Mexico City. The show grossed $2,251,379 and was the 37th on Pollstars Top 200 Concert Grosses in North America. During the second show in Mexico, Spears left the stage after the sixth song due to a lightning storm; the show was canceled and angered the audience. The tour was broadcast live on an HBO special on November 18, 2001, and went on to win an Emmy for Outstanding Technical Direction on the 2002 ceremony. A DVD titled Live from Las Vegas was released in January 2002.