The On the Run Tour was the first tour to be a part of "Official Events" – the collaboration of Facebook and Live Nation in which the size and scale of Ticketmaster's database is leveraged as events promoted by Live Nation are imported to Artists' Facebook Pages as "Official Events", providing fans with direct links to Ticketmaster to purchase verified tickets.
The show was eventually put on sale to the public on June 4, 2014. Some reports stated that the reason for this was that the state of New Jersey had implemented a legislation resulting in 95% of tickets for an event having to be available to the public. "By April, we had everything together, and once the routing was in place we had about three weeks until the tour was announced." Following the general sale of tour dates, fans were left concerned as the Jshow in East Rutherford, New Jersey remained pending to go on sale for many weeks, despite all other dates already being available to the public. "It came together quite quickly, around mid-March," Omar Al-Joulani of Live Nation North America commented. The tour was "conceived and launched fast compared to most stadium tours" according to Live Nation, who noted that most tours of this nature take more than a year of planning. The tour is set to broadcast in its entirety on September 20, 2014, airing on the US television network HBO, following the scheduled taping of the two concerts in Paris, France, where the tour will conclude. Commercially, the tour was a success, grossing over $100 million in the first 19 North American shows alone, as well as attendance topping 850,000. Due to the large demand and tickets selling out in minutes in multiple locations, extra tour dates were added to the itinerary. Critics generally lauded the tour, praising the extravagant set list, dynamic and detailed theme and story of the show and both artists performance abilities, however some felt the on stage chemistry between the couple was not what it could have been. The tour itself was noted to follow this same theme throughout, with similar video interludes incorporated into the production of the show. The video, filled with multiple celebrity cameos, features the couple in a variety of Bonnie and Clyde style, action and gun packed situations.
To promote the tour, a faux movie trailer video was premiered in May 2014 entitled "Run" (stylized as "RUN"). The official tour poster features Beyoncé and Jay Z wearing black ski masks, a nod to their 2002 first single together, " '03 Bonnie & Clyde" and "Part II (On the Run)", which is the continuation to the former. The tour name is inspired by the duo's 2013 song " Part II (On the Run)", which appears on Jay Z's album Magna Carta Holy Grail. Carter Show World Tour (2013-2014) and the Magna Carter World Tour (2013-2014), respectively.
The tour followed the completion of Beyoncé and Jay Z's solo tours, Mrs. The On the Run Tour is a co-headlining stadium tour by Beyoncé and husband Jay Z.